Wally took driver's training in school, but they do not show it correct?

Is driver's training still available in school or do you have to pay for it yourself?

They show Wally taking driver training with that annoying girl, Shirley, in the back seat, taunting him. He finally nails her when they're getting out of the car.

Later they made up, since he dated her in another episode.

I'll leave the the second question to another poster

Oh thats right. She was all good during training but dropped the ball during her testing. I don't remember the dating.

I think she was his date when he borrowed Ward's car and gave Lumpy's car a shove, wrecking Ward's headlight off camera.

Is driver's training still available in school or do you have to pay for it yourself?

When I took "Driver's Ed" way back in the very early '80s, it was an option over the summer at my high school for which you paid. I seem to recall my dad paying around $130, maybe less. There were 2 boy and 2 girl students in the car, one driving while 3 sat in the back seat.

I got up some pretty good speed on the highway when my instructor was dozing off in the front seat...

One of the girls I knew well from grade school. The other girl sort of excited me, as we sat packed in pretty closely. Around that time, I'd learned to have a book or notebook handy, as there was a chance I'd need to cover the beginnings of "something suddenly came up.":lol: I was extremely inexperienced around girls, as my parents wouldn't let me go when my HS friends offered to pick me up for a visit to the mall.

I took drivers ed in 1972 at Ringer's Auto School Saugus MA because I didn't want to wait until 11th grade offered it. It was classes and then we learned to drive using the GIMMICK Promo car - get this - a 1970 Plymouth Roadrunner "SUPERBIRD" that were considered lame and poor selling - it was red with the rear huge wing with 440 4 barrel automatic with bucket seats - after I learned on that my 1st car was a 69 GTO Judge Ram Air lll with a 4 speed - Ya life was good - VERY GOOD

Good stories here! I also took driver's ed in high school in 1981. But nothing exciting. Had '81 Olds Cutlass Supremes. Though in those cars the parking brake and hood releases were very close to each other on the lower left side of the dash and when it was my turn to take the wheel, I accidentally pulled the hood release instead of the brake release. Needless to say, I was embarrassed with a car full of kids and the instructor.

I thought Wally was beyond naive the way he was jamming the accelerating pedal without starting the car. They lost me there.

I also thought the scenes in which Ward and June worried endlessly about Wally driving was plain silly. I guess W & J would be thrilled with today's generation of kiddos who have little interest in driving. They prefer to be driven everywhere while glued to their phones.

If indeed Wally NEVER drove a car before then the instructor was an IDIOT !

You just don't put a student in the drivers seat and say Figure It Out, they were lucky Wally didn't just CRASH in the 1st moments - The instructor was not even instructing ...

Need I say more how lame the instructor was ?

His main contribution was, don't pay attention to Shirley.

Yeah, right, he's a teenage boy.

Shirley was a cutie, Wally should have took a cruise to Make Out Point !

Not quite, but he dated her in a later episode. The one where he wrecked Ward's headlight.

Not quite, but he dated her in a later episode. The one where he wrecked Ward's headlight.

Just wondering: Was that the same Shirley from the driver's ed episode, or just the same actress playing a different girl?

just the same actress playing a different girl?

Totally hate it when they do that.

I'm almost sure it was actually the same actress.

I hate it when they go the other way and take the actress Veronica Cartwright, who had played Violet Rutherford, and give her a new name in season 6, Peggy McIntosh--the girl Beaver wants to ditch as a dance date, in favor of the girl from the South.

Why not just let her continue to be Violet Rutherford?

The other girl they they did that with in season 6 was the newspaper girl, unnamed, and in the later episode where Beaver gave her a locket. In that episode she was Donna Yeager, played by Chrystie Jordan--who also played the newspaper girl. They were almost certainly meant to be different characters.

As long as I was in Wikipedia, the girl for both episodes, Wally's License and Wally's Car Accident, was Shirley Fletcher, played by Beverly Lunsford.

I'm almost sure it was actually the same actress.

I hate it when they go the other way and take the actress Veronica Cartwright, who had played Violet Rutherford, and give her a new name in season 6, Peggy McIntosh--the girl Beaver wants to ditch as a dance date, in favor of the girl from the South.

Why not just let her continue to be Violet Rutherford?

Wow! I should have picked up on that but I never did until you mentioned it. It could be that, at that age group, her being just two years older made her look juuust different enough so as not to notice if she was the same actress unless I was specifically trying seek out if she was.

Or maybe related to WHO (?) owned the rights to the character Violet vs Peggy ?

The Violet character had a few oddities. Not only did Veronica play two different characters, two different child actresses played Violet. I think I noticed on yesterday's MeTV episode the original Violet (who gave Beaver the black eye) was played by Wendy Winkelman.

Only the male Rutherfords had the same actors throughout the series. Fred's wife Geraldine was played by Helen Parrish (who died in 1959 at age 35), and later, with a name change to Gwen, she was played by Majel Barrett (season 3) and Margaret Stewart (season 6).

On the subject of Driver's Ed, I was in high school in the late 80s, they were still offering it in school, but I ended up taking it at the Sears Driving School. It was at night after school so I learned how to drive in the dark. A classmate of mine was also there. Don't remember any cute girls though.

When my daughter was of the age several years ago she took her driver's ed through the local community college, but I had started teaching her to drive when she was about 13 on the dirt roads near our property (Shhhhh!;)), so when she started driver's ed she was a fairly competent and confident driver.