![]() It was a better-written and better-acted show. It was not in the same vein as the insipid sitcoms of the day (“My Three Sons,” “Ozzie and Harriet,” “Father Knows Best,” etc.). In the same way the era is misremembered, the most representative sitcom of the period, “Leave It to Beaver,” is misunderstood. A culture that in hindsight can look pasty-faced and intolerant in fact included idiosyncratic voices of protest and anti-majoritarian values. It was, after all, the era of, among others, Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando, Thelonious Monk, Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, Rosa Parks and Central High in Little Rock. In many ways, that’s a mischaracterization. In today’s culture, the 1950s and early 1960s are portrayed as a white-bread era of bland conformity and racism. In 1980, he was seriously wounded in the line of duty. He left acting and became a public servant, joining the Los Angeles Police Department in 1970. He was typecast (as were all the characters on the show except for Barbara Billingsley, who did a memorable turn 20 years later as a jive-talking passenger in “Airplane!” ) no one could believe the actor who played Eddie Haskell could be anything but a wiseguy. His portrayal of Eddie Haskell was, in a sense, a death sentence for his acting career. Osmond was the antithesis of Eddie Haskell - a kind, generous family man, and a good father. Jerry Mathers, who played Beaver, called Osmond the best actor on the show because in real life his personality was the opposite of the character that he so brilliantly portrayed. And although he saved Beaver, Eddie made sure that Beaver would tell no one - after all, Eddie had an image to maintain. Eddie, aware of what Beaver had done, convinced an unsuspecting Wally to wear a sport coat instead. Throughout the run of the show, which ended in 1963, the upright Wally and the weasel Eddie were loyal to each other, each realizing at some level they were two opposite but inextricable characters, each embodying different sides of a young man’s personality.Įddie would, on an occasional episode, even demonstrate an act of kindness toward Beaver, as when Beaver spilled oil on Wally’s suit right before a big dance. Perhaps the most telling thing Eddie ever told Wally was, “if you can make the other guy feel like a goon first, then you don’t feel like so much of a goon.”Īnd his friend Wally, and ultimately the Beaver as well, saw that decency, despite Eddie’s insults and nasty practical jokes. At heart, he was a decent and likable person. It was that insecurity that made him the way he was. If you watch the show carefully, you discover Eddie was actually a sensitive, insecure kid who grew up in an unhappy home. In a number of shows, the writers attempted to explain the essence of Eddie Haskell and, by extension, why people like him behave the way they do. He was a far more complex character than he is thought of today. He never used physical violence and even his taunts were generally more good-natured than mean. Many of the obituaries and tributes to Ken Osmond called Eddie Haskell a bully - he was anything but. ![]() The writers took great pains to flesh out the personalities of the boys and their parents. Contrary to popular opinion now, the characters on “Leave It to Beaver” were not cliches. ![]() Yet for all that familiarity, Eddie Haskell is also one of television’s most misunderstood characters. Matt Groening called Bart Simpson “the son of Eddie Haskell.” Psychologists use the term “Eddie Haskell syndrome” for people who reserve one personality for superiors and another for underlings. In the history of television, how many archetypal characters like that can you think of where the name is shorthand for such a specific persona? And even those characters were usually stars or co-stars - Eddie Haskell was a supporting character, the fifth lead on the show. Even today, more than 60 years after the character first appeared in 1957, if you call someone an Eddie Haskell, people understand what you’re talking about - the weaselly character in the office or the suck-up in school. Everyone has encountered someone like that. He was always oversolicitous to adults, who invariably saw through him, but once the adults were out of sight calculated which of his peers could help him (and so it paid to be nice to) and which weren’t worth the effort. Cleaver”), then go upstairs and verbally abuse Beaver. He would flatter Beaver’s mom in the kitchen (“Your hair looks lovely today, Mrs. ![]() On television’s “Leave It to Beaver,” he portrayed Eddie Haskell, the sarcastic nemesis to the title character, Beaver Cleaver, and the best friend of Beaver’s older brother, Wally.Įddie Haskell is one of the best archetype television characters ever created - the mischievous “kiss-up, kick-down” smart aleck. Television actor Ken Osmond died May 18, and if the name is not familiar, the memorable character he created probably is. ![]()
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