Referenced By / The Giving Tree

Literature

• In Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw, Greg says that his dad used to read the book to him as a bedtime story, and he thought it was great. However, in order to keep him from walking out at night, his dad shows him the infamous portrait of Shel Silverstein on the back and tells him that if he walks out the door at night, he'll see Shel Silverstein in the hallway.
• In Save the Enemy, Zoey's libertarian dad read The Giving Tree to her when she was four. He called it "evil" because it "promotes the immoral destruction of the self."

Live-Action TV

• In Friday Night Lights, Landry feels Tyra is taking advantage of him and not considering his feelings, and gives a rant comparing himself to the Giving Tree and her to the boy.
• In Just Shoot Me!, Elliot reads the book to school children, and is reduced to Inelegant Blubbering.
• In "The Savior", the first episode of the sixth season of Once Upon a Time, when Jafar taunts Aladdin with the fate of Saviors, his words are a paraphrase of the fate of the Giving Tree: "...you give, and give, and give, and for what? They pick the fruit, they cut the branches...and in the end all that's left is this shaky stump."

Comic Strips

• One Zits Sunday strip tells the entire story without words, with teen protagonist Jeremy as The Boy and Mom Connie as the Giving Tree. When the tree has become but a stump, Jeremy sits upon it, with the narrator stating that "the tree was happy...ish" and Connie thinking bitterly to herself that she can't wait until [Jeremy] has kids of his own.

Web Comics

• Sheldon: This strip has Arthur reading the book... and being outraged by it.

Web Original

• CollegeHumor: "The Really, Really Giving Tree" changes the boy from innocently selfish into an all-round Jerkass whose relationship with the tree is downright abusive. In the end, he frames the tree for a mass murder that he committed and has the nerve to demand that it give him $50 while it's being chainsawed to death.
• The Nostalgia Critic: The review of The Lorax (2012) begins with a parody of the story. A very, very Dark Parody.

Western Animation

• Bob's Burgers: In "Interview with a Pop-Pop-Pire", each of the Belchers tell their version of what happened to Bob's father when a tree almost fell on him. Linda's version is a parody of The Giving Tree with her as the tree, who gets tired of Bob Sr. taking from her and just falls on him.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: The episode "The Taking Tree" is a parody of the story.
• Robot Chicken: A sketch from "But Not in That Way" has the tree (voiced by Hulk Hogan) getting back at his friend by directing him to another tree, who turns out to be a raping tree.
• The Simpsons: The chalkboard gag for "The Bart Wants What It Wants" has Bart writing "The Giving Tree is not a chump."

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