In animation, seeing a tall, skinny tree anywhere is a sure sign that someone is about to go flying.
In the world of cartoons, any sufficiently tall, flexible tree can be transformed into a
Tree Buchet. The formula is generally as follows:
- Have the villain chase the hero through a forest, tree farm, or any other sufficiently wooded area.
- In an attempt to escape the villain, have the hero run up the tallest, skinniest tree available.
- Have the villain chase the hero up the tree. The fairly fragile tree will begin to bend beneath the weight of both people trapped within it, frequently doubling over.
- The hero must now jump out of the tree.
- We have a few seconds to register the look of terror on the villain's face before the tree, freed of the excess weight, snaps back up. Thwwwwpp! The villain goes flying.
A frequent variation is for a character to use a tree snare—a tree purposefully bent low, with a trap tied to one end. Usually done in an attempt to
Catch That Pigeon. Usually, the hunter will find himself either riding the tree out of town, or thrown back and forth after they get
caught in his own trap.
Another variation is the villain
choosing to catapult himself with a tree, either to reach something higher or to jump over a wall. The effect varies from catapulting directly into the ground to missing the target by one inch.
Yet
another variation is the hero using it to launch himself. This works,
unless it's too early in the story for success.
Tree Buchets are named after
trebuchets
(pronounced 'treh-boo-shay'). Note that the classic
Tree Buchet is
not an actual trebuchet: trebuchets work using a lever with heavy counterweights. Tree Buchets work because
trees are apparently perfectly elastic.
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Examples
Advertising
- There's a commercial right now for McDonald's that results in Ronald flying over the city with apples that drop randomly into the hands of children so they have healthy snacks.
- Happens in a Pop Tarts commercial, too.
Anime & Manga
Comics
- One issue of the old Sgt. Rock comic has a soldier obsessed with Superman comics use a tree to launch himself over a gunner's nest so he can grenade it.
Films
- The troll in the beginning of Enchanted has this happen to him.
- Shows up in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, during the bamboo forest fight.
- Rare live-action example: in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, an amphibian vehicle lands on a huge tree that was growing on the ravine's side. The car is gently lowered in to the river below, then the tree recoils and hits the cliff wall, knocking down several Soviet soldiers.
- In his first movie, Shrek bends a tree to use as a bridge for Fiona. After she crosses, he lets the tree go... unwittingly (or maybe not) sending poor Donkey flying.
- In Kung Fu Panda, Po tries to launch himself with a bamboo catapult, but he's just too heavy. When he gets off, the bamboo hits him in the face as it snaps back, then hits him again in the head on the rebound. He uses this trick to his advantage during his fight with Tai Lung at the climax of the film.
- Horton gets rid of Vlad the vulture this way in The Movie of Horton Hears a Who. The elephant manages a Bond One Liner before he does, then mentions that he usually doesn't come up with those until later.
Literature
- Used by Special Forces soldiers in John Scalzi's The Ghost Brigades to escape an enclosure guarded by automatic turrets that lacked the ability to aim up.
Mythology
Video Games
Web Comics
- In The Order of the Stick, Belkar does this to Durkon after the dwarf had already climbed onto a palm tree (to fight it, of course). As a variant, the tree doesn't send him flying, but instead unbends even further and smacks the dwarf into the ground on the other side. And then his own hammer falls on him.
Western Animation
- Very common in Hanna-Barbera cartoons, especially Wacky Races.
- Happens a lot in the Pink Panther cartoons and its spin-offs (The Inspector, The Ant and the Aardvark, Crazy Legs Crane), which are set in such environments more often than in Looney Tunes.
- A particularly old episode of The Simpsons had Homer attempt to make a tree snare and end up launching a bunny rabbit over a mile into the horizon.
- And in a halloween episode "Trial of the Fattest" he did it with a full size tree and essentially the entire supporting cast.
Moe: Oy, ya fatass!
- Done in Kim Possible a few times.
- This has happened to Wile E. Coyote a time or two.
- In the Veggie Tales episode "Madame Blueberry", the main character's treehouse is eventually flung off its tree in this manner.
- The Elefun and Friends short, "A Tangled Tale" features a panda trying to do this with bamboo to get over a river.
