Leave It to Beaver is an American television situation comedy about an inquisitive and often naïve boy named Theodore “The Beaver” Cleaver and his adventures at home, in school, and around his suburban neighborhood. The show also starred Barbara Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont as Beaver’s parents, June and Ward Cleaver, and Tony Dow as Beaver’s brother Wally. The show has attained an iconic status in the US, with the Cleavers exemplifying the idealized suburban family of the mid-20th century.

The show was created by writers Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher. These veterans of radio and early television found inspiration for the show’s characters, plots, and dialogue in the lives, experiences, and conversations of their own children. Leave It to Beaver is one of the first primetime sitcom series written from a child’s point-of-view. Like several television dramas and sitcoms of the late 1950s and early 1960s, Leave It to Beaver is a glimpse at middle-class, white American boyhood. In a typical episode Beaver got into some sort of trouble, then faced his parents for reprimand and correction. However, neither parent was omniscient; indeed, the series often showed the parents debating their approach to child rearing, and some episodes were built around parental gaffes.

The Munsters is an American television sitcom depicting the home life of a family of benign monsters. It stars Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster and Yvonne De Carlo as his wife, Lily Munster. The series was a satire of both traditional monster movies and the wholesome family fare of the era, and was produced by the creators of Leave It to Beaver. It ran concurrently with The Addams Family.

The series original aired on CBS from September 24, 1964 to May 12, 1966; 70 episodes were produced. It was broadcast weekly on BBC1 in the UK. It was canceled after ratings dropped to a low due to the premiere of ABC’s Batman, which was in color. Though ratings were low during its initial two-year run, The Munsters found a large audience in syndication. This popularity warranted a spin-off series, as well as several films, including one with a theatrical release. On October 26, 2012, NBC aired a modern reimagining of The Munsters called Mockingbird Lane.