These days, kids probably have no concept of what it was like to be a fan of something in the '60s. Nowadays, everyone has unfettered access to their favorite celebrity. There's no mystery because celebs are constantly engaging with their fans online. We get to see their lives when the cameras are off.

But for a long, long time, if you wanted to see your favorite actor, you'd better tune into their show. If you loved a certain singer, you'd have to listen to the radio in hopes of hearing them or shill out for their latest record. But that was it. That was the extent of fandom. You could maybe find some address to send a letter to, in hopes that it wouldn't get intercepted by some PR team or management. Writing a letter was just about the only way you could engage with, and show love for, your favorite star.

Tony Dow, famous forever as Wally from Leave It to Beaver, received about 1,000 fan letters every week. But there was a clear divide. About 100 of the letters were sent from boys his age and younger.

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"It's no trouble for me to answer them," Dow told the Bloomington, Illinois Pantagraph in 1962. The ones sent from boys sharing their admiration for Wally were easy to respond to. "I just sit down and fire away. But it's the other ones..."

The "other ones" that Dow spoke of were the hundreds of letters each week that poured in from adoring young ladies.

"It's really rough answering some of them," he said. "The idea of going steady sort of appeals to me. But 2,000 miles is a long way to go just for a soda. But I try to answer them all as nicely as possible."

The issue wasn't just Dow's to contend with. Having such a vocal fanbase meant that the show had to occasionally bend to the whims of the girls who so staunchly supported Wally. Series creators Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher had to deal with that segment of the audience very carefully because the demographic accounted for a sizeable portion of the show's viewership.

"We try to slow down the romance angle for Tony whenever possible," said Mosher. "But it's pretty hard to keep it out of the show altogether when letters—all in delicate feminine handwriting—roll in by the sackfuls."

Connelly added: "If we try to make Tony a complete woman-hater the letters we get from the Bobby Sox set threaten to lynch us. So we are letting nature take its course. Girls will be girls and boys will be boys. And let the chips fall where they may."