Showing posts with label 50s sitcom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 50s sitcom. Show all posts

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Jerry Mathers

Jerry Mathers is the granddaddy of all washed-up celebrities. For all intents and purposes, he was the "Dustin Diamond" of the 1950s, reaching the pinnacle of his life before he even hit age 15 when he starred as Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver on the hit TV show "Leave It To Beaver" from 1957-1963. Here are some early pictures of a young Mathers:


America loved the inquisitive young tyke on Leave It To Beaver. He was a cute and wholesome young boy growing up in a time of innocence. The sit-com followed the young Beaver as he experienced his adolescent years at school, the candy shop, and throughout his neighborhood.

Puberty, however, was extremely harsh to Mathers, as it gave him a good ass-kicking from which he never recovered. Mathers morphed from a cute wholesome kid into an ugly little troll as is painfully obvious in the pictures below:



Rather than accept his fate in life and attempt to move on to bigger and better things, Mathers has attempted to stay in the limelight long after his time has passed. He occasionally shows up in self-parody roles. I remember seeing him playing a washed-up loser (i.e., himself) on an episode of Married With Children in the early 1990s. He also maintains a website where he refers to himself as "An Entertainment Legend and American Icon" even though his only acting of any significance ended 43 years ago when he was a mere 15 years old. He also still makes guest appearances in an unsuccessful attempt to make him seem important and worthy of respect. All of this makes Mathers one washed-up celebrity!