"The Haircut" (1957)

“Will you give me a haircut for a glass doorknob?”

-- Jerry Mathers as Beaver Cleaver in “Leave It to Beaver—The Haircut” Season 1, Episode 4, October 25, 1957

Two things many of us are doing during the pandemic are binge-watching our favorite TV shows and watching our hair grow.

Social distancing forced many businesses to temporarily close, like barber shops and hair salons. We don’t know when our next professional haircut will be.  We have reached that alarming stage in our hair growth when we would normally run to our stylists.  Our hair is now just long enough to be annoying, and is about to grow unendurable for the coming summer heat, unless we take drastic measures.

Not even a large hat or a handful of hair gel will disguise the fact that if I don’t do something soon, I will become Cousin Itt from the Addams Family.

When I considered the frightening idea of cutting it myself (or asking my husband if we could cut each other’s hair, quid-pro-coif), I remembered, with a shudder and a laugh, a classic episode from one of my all-time favorite sitcoms.

“I can’t give anybody a haircut.”

“Did you ever give anybody one?”

“No”

“Then how do you KNOW?”

“Leave it to Beaver” premiered in the Fall of 1957, just two months after the world premieres of yours truly and my husband (both born on July 6^th of that year).  It’s a show that I’ve watched repeatedly since childhood, laughing and learning life-lessons well into my adult years.  I can watch for hours and still never tire of it.

Like many series of that era, “Leave it to Beaver” is a family comedy.  This one, about the Cleavers, is especially funny and heartfelt.   Sure, it’s a little dated now: gender-roles are old-fashioned almost to the point of misogyny; and it lacks diversity only to the extent that it reflects a typical American suburb of that time. 

  

But the situations, the relationships between parents and little boys, the peer pressure from schoolmates, and the carefree moments and fears of childhood, are universal.  The humor arises naturally from the behavior of the kids, and from the efforts of their parents to understand and guide them…often with hilarious results.

No one ever thought the show was a perfectly realistic reflection of American family life.  It simply allowed us to exist vicariously in an ideal household, identify with the foibles and uncomfortable situations we all have encountered, and take away something nice.  

The series was one of the first from the point of view of the kids, and the writing was unusually insightful and true.  Wally (Tony Dow) is the no-nonsense, athletic big brother, who can mix it up with his young sibling, but is his staunchest ally.  And little Theodore, the star of the show, (Jerry Mathers), known as Beaver, is a good-hearted little guy who is always a comedic victim of circumstance. I identified with him as a child, and still do.  The mischief of Wally and Beaver is never malicious, their dialog never smart-alecky. They’re always natural and funny, and sometimes disarmingly moving.

There’s Ward, the Dad, mostly in a suit and tie, often bemused, but always trustworthy and wise. Actor Hugh Beaumont exudes fatherly kindness even when he erupts in exasperation.  There’s June, the practical, loving Mom, cleaning an immaculate house in a dress and pearls. Barbara Billingsley is the heart of the show, not always understanding her male brood, but knowing when to take charge with love.  Ward and June are not perfect, but they are not portrayed as buffoons, either. They are always the adults in the room.  Sometimes, when they are not providing lessons for the boys, they are learning some of their own.

“The Haircut” episode is one of the best from the series’ first two seasons, where the writing and observations about the behavior of small boys were the sharpest.

7-year-old Theodore keeps losing his lunch money, to Ward’s chagrin.  Ward, nevertheless, trusts Beaver with enough money to go get a haircut on his own at the barber shop, and warns him not to lose his money again.

You guessed it: Little Theodore loses his haircut money. To avoid his parents' disappointment, he sneaks home, swipes June’s sewing scissors, and snips his own hair.  Botching it badly, he enlists 12-year-old Wally to fix it for him.

“What’s that?”

“A haircut, I think.”

“Wow…you look like the Wilson’s Airedale when he had the mange.”

The result, and the fallout, produced one of the most sustained belly-laughs I ever had watching TV.  Against his better judgment, Wally starts cutting…and cutting…as what appears to be a bushel of beaver’s hair falls down on the floor around their sneakers.

“Are you finished?”

“I don’t know...but I think I’d better stop.”

How they try to get away with it, and how Ward (and ESPECIALLY June) react to Beaver’s follicle fiasco features some of the best dialog written for, and performed by, kids that I have ever seen.

“Leave it to Beaver” is, finally, about doing the right thing, and being decent.   When I see what our public discourse has become, I wonder: when, and why, did the notion of simple decency toward one another go out of fashion? 

Speaking of fashion… I guess we will give it a try, and give each other haircuts, as the memory of Beaver Cleaver’s disaster looms in the back of my head…and on top and on the sides as well.  Chances are we might both have a flair for hair, and  we will look fine. If they turn out badly, then we will clip our hair in the crewcut-style we wore when we were Beaver’s age, let it grow back, and give it a fresh start when the barbershop reopens.

"It's only your first haircut. You'll get better as you go along."