Lumpy Rutherford - Overview

Overview

Lumpy is introduced to the viewer in the first season episode "Lumpy Rutherford". He's the 16 year old son of Fred, (Ward Cleaver's co-worker). The Rutherfords live somewhere in the Cleaver neighborhood, which gives Lumpy the opportunity to bully the Cleaver boys on their way home from school. The boys plot Lumpy's come-uppance but the plot backfires when Fred accidentally steps into the trap. Although a touch of the bully never leaves Lumpy, he eventually becomes Wally's friend. They are in the same class together at school, in spite of a three year age spread between the two.

Lumpy is a papa's boy. He is well known for referring to his father as "Daddy". Fred would tell Clarence he was too old and big (usually referring to his "lumpiness") to call him "Daddy". A running gag on the show was to have Fred, who always referred to his son as Clarence, call him "Lumpy" when angry. Fred would also call Lumpy a "big boob" or a "big oaf." Lumpy's mother Gwendolyn ("Geraldine", in some early episodes) and his younger sister, Violet (who is about Beaver's age), round out the family. Violet gives Beaver a black eye in an early episode. Lumpy also has a never-seen-on-the-show brother.

Lumpy is not the brightest fellow in Mayfield. He is a very hefty young lad and is often teased because of it. Lumpy often convinces others to do things that he is really too afraid to do himself. He sometimes picks on Beaver. Beaver responds by yelling at Lumpy from a distance "Lumpy Dumpy looks like an ape." Several references are made that Lumpy plays the clarinet, and later plays tuba.

When Lumpy wins a college football scholarship in a later episode, June Cleaver throws a party and bakes a cake in the shape of a football field. In another episode, Wally and Eddie Haskell play a prank on Lumpy that involves the rear axle of his car being removed with a chain.