(1957–1963)

Submitted by Tornado Dragon

SHORT VERSION:
While playing a football game with his school’s team outside the Mayfield Harvest Festival, Beaver spots the thief who stole his bicycle pedaling past the field with it and going towards the vendors. Beaver chases after him while holding the ball and scores the game-winning touchdown for his team without realizing it.

After chasing the thief around the different vendors, Beaver stops him by pushing an ice cream cart in front of him, sending him over the handlebars into a pie-eating contest table, and he slides right into a rack of pies. As an added bonus, two of those pies fly off and splatter onto Beaver’s nemesis Judy.

Beaver reclaims his bicycle, and a few nights later, after his father Ward kisses him before bedtime, he asks for him to read him a bedtime story this time, saying that he’d better do as much of this kind of stuff as possible while he is still young.

LONG VERSION:
As Wally (Erik von Detten) is on a date with Karen (Erika Christensen) one evening, her old flame Kyle (Matthew Thomas Carey) shows up and worms his way into the date, pushing Wally out. Karen soon decides to hang around with him rather than with Wally, but she soon comes to regret it when she sees how much of a punk he is (not to mention the fact that he is friends with the thief who stole Beaver’s [Cameron Finley] bicycle).

One day, Ward (Christopher McDonald) decides to surprise Beaver by showing up to one of his school’s football games unannounced, but he is unable to find him on the team, and he talks to the coach and finds out that Beaver had quit to get extra help after school. That same afternoon, Beaver and his friend Larry (E.J. De La Peña) happen to come across Kyle and the bike thief (Glenn Harris, Jr.), and the thief makes a deal with Beaver where, if he goes up inside the giant coffee cup on the sign of a nearby café to find out if there is real coffee in it or just steam emitting from it, he’ll give him his bike back. Beaver naively accepts, and he ends up getting stuck inside the cup, enabling the thief to leave with his bike again.

When Ward gets home and tells June (Janine Turner) and Wally the news about Beaver, Wally tells him to go easy on him, because he’s got enough trouble in his life without always having to worry about letting him down. Larry then shows up with some cops to fill the family in on Beaver’s predicament, so they head down to the café. Ward goes inside the cup to chat with Beaver, telling him that he knows that he quit the team, and Beaver tells him that he feels like he has been letting him down ever since his bike got stolen. Ward soon realizes that he is treating Beaver the same way his father treated him, so he apologizes to Beaver and tells him that he doesn’t have to play football if he doesn’t want to, but Beaver decides to rejoin the team.

A week later, as Beaver and his team are making a final play at a game just outside the Mayfield Harvest Festival, Beaver catches the ball and accidentally starts running towards his team’s goal line. Thankfully, before he can cross it, the thief re-appears with his bike and pedals off towards the vendors, which is behind the opposing team’s goal line. Beaver chases after him, scoring the game-winning touchdown in the midst of his pursuit. They pass by Kyle and Karen at a fudge stand, and Karen watches as Kyle trips Beaver to give his friend more time to get away, and then remarks that Beaver’s family are a bunch of losers. Wally then shows up, having followed Beaver, and he makes Kyle pay for what he said by sending him into a vat of liquid fudge before continuing on after Beaver. Karen dumps Kyle and goes after Wally.

After chasing the thief all around the vendors, Beaver stops him by pushing an ice cream cart in front of him, sending him over the handlebars into a pie-eating contest table, and he slides right into a rack of pies. As an added bonus, two of those pies fly off and splatter onto Beaver’s nemesis Judy (Brighton Hertford). Beaver reclaims his bike, and Karen kisses Wally.

A couple of nights later, after Ward kisses Beaver before bedtime, Beaver asks him to read him a bedtime story this time, saying that he’d better do as much of this kind of stuff as possible while he is still young.