This ‘Simpsons’ Actor Almost Starred in ‘Leave It to Beaver’
Before Leave It to Beaver. He was so close, in fact, that he was actually featured in the show’s original 1957 pilot.
It’s A Small World featured Barbara Billingsley as June Cleaver and Jerry Mathers as the Beaver, but the pilot had some jarring alternative-universe casting as well. Wally and Ward Cleaver were played by different actors, and smart-ass kid Eddie Haskell went by a different name, Frankie Bennett. Simpsons voice maestro Shearer was Frankie, up to typical Haskell antics by tricking Wally and the Beaver into believing they’d get a free bicycle if they could save up 1,000 bottle caps. What a wise guy.
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Producers decided to go in a different direction with Ward and Wally, hiring the familiar Hugh Beaumont and Tony Dow when It’s A Small World became Leave It to Beaver. But according to Shearer, it was his mom and dad who pulled the plug on his chance to continue as Eddie Haskell.
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“My parents, they said, ‘You know, it’s cool for you to be a working actor,” he told Howard Stern in 2010. “But I was going to public school, and they said, ‘If you’re going to be in a show as a part of the cast, week in and week out, you can’t go to public school. We’re going to have to put you in one of those special Hollywood schools.”
Shearer’s parents thought that was a lousy idea. “We don’t think it’s right, 20 Teamsters standing around going, ‘Hey, the kid doesn’t have it today.’”
Stern couldn’t believe Shearer’s parents had the chutzpah to turn down that sweet Leave It to Beaver money. (Hate to break it to you, Howard, but even Jerry Mathers didn’t get residuals after the show was rerun six times. That sucked for the original cast, since the show only found real popularity in syndication. During Leave It to Beaver’s actual run, it never broke the top 30 shows in the Nielsen ratings.)
Shearer told Stern that he hadn’t seen his performance alongside Mathers in years until David Letterman played it during a guest appearance on Late Night. “I must have been about 10,” Shearer ed.
What did he think of his performance? “The only thing I could think of was that that was pre-orthodonture me. My teeth were out to here.”
“Funny-looking Eddie Haskell,” chuckled Stern.
“Yeah,” replied Shearer. “With a tusk.”