I know it's a sitcom, but honestly how many times did Larry get Beaver in trouble? Was Beaver really that stupid? Why did he keep Larry as a friend?

I watched the baseball episode the other day where Larry "talked" Beaver into using Wards signed baseball to play catch. Come on! If my dad had something like that, I wouldn't have thought of touching it. Then Ward was all cool and calm? There would have been yelling at my house.

Why was Larry allowed to be Beavers friend?

True, true. Gilbert was just as bad or worse--and Beaver was older by then, and just as naive.

Yes it's a sitcom and that's precisely the point, if Beaver had actually learned from his mishaps/mistakes and stopped getting into predicaments then there would be no script for the next weeks show. Some episodes focused on Wally but the Beaver episodes usually had him getting into a jam of some sort with Wally or one of Beaver's pals, whether it was Larry, Gilbert, Richard, or whoever, then everything turned out alright at the end. That's what the main premise of the show was about for the duration of the six season run. The formula worked well so no reason to change it.

I remember when they went into Larrys sisters room and were looking at her diearee...

When his mom came in,the look on her face was funny :D

Early episodes Beaver the gullible dope easily duped by friends to get in trouble worked well. The theme didn't work as well as he got older and he looked brain-dead and not cute any longer.

I like the later seasons just as much if not more than the earlier seasons.

Then in the 1980's there was that Still The Beaver TV series with Beaver and Wally as adults. I didn't really like this show, it was 1980's junk and didn't nearly have the same charm like the original series had. Also, Hugh Beaumont had passed away and not having him in that series didn't help matters any.

I watched the baseball episode the other day where Larry "talked" Beaver into using Wards signed baseball to play catch. Come on! If my dad had something like that, I wouldn't have thought of touching it. Then Ward was all cool and calm? There would have been yelling at my house.

My dad, mom, and uncle rarely if ever gave me a pass when I made mistakes, so I can relate to the yelling.

In fact, there were only 2 types of things my mom would say to me growing up: one was what I did wrong / failed to do, and the other was trying to force me to eat foods I had no interest in (as with Beaver and his Brussels sprouts).

Early episodes Beaver the gullible dope easily duped by friends to get in trouble worked well. The theme didn't work as well as he got older and he looked brain-dead and not cute any longer.

Brain dead is right.

Yeah, way too many episodes with the same theme.*

OTOH Wally kept Eddie around (which made the show what it was in the last 3 seasons), when it was obvious Wally was being used.

[*I honestly thought I had seen every Beaver ep until recently on MeTV there was “Beaver Makes a Loan.” This was a quite unique episode—the whole recycled plot turned over on its head, where Beaver seemed to get even with every single time Larry duped him.]

And BTW in the 21st century, that baseball would be absolutely untouchable.

cd