Just finished an extremely strong season 4. I rated 19 10/10 episodes. Suprised me how many 10s without Larry.

"Wally Goes Steady" is memorable because of Ryan O'Neal appearing. Quite a daring episode for LITB. A rare LITB taste of real life problems. Wally being sized up for marriage material by Evelyn. 2 couples are odd pairings. Ryan O'Neal 20 years old in real life. His wife Judy (Gloria Gilbert) was only 15 in 1961. Evelyn (Mary Mitchel) was 21. Her steady Wally (Tony Dow) 16.

Beaver has physically matured quite a bit since last season. He's 13 but acts like he's 6 years old still. Very odd seeing a 13-year-old boy play the cute angle.

Things don't go well at the apartment--Judy and hubby are having disagreements. But as we find out in a later episode, Evelyn still thinks Wally is "the yummiest."

A couple of actors play Bill Boothby during this season, and we find out anecdotally that Beaver's friend Alan is a Boothby. Although Ward does not appear to know him well in Wally Goes Steady, we later find out he works at Ward's company. The name is never mentioned in any other season.

A few musings...

I didn't recognize young Ryan O'Neil off the bat: I saw his name on the ending credits and thought, "holy cow" and then "rewound" and only then noticed and then wondered why I never noticed before.

Wally's slight awkwardness in agreeing with Evelyn's exhortations to Wally about how "darling" her sister and BILs apartment was. "Isn't it darling??!! Wally: ( confused pause ) Oh yeah....it's real darling. I don't really believe Evelyn thought the place was that nice, I think it's more of the fact she was envious of her sister for having her own place.

Ward's normally rock-solid respectful quiet dignity gave way to some uncharacteristic schadenfreude on his part when he said he was more or less glad that the young married couple was having a sort of rough go of it, as it served as a better object lesson to dissuade any notions of Wally getting married too young before he was established, and did so better than any lecture from Ward might do.

I really enjoyed this episode as a kid watching it. Even back then I remember thinking what if? What if Wally comes over to the Hendersons and the place is in dollhouse order, Tom supports himself with extra money to save? Life is perfect for the Hendersons? Then, we need "Wally Goes Steady Pt 2".

Also, the opposite of Mr Boothby wanted to unload his daughters, and W & J wanting to hang on to their sons. Ward appeared to despise Mr Boothby. Lots of layers. Really, all 3 Boothby's come off looking badly.

uncharacteristic schadenfreude LOL

Schadenfreude examples
"There is a German psychological term, Schadenfreude, which refers to the embarrassing reaction of relief we feel when something bad happens to someone else instead of to us."