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post #61 of 94
7/7/06 at 1:03pm

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Great stuff about this second season set! Thanks David. Of course, the big question I wanted answered is - When is Season 3 being released?

Gary "I think I've been on the boards long enough for most of you to know that 'The Fugitive' is #1 on my wishlist at this point" O.
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post #62 of 94
7/7/06 at 1:15pm
Thread Starter 

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Quote:
When is Season 3 {of LITB} being released?

~~gazes intently into crystal ball~~

Voice out of the clouds utters -- October 31st, 2006.

~~crystal ball off~~
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post #63 of 94
7/7/06 at 1:26pm

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

He-he. I know you've "predicted" this date already, and boy I hope you are correct. Just wondering if it's utter speculation on your part, or if you have an inside tip.

Gary "I won't rest until Universal makes the release date official" O.
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post #64 of 94
7/7/06 at 1:28pm
Thread Starter 

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Did I predict Oct. 31 previously? I know I picked a date out of a hat, but couldn't recall what it was.

Heck, if I twice (independently) guessed Oct. 31, then it must be right, huh?
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post #65 of 94
7/7/06 at 1:38pm

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Well, I could have been wrong about your previous prediction date.

Gary "I knew you picked a date once before, and for some reason thought that was it" O.
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post #66 of 94
7/7/06 at 1:40pm
Thread Starter 

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Related Topic.........

Here's something for Beaver fans to pick up when it comes out on October 30th (maybe at about the same time as LITB S.3 on DVD, ya think? ). A hardcover volume this is, too. .....

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/076...qid=1152304486




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Another nice Beaver Book is this one (some of my "Wholesome Cleaver Funnies" are provided in a review on this page):

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/cus...ews/1575000520

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post #67 of 94
7/7/06 at 1:49pm

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Quote:
Originally Posted by David VP
Another nice Beaver Book is this one:

David!
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post #68 of 94
7/7/06 at 1:58pm
Thread Starter 

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

That only goes to show whose mind it is that's in the gutter here.
Doesn't it, Mr. Frezon??
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post #69 of 94
7/7/06 at 2:16pm

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Guilty as charged.

...but it takes one to know one!
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post #70 of 94
7/7/06 at 2:29pm
Thread Starter 

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Now, if you think I'm going to resort to that tired old comeback of: "I resemble that remark", you've got another thing coming, my friend!

And just remember one more thing -- Aunt Martha's coming by the house tomorrow with eggplant and umbrellas...and you're not gettin' ANY! So there!
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post #71 of 94
7/8/06 at 7:15pm

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Quote:
...but the "un" prior to "puerco" is not uttered by either Eddie or Beaver in that episode, which makes it just a six-word communication. My translation came out to seven words, yes....but that was an "approximation". Beaver only uttered six Spanish words. Watch it again and see for yourself.

Ok, I stand corrected--grammatically incorrect in the show, but that's how it is alright.
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post #72 of 94
7/9/06 at 10:11am

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Quote:
Originally Posted by michael_ks
Ok, I stand corrected--grammatically incorrect in the show, but that's how it is alright.
The incorrect spanish spoken on that episode is "Usted tiene una cara como puerco", which translates to "you have a face like pig". Missing was the word "un" = "a".
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post #73 of 94
7/10/06 at 7:12am

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Does anyone recall the title of a book published in the early 80's that took literary classics and transformed them into LITB type episodes? I wish I still had my copy--it was hillarious. I just now recalled this after seeing David's posting of "The World According to Beaver" because one of the chapter titles was worded the same, a take-off on "The World According to Garp". I believe others were "Of Mice and Beaver", "The Beaver of Wrath" and "The Brothers Cleaver" (Brothers Karamazov). For this particular classic, I'll never forget this exchange:

Haskell: What do you say, comrade Gertrude? People's Kindergarten out so soon?

Wally: Aww, cut it out, comrade Eddie!

The book was filled with stuff like this, a la Hemingway, Conrad, Pasternak, et al. Great fun.
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post #74 of 94
7/12/06 at 12:45pm
Thread Starter 

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Meaningless (Albeit Funny) Beaver Interjection #64 (Or So) .............

For a really "natural"-feeling and seemingly completely-unrehearsed LITB moment, go to the S.2 episode "Beaver Says Goodbye". At the 14:00 mark in the show, Beaver is talking to father Ward in the garage. Watch and listen for Beaver's line, "That's pretty funny".

It's a very brief remark, but it strikes me as 100% real and genuine on Beaver's/Jerry's behalf, and never fails to crack me up. It's a LITB moment that is always deserving of a replay when I cue up this episode.

See if you don't agree.
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post #75 of 94
7/13/06 at 8:45am

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

So now Dave VP is affecting my viewing habits!

I watched "Beaver says goodbye" last night and enjoyed the episode immensely. (I also watched Beaver's sweater--completely independent of Dave's recommendation!)

I am NEVER disappointed when I watch any of these episodes. The acting is superb and the lessons are timeless.

In the sweater episode, when Ward wonders why Beaver would just decide to "ditch" a $13 sweater after learning that it's really a girl's sweater and June explains that a boy his age wouldn't have the maturity to reason for himself let alone explain to his parents that he was wrong after taking the stand and insisting that he really needed that sweater...it's priceless. it is for those kinds of reasons that the show works so well for both children and adults.

It's the kind of show that should be required watching for would-be parents to let them know how to deal with the psyche of young children.

Heck, even the way Miss Landers deals with Judy Hensler in her rather irritated(!) no-nonsense way in the classroom when Judy is trying to ply her usual "snitch" trade would be a valuable lesson for some teachers.
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post #76 of 94
7/13/06 at 12:43pm

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

I just rented disc 1 of the first season and have watched almost all the episodes on it. Even better than I remember as a kid. Wonderful, wonderful show, with sophisticated, natural-sounding dialogue and believable situations. This family seems utterly real to me. And yet...what an even richer experience this would have been with the benefit some juicy extras. I believe all the family is still with us except for Hugh Beaumont, and some of the friends must still be around as well. And there's got to be some other stuff in the vaults on this series...these sets could have matched the Dick Van Dyke Show sets, but sadly, they don't come close.
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post #77 of 94
7/13/06 at 2:19pm

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Jeffrey: Those are all valid points on which I can agree. I have been so happy just to have these shows on disc that I forget they (the DVDs) could be "even better".

What a treat it would be to hear some commentary on some of the episodes from Jerry Mathers, Barbara Billingsley & Tony Down--even from some of the other child actors such as Ken Osmond or Rusty Stevens would be great.

These could be "memory lane" types of commentary as opposed to truly episode-specific comments. I would think just watching some of these episodes along with the cast members would reveal a treasure trove of interesting information about the production of the show from technical info to actor's traits.
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post #78 of 94
7/13/06 at 8:16pm
Thread Starter 

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Quote:
Tony Down...

When did Tony add the "n" to his last name?

I think perhaps he was known as Tony "Get" Down (esp. during the episode when he had to learn the Cha-Cha).

Proverbial --->

I agree with you, though, re. commentaries. A commentary by Jerry and Tony (either "Dow" or "Down", I wouldn't care which) for "The Haircut" in Season 1 would have been ideal. For one thing, a commentary for that ep. could answer my question of wondering how they arranged the filming for the next few episodes, what with Beaver being in a "scalped" state following "The Haircut".

It seems pretty obvious that poor Jerry/Beav really was scalped for that episode. And to think, as Wally suggests in that episode, that all of Beav's hair grew back "in a week" seems a bit on the wishful-thinking side.

Which makes me wonder how they hid his hairless head in the next filmed episode? Maybe The Beav kept his baseball cap on the entire time.

THE WARD -- "Beaver, did you get a haircut?"

THE BEAV -- "I sure did."
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post #79 of 94
7/14/06 at 7:28am

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Tony Down used to be on-screen buddies with Kent Osmond and Frank Banks.
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post #80 of 94
7/14/06 at 1:54pm

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Quote:
Originally Posted by David VP
[/b]
When did Tony add the "n" to his last name?

I think perhaps he was known as Tony "Get" Down (esp. during the episode when he had to learn the Cha-Cha).

Proverbial --->

I agree with you, though, re. commentaries. A commentary by Jerry and Tony (either "Dow" or "Down", I wouldn't care which) for "The Haircut" in Season 1 would have been ideal. For one thing, a commentary for that ep. could answer my question of wondering how they arranged the filming for the next few episodes, what with Beaver being in a "scalped" state following "The Haircut".

It seems pretty obvious that poor Jerry/Beav really was scalped for that episode. And to think, as Wally suggests in that episode, that all of Beav's hair grew back "in a week" seems a bit on the wishful-thinking side.

Which makes me wonder how they hid his hairless head in the next filmed episode? Maybe The Beav kept his baseball cap on the entire time.

THE WARD -- "Beaver, did you get a haircut?"

THE BEAV -- "I sure did."

I thought at first it looked like a real scalp job, but then I looked closer, and it did seem a bit artificial-looking...I dunno. If it is a cover, it's a darned good one. And what an absolutely fantastic episode! I love love LOVE this show, and can't wait to be able to shell out the $$$ for all the seasons, but I'd be even more ga-ga over it if they would have given this show the extras it deserves. Like The Dick Van Dyke Show, it's an absolute TV milestone; the archetypal '50s nuclear family comedy, and far and away the best IMO. It's frankly criminal that there's nary an extra to be found. (The Dick Van Dyke Show, still my favorite American sitcom of all time, isn't really in the same category, as the emphasis was mainly on the grownups, and not so much the "family unit".)
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post #81 of 94
7/14/06 at 5:14pm
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Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Quote:
Tony Down used to be on-screen buddies with Kent Osmond and Frank Banks.

And Hugo Beaumont played his dad.

(This puts me in mind of the long-running "Hugo Carmichael" gag from "The Jack Benny Program".)
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post #82 of 94
7/14/06 at 5:31pm
Thread Starter 

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

An interesting tidbit, IMO, re. the LITB series is the fact that the the show was filmed using just one camera (not the three-camera set-up that was used on "I Love Lucy", "The Lucy Show", and "The Dick Van Dyke Show").

In fact, I have also recently learned that almost all other shows of that era ('50s-'60s) were also done with just a single camera too.

Now.....I have a technical question re. this one-camera method of filming a TV show (or a movie). .......

How in the heck do they keep the continuity and "flow" and rhythm of a scene intact when just one single camera is all that's being utilized in every scene?

When we watch LITB, there are many, many close-up shots and cutaway shots that toggle between the actors speaking their dialogue. But evidently these "cuts" are done with just ONE camera in use. My question is: How?

Or, perhaps more importantly -- WHY would they film a show with many jump-cuts between actors in this seemingly-much-more-difficult and hard-to-control manner?

Is one actor filmed saying his line...with the camera then switching positions completely to film the response by the other actor? This sounds crazy to me. How can any spontaneous "flow" be created by doing this on virtually every single shot?

I'd never thought about this question of how they film a "1-Camera" TV program until recently perusing Jerry Mathers' LITB book ("...And Jerry Mathers As The Beaver"), when I noticed that Jerry stated in the book that the show was done with just one camera instead of multiple cameras.

And seeing as how not nearly every shot is composed as a 'wide' or 'medium' shot (so that the camera doesn't have to move to capture all the actors in a particular scene), I got to thinking: How on Earth do they do this with just one camera? Seems impossible. And, as stated before, it seems kinda crazy and needlessly-troublesome, when they could just simply have a second camera on the set (with one honed on each actor for the "cutaways").

Some techno-wizard please chime in here and tell me how in the heck they film those close-up cutaways using just one camera without destroying the flow of every scene.

Salutations to all.

DVP
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post #83 of 94
7/14/06 at 6:09pm

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Quote:
Originally Posted by David VP
How in the heck do they keep the continuity and "flow" and rhythm of a scene intact when just one single camera is all that's being utilized in every scene?

You could ask that about practically every movie ever made.

The way I understand it is: They film the same scene two or three times from different angles. It's all put together by the editor. He'll edit in close-ups, medium shots, over the shoulder shots, etc.

In other words: If Beaver says, "Hey, Wally!" and there's a closeup of Wally saying, "What?" and then it's back to Beaver saying, "I'm in trouble," they didn't film Beaver and then stop and move the camera over to Wally, film his one word, stop and move the camera back to Beaver, etc. They filmed the whole scene with the camera on Beaver -- filmed it again with the camera on Wally -- and maybe filmed it again with the camera on both of them -- and then after filming they took whatever shots they wanted and edited them all together.

If you watch movies and filmed TV shows very closely, you can detect many editing errors (for instance, someone doing something twice); it's better NOT to watch too closely!
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post #84 of 94
7/14/06 at 11:55pm
Thread Starter 

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Quote:
You could ask that about practically every movie ever made.

Yes, exactly.


Quote:
In other words: If Beaver says, "Hey, Wally!" and there's a closeup of Wally saying, "What?" and then it's back to Beaver saying, "I'm in trouble," they didn't film Beaver and then stop and move the camera over to Wally, film his one word, stop and move the camera back to Beaver, etc. They filmed the whole scene with the camera on Beaver -- filmed it again with the camera on Wally -- and maybe filmed it again with the camera on both of them -- and then after filming they took whatever shots they wanted and edited them all together.

And all because they refuse to add a second (and third) camera.

It must be a hundred times easier with multiple cameras. Hard to believe any TV show (or movie) is done using only one measly camera.

Thanks Joe.
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post #85 of 94
7/15/06 at 9:40am

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Quote:
And all because they refuse to add a second (and third) camera. Sounds absolutely absurd.

It must be a hundred times easier with multiple cameras. Hard to believe any TV show (or movie) is done using only one measly camera.

No, it has to do with the lighting.

When "I Love Lucy" started using the 3-camera system, Desilu hired one of the greatest cinematographers of all time (Karl Freund) to help solve this problem: If the lighting looked good for one camera, it didn't look good for cameras two and three (shadows in the wrong places, etc.)

The only "solution" Freund found was to turn on every light in the place. That's why "I Love Lucy" always looks so bright, no matter what the scene is.

In order to get more variety in the lighting, it's best to use only one camera. For instance, "The Andy Griffith Show" in its five black-and-white seasons has some exceptionally good cinematography, which would not have been possible if they had used three cameras.
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post #86 of 94
7/15/06 at 4:46pm
Thread Starter 

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Makes sense, Joe. Hadn't thought of the lighting issue. Thanks.
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post #87 of 94
7/15/06 at 8:03pm

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

And that goes to our earlier discussion, Dave.

Since I Love Lucy was a three camera shoot...and therefore used the studio lighting (emphasis on bright!)...therefore there is less grain in the Lucy episodes than in the LITB & TAGS episodes.

Don't know if you own the DVD of the new version of The Producers...but in the outtakes section there are a few scenes where you see just one side of the take of a scene. One that comes to mind is a scene between Nathan Lane & Matthew Broderick...but you only see Lane's part. Broderick is off camera...trying to keep Lane from cracking up. The segment is included because Lane was cracking wise and breaking up...but you see so many different takes on the one scene that it give you some real insight into what an editor brings to the final version of a picture/TV show.
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post #88 of 94
7/15/06 at 9:43pm
Thread Starter 

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Quote:
Since I Love Lucy was a three camera shoot...and therefore used the studio lighting (emphasis on bright!)...therefore there is less grain in the Lucy episodes than in the LITB & TAGS episodes.

OK. Makes sense. (I guess.)

But........

There's a problem with your theory, however -- because the TAGS eps. on DVD are almost all totally grain-free, including the indoor scenes.

~shrugs (once more)~

Oh well .... such is the way of life's little mysteries.



~~~~~~~~~~~

Remember, Beaver fans, to keep a watchful eye out for this Mega DVD Set (which will be transferred to "Micro Disc" in the year 2099, with all 234 episodes placed on a single thimble-sized discette). .....

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/cus...12&y=6&s=video
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post #89 of 94
8/27/06 at 12:37am
Thread Starter 

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

Some more Beaver trivia (and possibly a writing gaffe; you decide)..........

In the first scene of the Season-Two episode "Beaver's Ring", June tells Beaver that Aunt Martha's ring is an "heirloom". Beaver then asks his dad, "What's a HAIR-loom?".

The "gaffe" here, IMO, is that June didn't mispronounce the word as "HAIR-loom"; she said it properly as "Air-loom". Therefore, it makes no sense for Beaver to have asked Ward what a "HAIR-loom" was.

The way it's written in the script, Beaver actually must know how "heirloom" is spelled (which is highly unlikely given The Beav's subpar performance in spelling most of the time -- he spelled "sidewalk" with a "G" remember ).

I therefore contend, Your Honor, that writers Mosher & Connelly made a grave error with regard to this "heirloom" business in this episode. There would have been no logical reason for Beaver to pronounce "heirloom" as "hairloom", esp. after hearing his mother pronounce it correctly just a few seconds earlier.

Perry? You want a crack at resolving this messed-up heir/hair-loom situation?

Good luck.

BTW -- My expensive Crystal Ball is currently telling me that LITB Season 3 will be announced no later than Tuesday, September 5th, 2006 AD.

And my ball rarely fails me.
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post #90 of 94
8/27/06 at 4:59am

Re: "Leave It To Beaver: Season 2" -- A Personal Review

David, does your crystal ball tell you if season 3 will be on single sided discs this time ? I have yet to get season 2 for that reason, but if season 3 gets released single sided , ill have to get season 2 just to get caught up.
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