Relive ‘Beaver’ in DVD set

Jerry Mathers doesn’t want to give anyone the wrong impression; he loved working as a child actor. But he didn’t like the audition process.

So when it came time for one of his last interviews for the role of the irrepressible Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver on the beloved sitcom “Leave It to Beaver,” he told the producers that he’d rather be at his first Cub Scout meeting.

The show’s creators and producers, Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, were impressed that he wanted to be a real kid – in fact, Mathers says that was the clincher that got him hired.

“To be honest with you, they were looking for someone whose mother wasn’t pushing them,” says Mathers, 62.

“I had my priorities. Being a child, it didn’t matter whether I worked. I wanted to do things that were fun.”

When “Leave It to Beaver” premiered in the fall of 1957, it was just one of many family-based sitcoms that peppered the TV landscape, among them “The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet” and “Father Knows Best.”

But none of them have remained in the public consciousness as long as “Beaver.” While the show’s ratings never cracked the top 25, it has endured in rerun heaven since it left the air in 1963; the cast reunited in the early 1980s for a TV movie and a new series.

This week, Shout Factory released all six seasons of the original “Beaver” on a 37-disc DVD set. One disc is devoted to extras, including the original pilot that featured a different Ward and Wally, interviews with the cast and promos.

Classic episodes found the Beav getting stuck in a soup bowl on a billboard, Wally copying Eddie’s slick haircut and Eddie leaving home and staying in his own place, which wasn’t quite the palace he boasted about.

“All the episodes are from real life,” says Mathers. “Those things really happened to kids. Joe Connelly actually kept a diary when he was in his teens and wrote things down about what happened to him.”

Unlike today when shows are geared to certain demographic groups, says Mathers, “this was written for the whole family.

“When you were a child you can relate a lot more to the Beaver. When you are a teen, you can relate more to Wally, and as an adult, June and Ward’s position seem a lot easier to understand.”