In the beginning of the show, Wally and Eddie were best friends. By the end of the series, Wally, Eddie and Lumpy always hung out together. Do you think the three became best friends with each other or did it seem like Wally and Eddie were still best friends and Lumpy was just a good friend? Its difficult for me to judge because even when it was just Wally and Eddie, Wally didn't like Eddie too much.;)

I've always wondered about the Cleaver friendships. First of all, as i said in a previous thread, June didn't even have a friend, not one. And Ward, Wally and Beav all seem to thrive on these dysfunctional characters like Eddie, Fred and Larry. Gilbert was actually way too healthy for a friend as he was smart, goodlooking and self sufficient. The Cleavers seemed to thrive on the superiority they had with their friends and seemed to kind of enjoy a certain amount of head shaking over the friends' antics. There seemed to be a kind of parental element in these relationships that is probably not a good idea either. The whole thing was played for comedy, the doofus friend, but I think it was also meant to point out how "normal" the Cleavers were.

Excellent analyses from the both of you!! I, too, always felt that both Wally and Beaver's friends and their friends' parents were always somewhat dysfunctional; it was as if the writers were using both boys and their parents as sort of "models" or paragons for good behavior. Both Eddie's two fathers, George and Frank (lol), Lumpy's father, as well as Larry's mother, Gilbert's parent then parents (lol), and Whitey and Richard's parents all seemed to be "less qualified," for lack of a better term, than the Cleavers at this job.

Regarding their friendships, as we all know, Eddie was Wally's friend throughout the series, but Lumpy was initially a bully in the episode, "Lumpy's Watch," and it really wasn't until season five that Lumpy had a more prominent role as Wally and Eddie's chum.