The brilliant early ’80s iteration of Second City TV, which aired on Saturday’s at midnight on NBC, was–and continues to be– my favorite comedy sketch show, far outshining the SNL of those years (to say nothing of the dead-on-arrival SNL of today). Here’s one of the best of their TV send-ups. It’s the ‘Leave It To Beaver twenty years later’ episode featuring a hilarious John Candy as an overweight Beaver, Joe Flaherty as a drunk Ward, Eugene Levy as a depressed Wally and Dave Thomas as a snide grown-up Eddie Haskell. Several in-jokes make an appearance–Ward Cleaver is a drunk (as actor Hugh Beaumont was purported to be), Beaver is thought to have been killed in Vietnam (as Jerry Mathers was thought incorrectly to be) and Eddie Haskell is gay–which has nothing to do with actor Ken Osmond’s real life. Actually Osmond’s real life was much more interesting. Like other cast members, he wound up leaving show business and taking up a very different trade. In Osmond’s case he became a Los Angeles Police Department motorcycle cop. Lurid rumors also surrounded Osmond. One was that he was rock star Alice Cooper. Even stranger, he was thought by many to be porn star John Holmes. Jerry Mathers became a loan officer at a bank, while Hugh Beaumont took up Christmas tree farming in Michigan. As for Tony Dow he hung around show-business for a long time but found it tough-sledding apparently, which led him to working construction jobs. Then he became–get this–an abstract bronze sculptor. He said about his work: “The figures are abstract and not meant to represent reality, but rather the truth of the interactions as I see and feel them. I find the wood in the hills of Topanga Canyon and each piece evolves from my subcomcious.” Sure, Wally…