New Leave It To Beaver: Cast Photo - Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries

Thr New Leave It To Beaver ran fro September 1985 until September 1989 on The Disney Channel and WTBS.

Twenty years after Leave It To Beaver ended it's original run , viewers got a glimpse of what had become of the Cleavers in the March 1983 TV Movie Still The Beaver. Unlike most tv reunions, this one was bittersweet. Beaver's eternal innocence had not served him well in adult life. At 33 he was out of work, had 2 young sons he couldn't communicate with, and was being divorced by his wife. Wally was a successful attorney-in fact he handled Beaver's divorce-but he had problems at home as well. Wally's sleazy friend Eddie Haskell had become a crooked contractor. Dad was no longer around to make things right with a few words of sage advice ( actor Hugh Beaumont had passed away) and he was sorely missed, by his sons and by his wife June, who sat by his grave and said, " Ward, what would you do?"

Despite this dour picture, viewers apparantly wanted more of the Cleaver clan, and so the movie led to a series Still The Beaver on the pay-cable Disney Channel in 1985-1986 and then The New Leave It To Beaver on cable superstation WTBS in 1986. Things got somewhat better as time went along. Beaver ( Jerry Mathers) and his sons ( he had custody), moved in with June ( Barbara Billingsley), who provided some emotional support. He then went to work for Lumpy Rutherford's father and eventually he and Lumpy( Frank Bank) formed a highly successful business partnership, although it was never explained exactly what they did. Much of the action shifted to the younger generation-Beaver's boys, Teenager Kipp( Kipp Marcus) and pre-teen Oliver ( John Snee); Wally 's( Tony Dow's)kids , cute Kelly ( Kaleena Kiff) and little Kevin ( Troy Davidson)( his mother Mary Ellen played by Janice Kent was pregnant with him for 18 months on the series and 3 months after his birth he was 3 years old); and Eddie's( Ken Osmond's) son Freddie ( Eric Osmond) who was Kip's best friend. Although Freddie had picked up some of his father's obnoxious traits, underneath it all he was a pretty good guy. Freddie's brother Bomber ( Christian Osmond) had been sent off to a military school for accidentally spilling grape juice on the white carpet in the Haskell living room, but showed up periodically. Like most sequels and remakes The New Leave It To Beaver pales in comparrison to the original.

Eddie Haskell's sons were played by actor Ken Osmond's real-life sons.

An Article from The New York Times

Two Studios Announce Exclusive Cable Deals

SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: April 25, 1986

Two movie studios announced exclusive arrangements with cable companies today.

The Walt Disney Company has licensed to Showtime/The Movie Channel exclusive pay-TV rights to all of its Touchstone Films for the next five years.

Touchstone is Disney's adult label, and the arrangement begins with the studio's current hit, ''Down and Out in Beverly Hills.''

MCA Inc., the parent company of Universal, has signed an agreement with WTBS, the cable superstation owned by Ted Turner, for 74 episodes of a half-hour situation comedy, ''The New Leave It to Beaver.'' The studio calls such a large order ''unprecedented.'' The new show, which will go on the air in September, will star Barbara Billingsley, Tony Dow and Jerry Mathers from the original ''Leave It to Beaver'' series (1957-1963). ''Still the Beaver,'' another updating of the original series, was created for the Disney Channel in 1984, but was not renewed a year later. MCA announced that it will own all the advertising space within the 74 new programs that it makes for WTBS.

For an episode listing go to http://epguides.com/NewLeaveIttoBeaver/

For more on The New Leave It To Beaver go to http://www.poobala.com/beaver.html