Tony Dow revealed that the writers based parts of Wally on his own personality

"I was shy; Wally was shy. Jerry was energetic; Beaver was, well, a little more so."

October 17, 2024, 2:11PM By MeTV Staff

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While there are some moments on Leave It to Beaver that are a bit too over the top to be real (Be honest, did you ever order an alligator when you were a kid?), for the most part, the series stays fairly honest when portraying what adolescence was like back then.

The show's creators, Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, frequently spoke about their writing process. Oftentimes, the two would draw from their real lives, taking inspiration from their own children when depicting the children on Leave It to Beaver.

However, the comparisons didn't just stop there. According to an interview with The Los Angeles Times, Tony Dow explained that the writers also injected a bit of his own personality into his character, Wally Cleaver.

"When I was on Beaver, the producer took Jerry's and my personalities and hobbies and built the characters around them," Dow said. "It wasn't us adapting to a celluloid character. I was shy; Wally was shy. Jerry was energetic; Beaver was, well, a little more so."

Dow and Wally also shared a love of sports, although Dow's love for athleticism ran even deeper before he decided to become an actor.

"I wanted to go to the Olympics in diving," Dow said. "That was the only thing I wanted at the time."

But while the character was partially based on himself, Dow found it hard to shake Wally Cleaver, especially after Leave It to Beaver had ended.

"No one at the time even expected the show to last as long as it did," he said. "But because it did, it became such a way of life for all of us. When the series ended, I think we all found ourselves sort of pigeonholed into our roles. I thought that I would be able to find all of these parts, but for a long time I couldn't shake the existing identification of Wally, the innocuous boy."