The Unusual Circumstances That Made ‘Leave It To Beaver’ A TV Classic

Beaver Started A Band

This was briefly mentioned earlier, but during his high school years, Jerry Mathers started a band called Beaver and the Trappers. They were your typical garage band, playing gigs around Southern California. He also recorded two songs on his own, “Don’t ‘Cha Cry” and “Wind-Up Toy” towards the end of taping the show. This was during the time when Mathers took a break from acting. He probably just had to be in a band on his bucket list and got to check it off at an early age.

The songs can be found if you search well enough on the internet. We have not heard them, but it would be a funny bet to make with a friend of whether or not the song will be good enough to listen to the whole thing all the way through or not. We are sure The Beav had some talent in music in him.

Mathers Definitely Wasn’t Killed In Vietnam

And the rumor mill keeps spinning. In high school, Jerry Mathers decided to join the US Air Force Reserve. In the late 1960s, a (completely untrue) rumor began to spread that he had been killed in the line of duty in Vietnam. This rumor is made even more ridiculous because Mathers was never stationed outside the US. The rumor mostly came about because someone with a similar name was killed and the major news outlets made a mistake and doled out that it was the child star that died and not the other person.

A quote from an article reads,”A roommate woke him up one morning with “Do you know you’re dead,” thrusting a newspaper in his face, carrying the Vietnam account of Private Mathers killed in action. At home, Mrs. Mathers received a tearful call from a fan offering condolences, her first awareness of the mistaken identity report.” Must have been hard for mom in that moment of confusion.

Speaking of not dying in Vietnam, what else happened? Click “Next” to find out.