Have you notice many of beaver's friends have much older siblings. Larry mentions he has a sister and a brother. The brother is married and I believe has a child. Larry is about age 11 in the episodes. His sister has to be a least 16. She drives in the episode where Larry runs away to the Cleavers. His brother seems to be in his early 20's. Unless he married young. Today I heard Whitey has a older brother with two children.. He must be in his twenties also. I tend to think Eddie was only child. Oh Clarence has a young sister Violet. She kissed beaver. I do believe Richard had a much older brother too. Only Violet was seen on a few occasions. Mrs Mondello did look older than June so her kids would be older. Maybe Larry was born late. Few of the friends had closely spaced siblings. Big age gap for Whitey, Richard and Larry.

I'm guessing that the writers wanted the relationship between Wally & Beaver to be one of the main highlights of the show. If any of their friends had siblings as close in age, their relationships with them would take some of the focus away from the Cleaver boys. Plus there would be less characters for the writers to have to develop.

have you ever noticed that most of the supporting characters who had older brothers and sisters, were never seen.

Larry's sister and brother never seen
Whitey's brother never seen
Richard's sister (who gave him the willies) never seen
Gilbert's sister and brother never seen


the only brother and sister teams that I can think of off hand was Lumpy and Violet
and Penny and her older brother, from the Ivanhoe episode.

:schmack: