Water, Anyone?
Original Air Date: November 15, 1957
Writer: Clifford Goldsmith
If only one personality trait could be attributed to Beaver, that would be innocence. He is as innocent as a sheep or in his case, innocent as a little lamb.
There’s a Bible verse which speaks of sending sheep out among the wolves and in the first season of Leave it to Beaver, who are the wolves? We’d all agree Eddie Haskell is one of the wolves. He’s the alpha of the group. His fellow pack members are Chester, Tooey and Lumpy and sometimes Wally. Of course, none of those kids are evil incarnate, but in the way they treat Beaver sometimes, evil is not an adjective that is way off the mark.
In this episode, innocent Beaver wants to join the gang on their baseball team. They are going to buy uniforms and if Beaver wants to be part of it, Wally says he’ll have to earn the money for a uniform himself. Not finding any jobs he could do, Beaver becomes wise as a serpent and actually sells water to all the boys as they do the jobs their parents have given them on this Saturday afternoon. At first, Beaver is unsuccessful at selling water because why pay for it from a kid with a bucket when it’s available right inside the house from the kitchen faucet? But soon after his failed attempts at being a water salesman, Beaver finds out from the water department crew that the water will soon be shut off for a couple hours during the middle of a dreaded heat wave. After the shut off, Beaver’s water sales career skyrockets, albeit, to the chagrin of parents of the kids to whom he sells water.
Beaver is living out the rule to be wise or shrewd as a serpent and gentle as a dove. His customers claim Beaver is being mean and being a cheat to do his selling. However, he is being gentle as he does so, insisting all the time that he’s simply a businessman trying to earn money. He could’ve charged so much more for the water, but he didn’t.
Leave it to Beaver features the Beaver in many business situations over the years. Which is your favorite Beaver business situation? There’s this one, his selling advertising, cutting lawns and others. However, this episode is one of my all time favorites, especially when he reasons with his dad about his friend the grocer and why he charges for food and why his dad thinks the Beaver shouldn’t charge for water. Great logic from the Beaver!
A great trivia tidbit about this episode concerns its writer Clifford Goldsmith. Mr. Goldsmith created the character Henry Aldrich for his 1938 play What a Life. The play spawned a feature film and then a radio show titled The Aldrich Family. As Leave it to Beaver featured daily life through the eyes of children for television audiences, The Aldrich Family did the same for radio audiences in the 1940s. Long time Leave it to Beaver director Norman Tokar played a character on and even wrote some episodes of The Aldrich Family. Another Aldrich Family / Leave it to Beaver connection was actor Jackie Kelk who played Old Man Merkel on the LITB episode, “The Paper Route,” played Henry Aldrich’s best friend Homer Brown.
Another question you can answer in the comments below is whether or not you’ve ever heard The Alrdich Family radio show?
