When TV Guide rated the top 100 shows of all time...
A Leave It To Beaver show rated in at #42:
The gentle tone of this definitive ‘50 series was already set by its second episode "Captain Jack." Raw eggs, Mom’s beauty cream, and Dad’s brandy have been disappearing for weeks before June and Ward (Hugh Beaumont and Barbara Billingsley) figure out that Wall and "the Beav" (Tony Dow and Jerry Mathers) are hiding something big - a pet alligator. The suburbs are not place for the scaly beast, however, so Ward and June make the boys return Captain Jack, as the creature is called, to his namesake, a crusty alligator farm farm operator (Edgar Buchanan). And rather than grounding Wally and the Beav for getting a gator behind their backs, Ward and June buy their sons a puppy. So much for per peeves.
