TVXOHOF, 06/02/13 - THEODORE "POP" CLEAVER

When 'Leave It To Beaver' left the air in 1963, young Theodore was thirteen years old.  We supposedly didn't see him again in Earth Prime-Time until twenty years later, with the TV reunion movie "Still The Beaver".  He then went on to headline a sequel series, 'The New Leave It To Beaver' and appeared an episode of 'Hardcastle & McCormack' as well as in an episode of 'The Love Boat' ("Who Killed Maxwell Thorn?", which also featured Carol Brady so there's the link between those series.)

That's plenty to insure that Beaver Cleaver is elegible for inclusion into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.  

But it's not good enough for this caretaker.....

When the Beav was in the final months of his seventeenth year, he enrolled as a freshman at Gotham City University.  (If it turns out he graduated from some other college based on dialogue from the sequel or the TV movie, then the O'Bvious splainin is that he transferred.)

And while Ward and June Cleaver may have helped out his financial situation by paying his tuition, still life away from Mayfield can be expensive for a college student in the big city.

So Beaver took a job at night to help defray his living expenses, and one where he would no longer have people always calling him "Beaver".

He took a job as a theater doorman at the Gotham City Opera House, where he fell afoul of the cowboy criminal Shame and his gang of outlaws.  (Luckily he survived.)

So he wasn't known as Beaver anymore.  But nobody was calling him "Theodore" or even Teddy - even though he was only 17 years old, everybody referred to him as "Pop".  He even had a sign for his desk identifying him as such.

Apparently there's a time-honored theatre tradition that all stage doormen, no matter how old or how young, must be known as Pop.....

(Jump ahead to 5:51 to see Pop Cleaver!)

So I'm counting this as part of the Beaver Cleaver resume as we induct no longer young Theodore into the TV Crossover Hall Of Fame on this, the 65th birthday of Jerry Mathers.  (Wrap your head around that!)  Consider this a different sort of Birthday Honors List........

Of course, the Beav is only 63......

BCnU!