What greater all-American hero is there than a lifeguard? Symbols of vigilance, strength, and protectiveness, lifeguards have an honored place in our culture. And isn't Wally Cleaver a perfect fit for the role?
So it would seem. Everybody thinks he looks great in his new lifeguard uniform, and Eddie and others tease him with thoughts of the young ladies who will throw themselves in the water at Friends Lake just to be saved by him. Trouble is, it doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone that you've got to be 18 to be a lifeguard, and Wally is only 15. Thus Wally is disqualified. Not to worry though, because there are other jobs available at the lake, such as..."candy butcher!"
What's there to be ashamed of? You go about the beach barking "Get your hot dogs right here!," providing beach-goers a service that will enhance the pleasure of a day at the shore. Admittedly, though, going from lifeguard to hot dog man is a bit of a comedown. Beaver certainly thinks so. He invited his pals Gilbert and Whitey to go down to Friends Lake to see his heroic lifeguard brother, and here he is in a chef's costume with a floppy white hat hawking edibles.
Poor Beaver, right? No; poor Wally, as Ward informs Beaver in his instructive end-of-episode lecture. Wally was doing an honest job; Beaver was using him to feel important in front of his friends. This is not fair to Wally. Beaver quickly sees the error of his ways.
The well-done sequence at the beach makes this a most pleasurable episode, the closest LITB ever got to a "beach movie." There is plenty of amusing incident between Ward and June, Beaver and his buddies, and Eddie and the two girls he brings with him (Alma and Mary Ellen). Eddie is costumed in a goofy-looking straw hat and what look like capri pants, and sits playing a bongo drum like some sort of beach beatnik. Why? Maybe the intended visual statement was: Wally may look a little silly in his job, but Eddie is silly by nature and always will be.
So it would seem. Everybody thinks he looks great in his new lifeguard uniform, and Eddie and others tease him with thoughts of the young ladies who will throw themselves in the water at Friends Lake just to be saved by him. Trouble is, it doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone that you've got to be 18 to be a lifeguard, and Wally is only 15. Thus Wally is disqualified. Not to worry though, because there are other jobs available at the lake, such as..."candy butcher!"
What's there to be ashamed of? You go about the beach barking "Get your hot dogs right here!," providing beach-goers a service that will enhance the pleasure of a day at the shore. Admittedly, though, going from lifeguard to hot dog man is a bit of a comedown. Beaver certainly thinks so. He invited his pals Gilbert and Whitey to go down to Friends Lake to see his heroic lifeguard brother, and here he is in a chef's costume with a floppy white hat hawking edibles.
Poor Beaver, right? No; poor Wally, as Ward informs Beaver in his instructive end-of-episode lecture. Wally was doing an honest job; Beaver was using him to feel important in front of his friends. This is not fair to Wally. Beaver quickly sees the error of his ways.
The well-done sequence at the beach makes this a most pleasurable episode, the closest LITB ever got to a "beach movie." There is plenty of amusing incident between Ward and June, Beaver and his buddies, and Eddie and the two girls he brings with him (Alma and Mary Ellen). Eddie is costumed in a goofy-looking straw hat and what look like capri pants, and sits playing a bongo drum like some sort of beach beatnik. Why? Maybe the intended visual statement was: Wally may look a little silly in his job, but Eddie is silly by nature and always will be.
