Who did you agree with Ward or June?

Beaver disobeyed him and used his tools. He was party to Larry drilling holes in the garage. Ward disciplines him and Beaver decides to run away. Ward let's him go. June gets very annoyed and thinks Beaver won't come home. When they find he's at Larry's June wants to go and get him. Not Ward. June tells Beaver that Ward ran away once when he was young. Who do you agree with?

At the door, Ward should have said, "Beaver, you may leave and think about what you and Larry did. It's too dark for you to go very far right now, so you must go no further than the garage, at least for tonight. You know, your mother and I love you, and you can come back inside any time you want to." (I forget the details, but I assume Ward had already laid out a punishment).

At the end, Ward was right to realize that he gave Beaver no choice but to leave. All Beaver wanted was a way out of leaving.

I don't think Ward did the right thing here, though he figured Beaver would soon return. He should have known better than to try to outthink a distraught adolescent. What I do like about this episode is that it shows that, despite the show's reputation for "all-knowing" parents, the adults learned lessons as often as the kids.
Also, when I teach the compare/contrast writing mode to my classes, I like showing this episode along with The Munsters ep with a similar start...Herman also sends Eddie out into the cold, hard world, just to teach him a lesson.

LOL The Munsters taught a lesson? When I see Munsters I wonder how anyone could come up with that concept and it was Mosher and Connelly.

Saw the episode today. It appears Ward never did level a punishment for the drilling. So Beaver could have gone upstairs and said:

"Gee, Wally, looks like I'm gettin' away with this one. Dad apologized for letting me run away, an' he and I shook hands, an' that was it."

LOL The Munsters taught a lesson? When I see Munsters I wonder how anyone could come up with that concept and it was Mosher and Connelly.


Yep. And Herman mentions Ward and Leave It To Beaver as inspiring his advice to Eddie.

Sorry Torgo but I could never warm up to Munsters. It wasn't very funny and finding out how uncomfortable Fred was in that regalia was unsettling. What a comedown from early LITB. I was an Addams Family fan though. It was clever and ahead of its time.

I still think that June should have backed Ward in his discipline of Beaver. Beaver once again disobeyed Ward to allow Larry to influence him. Beaver made a mistake and if he wanted to run away go for it. June should not have undermined Ward's decision.

Sorry Torgo but I could never warm up to Munsters. It wasn't very funny and finding out how uncomfortable Fred was in that regalia was unsettling. What a comedown from early LITB. I was an Addams Family fan though. It was clever and ahead of its time.

Agree 100 percent...Addams too (I was a fan the minute Gomez blasted his first train track). I've always thought that must have been a horrible job to get all that makeup and whatever else put on Fred Gwynne.

Love The Munsters, as can be seen by my current avatars which are paintings my daughter did. But I do love The Addams Family more.

The fact that Fred went through all that and still was able to turn in the performance he did just makes me appreciate his talent more.

I did think Yvonne DeCarlo was very convincing as Lily and she was still a beauty even in that over the top makeup. Loved seeing Ken Osmond in a cameo role too.