Six times Wally and Beaver had a run-in with the law

On occasion, whether it was their fault or not, Wally and Beaver had to answer to the law!

Sometimes things can get out of hand in Mayfield, the home of Wally, Beaver, the typical group of friends and all their antics!

Oftentimes a scold from Ward can quell the situation, other times a more direct approach either puts an end to something or makes the truth come out. In these cases, that direct approach is the law! 

Here are six times Wally and Beaver had a run-in with the law, whether it was their fault or not!

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1. Mistaken Identity

 

The Beaver and his friends, Gilbert and Richard, can't come up with anything to do, so Richard pitches an idea. He suggests the trio head down to the abandoned McMahan house to "mess around." Credit goes to Beaver for declining the offer, on account that Ward said he didn't want him hanging around the empty house. When Richard gets busted for breaking a window, he tells the officer his name is Theodore Cleaver. This makes for an awkward encounter later that night at the Cleaver household, both for the officer and the Cleavers! 

2. Beaver Takes a Drive

 

The Beav alone was at fault for this encounter with the law, but Wally gets the brunt of it! When he and Gilbert are discussing what they're going to do with the car when they're older, Beaver suggests he and his buddy sit in the Cleaver car and pretend to be "old people" who are taking their kids for a ride. When the car rolls into the street causing a traffic jam, Gilbert bails and leaves Beaver to get out of the situation by himself. Wally seems to save the day when he walks by, grabs the spare key and moves the car. That's when an officer approaches, asking Wally for a driver's license! Without one to give, he's summoned to traffic court with a ticket! 

3. Beaver's Long Night

 

When Ward and June go out for the night, Beaver and Gilbert decide to watch a spooky show on TV. Continually saying neither of them is scared after watching, their attitude changes when a car pulls up to the house. What Beaver and Gilbert don't know is Lumpy is in the car to pick up Wally for a mascarade party. Wally isn't home yet, so Lumpy throws on a mask to scare him when he gets home, not knowing Beaver and Gilbert are calling the cops! "Hello police station? Well you see, there's a suspicious looking car out in front of our house with two men in it! Me? Uh, Mr. Cleaver!" Beaver's "father" voice was convincing enough as the police showed up and hauled Lumpy away!

4. The State vs. Beaver

 

If you don't want a ticket, don't speed. If you don't want a ticket, don't drive without a license. It's a lesson Beaver had to learn the hard way! After being told not to take out the home-built race car with a lawnmower engine without Ward present, Beaver cracks under the peer pressure from his buddy Larry. Just a quick spin around the block turns into the kids being pulled over and ticketed yet again!

5. Borrowed Boat

 

It's Beaver and Larry again having trouble with the police, but this time it isn't totally their fault! When the boys are tricked by a couple of older fellas to use a stolen rowboat, it's them who get caught by the police! Back at the station, the boys tell the truth about how they ended up in the boat and that Beaver's parents aren't answering on account they're at Wally's football game. They get nervous, as the officer at the station doesn't seem to buy their story!

6. Beaver's Library Book

 

It wouldn't be a Leave It to Beaver story without Eddie Haskell causing trouble. The theme of this list has been the police, and Eddie tricks Beaver so bad, he thinks the "library police" are coming after him! Losing a library book signed out under Ward's card, the Beaver is worried some sort of officer will come and arrest him due to unpaid fees! 15 days have gone by since he lost the book, amounting to an entire dollar in fees! Eddie tells Beaver he better find the book soon or "they'll send a guy around. A library cop in a uniform and you know what he's going to do if you don't have that book? Throw you right in jail!" The face of the Beaver says it all. 

SEE MORE: How well do you know these job situations on Leave It to Beaver?

 

From yard work to entrepreneurship, Wally and the Beaver didn’t shy away from working for their pennies.

TAKE QUIZ

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35 Comments

MikefromJersey 24 months ago
Larry and Eddie were the two best characters outside of the Cleavers.
Savvy viewers will note the writers used Larry throughout the series to shine a
backdoor light on child abuse.
Every time we see Mrs. Mondello she is expressing disappointment in him, to his pal's
parents no less.
How many times does Larry talk about getting hit by his father? And his sister
ratting on him and gloating when he does catch a beating.
Or the time when Larry relates his father admitted he was unjustly punished but it's okay,
as Larry deserved it for an assumed past transgression that he hadn't been caught for.
Cue laughter, it was funny as presented but the writers are also making a
larger point.
Note how when Larry relates anything family related he has a sad look on his
face. Kid actors don't make that choice, the director tells them to.
Check out the episode at Friends Lake with the stolen boat, and though
at the ending Beav and Larry have been cleared, a defeated and sad Larry says
he doesn't want to go to that treasured spot anymore lest he cops more heat
from his parents.
No doubt a few years down the road a hardened Larry is knocking off banks as
Reed and Malloy chase him down the streets of "Mayfield".
That rotten kid Whitey his accomplice, Judy their gun moll and Eddie Haskell
the local fence they bring the money to.
The Mayfield set being the Universal back lot and used for many Adam-12 scenes.
RedSamRackham 25 months ago
* Bravo Beaver! Mistaken Identity was the 1 time Beaver didn't let Gilbert or any of his other pals talk him into doing something goofy.
TheSentinel RedSamRackham 24 months ago
Yet even without Beaver being there, Richard (being the fair-weather friend he was) still got Beaver in trouble by falsely claiming to be him just so he (Richard) wouldn't get in trouble himself.
GOOSEYGOOSE9 25 months ago
Episodes With Lumpy Were The Best.Better Than Larry.And Eddie Haskell.
Logreen 25 months ago
What great show! Such nostalgia now!
MrsPhilHarris 25 months ago
The episodes with Larry were the best.
TheSentinel MrsPhilHarris 24 months ago
I never did like Larry myself. He was always talking Beaver into doing something stupid (and Beaver, being as naïve, gullible and trusting as he was, always went along) - then when the boys ran into trouble, Larry always ran off and abandoned Beaver to take the brunt of the trouble by himself. Simply put, Larry was not all that good of a friend to Beaver, just a fair-weather friend at best.
MrsPhilHarris TheSentinel 24 months ago
Beaver could have said no.
TheSentinel MrsPhilHarris 23 months ago
True, but it was for the same reasons mentioned above (naïvety, gullibility, etc.), along with peer pressure, that he didn't.
MrsPhilHarris TheSentinel 23 months ago
I believe Gilbert left Beaver in the lurch as well, and Richard gave Beaver’s name to the cop when he broke a window, so really most of Beaver’s friends threw him under the bus.
Coldnorth MrsPhilHarris 22 months ago
Too bad the Beaver didn’t hang around with Dennis the Menace? Ward would have been pulling his hair out. June tugging at her pearls and Wally running away from home. Lol that would have been number 1 show
MrsPhilHarris Coldnorth 22 months ago
Mr. Wilson would have had a fit!
Coldnorth MrsPhilHarris 22 months ago
HEYYYYYYYYY MR. WILSON
Andybandit 25 months ago
Wow, I never knew Wally and the Beaver got in trouble with the law so many time.
McGillahooala Andybandit 25 months ago
Yeah. Who knew they were such juvenile delinquents. Lot more going on with those fellows than just grabbing some cookies and a hunk a milk.
cperrynaples McGillahooala 25 months ago
But wouldn't you think that Eddie Haskell would be the worst? After all, he did steal all that ice cream with an unknowing Wally...LOL!
RedSamRackham cperrynaples 25 months ago
* Yet when Eddie "stole" the ice cream he was just innocently buttering up the boss (foreman).
cperrynaples RedSamRackham 25 months ago
Well there is a difference between lying to June Cleaver and lying to your boss! After all, Wally's mom can't fire Eddie...LOL!
TheSentinel RedSamRackham 24 months ago
Eddie Haskell was always a two-faced weasel who thought he could put one over on the grownups in the neighborhood while showing his true side to the neighborhood kids.
Coldnorth McGillahooala 22 months ago
I always laugh at the slang in old shows. Hunk of milk and in My 3 Sons chip always talking about clunky girls
Pacificsun 25 months ago
One of my favorite episodes was #3, which gets overlooked even though it plays into the hands of Beaver's insecurity in such an obvious way. He and Gilbert getting caught regarding the rowboat was good too, because it was a realistic story within the LITB universe. But I'm not sure after all the scoldings Beaver got from his father, from smoking the stupid pipe, to leaving his toys in the driveway - that he would be fooling around behind the steering wheel of a car. Much less allowing it to roll down the driveway. What kid doesn't know to break something. But the nicest thing about these particular episodes was in depicting the Police, as they should be remembered by children, and then growing into adults. We had one assigned to our school as a crossing guard. And he and the kids all got to know each other by name, including our parents. We never forgot him, and was the kind of person we really could take a problem to.
Pacificsun 25 months ago
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Runeshaper 25 months ago
Seems like Beaver could NOT stay out of trouble lol
Pacificsun Runeshaper 25 months ago
Do you think the Producers (Connolly and Mosher) had that many troubles in their own lives as well 😎!
MrsPhilHarris Pacificsun 25 months ago
I read that various writers and others would tell of things their kids got up to and some were written into episodes.
ELEANOR MrsPhilHarris 25 months ago
WOW! So this stuff really happened!!
MrsPhilHarris ELEANOR 25 months ago
Apparently some of it. Probably exaggerated, but I can see kids getting into a lot of predicaments,
Spot on Mrs. Harris. Writers write what they know and of course they use items
from real life, genius Carl Reiner especially on the Dick Van Dyke Show.
His then kid son Rob "meat head" Reiner adopting ducks was used on the show,
and the whole premise of the series was based on Reiner's time as a writer on
Sid Caesar's series.
Michael 25 months ago
So Ward never called the cops on the Beaver?
Deleted 25 months ago
This comment has been removed.
Pacificsun 25 months ago
The lifestyle of what ... two dumb kids in the township of ... Mayfield.
Peter_Falk_Fan 25 months ago
6) Look out Beaver. Someone like Bookman (from "Seinfeld") could come knocking.


Michael Peter_Falk_Fan 25 months ago
Or the record club would come after him.
That was played by Philip Baker Hall who died just a few months ago!
RedSamRackham Michael 25 months ago
* Or the accordian company guy!
Barry22 25 months ago
There was an episode where Beaver and Larry found a wallet, but they weren't in trouble, so I guess that doesn't count. How about the unaired episode where The Bloody Five's meth lab blew up?
cperrynaples Barry22 25 months ago
No that must have been Breaking Bad: The High School Years...LOL!
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