Should Ward Have Had Mr. Jeff Arrested For Larceny?

[Sgt. Saunders]

One thing that I could never understand was how calm and understanding Ward (and, for that matter, June) was about Mr. Jeff rifling through his wardrobe and then taking Ward’s best suit, shoes, shirt, tie, etc.?

While Ward admonished Beaver for letting a complete stranger into their home (something the apparently worldly-wise Gilbert Bates very correctly urged the Beaver NOT to do), Ward seemed rather blase and even insouciant about Mr. Jeff coming into the Cleavers home, eating some food, bathing in Ward and June’s bathtub and then purloining all of those presumably expensive clothes.

Yet, when the Beaver later accidentally donated a couple of Ward’s suits to Beaver’s school’s charity clothing drive, Ward seemed to be MUCH more upset about that. What gives? Shouldn’t Ward have been downright furious that some bum off the street went through all of his personal clothing and
took off with one of his best suits and accessories?

I mean, if Ward had previously contacted the Mayfield Police Department when some older kid stole the trusting and naive Beaver’s brand new bicycle, doesn’t it stand to reason that the morally-upright Ward Cleaver would also file a formal complaint with the police regarding the clothes stolen from him by a vagabond like Mr. Jeff?

And, wouldn’t June have been very understandably upset and grossed-out that a (smelly and unwashed) stranger had come into her home and bathed in the tub that she and Ward used
everyday? And, don’t get me started on how disgusted
June must have been to discover Mr. Jeff’s undoubtedly filthy clothes (he probably had been wearing for untold weeks) on her bedroom floor, and then having to pick them up and dispose of them. Yuck! (You’d have thought that the usually cool-in-the-clutch Wally would have told the Beaver to get those filthy clothes out of their parents’ room BEFORE they went out to try and find Mr. Jeff walking around Mayfield in their father’s best suit?)

I also think that this episode of LITB provided a highly dubious moral message for young kids across America to consider, specifically, it was apparently okay to go into someone’s home, go through their personal possessions and take whatever
you needed to look more “presentable” in order to secure employment.

Does the fact that Mr. Jeff informed the Cleavers in a letter that he would mail $10.00 each week to repay Ward for his suit and accessories make it “okay”? I don’t think so. By the way, for how long do you think that Mr. Jeff kept sending Ward those ten dollar payments, maybe for only a couple of weeks at most?

Finally, what did Mr. Jeff do, go to Mayfield’s finest men’s clothing store and ask the salesman just how much did Ward’s suit and shoes cost, to give the hobo an idea what exactly he owed to Ward for
the items he had stolen from Ward?

I think that after the silly and embarrassing later season Beaver-in-the-bunny-suit episode, this was LITB’s second-worst episode.

[stevea]

i never really thought about that point before, but, yes, Ward and June were both underwhelmed after they put the pieces of the puzzle together. June, calm and collected when she found the rags, theorized the Beaver wasn't entertaining Noel Coward. Perhaps she had taken a tranquilizer earlier for an unrelated reason; otherwise, she might have normally screamed. Maybe they should have given her a line, "Ward, I will not bathe here until you have this bathroom gutted and redone."

Now, about Beaver--in this final season he actually is acting more mature, most of the time. But this is one of the other times. The writers try to set him up as being inconsiderate and selfish, and along comes a Ward lecture to counter that. So, this is supposed to set him up for his lapse, in letting Mr. Jeff bathe, or even letting him in the house. But, normal-troublemaker Gilbert attempts to set him straight, to no avail. (If you watch on MeTV, Gilbert disappears without explanation due to a bad MeTV edit.)

So, yes, Ward is also too calm and collected. We needed to see him impose a punishment on Beaver. "You're too old for showing this foolish behavior. You're to come straight home after school for the next week, and stay in your room." Etc.

[stevea]

Oh, and about Beaver the bunny--the episode was two seasons too late. It would have been OK in season 3.

The writers seemed to know it was out of place, by giving Wally an early line pointing that out.

Some clever and funny lines from Clarence helped to raise the episode's rating by a couple of tenths of a point..

[Sgt. Saunders]

stevea,

Your point about June’s puzzlingly calm and subdued reaction to Beaver’s kind, but extremely foolish act was very well taken. As you suggest, maybe June had had taken a Xanax or a
Remeron before learning of Beaver’s latest misadventure? And after having endured six seasons-worth of the Beaver’s many faux pas, could you blame June for downing one or two of “mother’s little helpers” to help her get through the day?

And, I agree with you that June would have probably demanded that Ward gut and completely redo the bathroom tub after Mr. Jeff had bathed his noxious body in that bathtub. Yuck!

Maybe June would have been so incensed by Beaver’s foolish and dangerous action, that she’d tell Ward to pay for the expensive bathroom repairs out of the money they had set aside years before for Beaver’s college tuition?

Finally, when Wally and the Beaver ran frantically around town in an effort to find Mr. Jeff and retrieve Ward’s suit, what would they have done if they had actually located the now sartorially-splendid hobo, make Mr. Jeff strip naked right there on the street or take Mr. Jeff back home to have Ward lecture Mr. Jeff about moral probity before making the tramp strip down? That’s an LITB scene I wish we all could have seen!

[Dude111]

Im surprised with all Ward was with Beaver and Wallly about things that he didnt do anything!

[Sgt. Saunders]

I could see the garrulous Gilbert Bates telling everyone at The Grant Avenue School what a complete idiot Beaver was to let a bum come into his home. Can you imagine the grief that the Beaver would have gotten non-stop from Richard Rickover, Whitey Whitney, Mike Harmon and especially Penny Woods? So much for good deeds!

And, what if Eddie Haskell and Lumpy Rutherford also found out about Beaver’s “good deed”? I feel bad that Wally would also have to catch grief because of his naive and numb-skulled younger brother. No doubt, Ward would have also “appreciated” having to listen to the unfailingly officious Fred Rutherford at the office, lecture Ward ad nauseam on how to properly instruct and discipline his younger son.

It’s too bad that we never got to see how things turned out for Mr. Jeff. Did Mr. Jeff do well at that job interview where he wore Ward’s suit? Did Mr. Jeff keep mailing in that ten bucks every week to pay for Ward’s suit, Ward’s dress shoes, Ward’s shirt and tie and Ward’s socks and Jockey underwear?

Somehow, I could see Mr. Jeff, decked out in Ward’s suit, enjoying a beer of two at Hank’s Place on Friday afternoon after work, shooting the breeze with Andy Hadlock and that other drunk who accidentally pushed Wally’s graduation party date into the fountain and, quite possibly, Mr. Jeff robbing the cradle by trying to pick-up the always available Marlene Holmes.

Life is good for Mr. Jeff.