Tree Buchet: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
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
# 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 [[Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress|few seconds]] to register the [[Oh Crap|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
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.
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Yet ''another'' variation is the hero using it to launch himself. This works, [[Spoiled by the Format|unless it's too early in the story for success]].
Tree Buchets are named after ''[[wikipedia:Trebuchet|trebuchets]]'' (pronounced 'treh-byu-shay'). Note that the classic
Compare [[Catapult to Glory]], where this is done with an actual catapult, and [[Caught in a Snare]], which to catch a man-sized target needs similarly elastic trees.
{{examples}}
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== 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.
* In ''[[Little Women|Little Men]]'', the boys are playing by climbing up young trees until they bend all the way down and drop the boys back onto the ground. Jack picks too big a tree, leaving him dangling several feet in the air. Dan climbs up after him, and their combined weight lowers Jack safely on the ground, but as soon as he lets go, Dan goes flying.
** This game is also referenced in Robert Frost's poem "Birches".
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== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[
* A slightly more realistic version is used in the ''[[MacGyver]]'' episode "The Road Not Taken". When he needs to throw off some pursuers in the jungle, [[MacGyver]] builds a tree-based catapult to throw stones, and puts a light-based fuse on it. First he pulls four flimsy trees together and bends them down to the ground. He routes them under a solid tree branch and ties them together with a thin vine. Then he sets down his friend's rosary to refract sunlight onto the thin vine, creating a fuse. He stakes the thin vine into the ground with a good knot on a pointed stick, and attaches the pockets from his jacket (filled with rocks) to the tree trunks.
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* 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 season one 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 "Survival of the Fattest", he did it with a full size tree and essentially the entire supporting cast.
{{quote|
* Done in ''[[Kim Possible]]'' a few times.
* This has happened to [[Looney Tunes|Wile E. Coyote]] a time or two with trees or cacti. In one case, rather than launching Wile E himself, a cactus launched a misaimed explosive back at the unfortunate coyote.
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* 1960's [[Filmation]] ''[[The Atom]]'' episode "The House of Doom". The Atom uses one of these to fling himself after an escaping henchman's car.
* A Foghorn Leghorn cartoon [[Playing with a Trope|played with this one]], with Henery the Chicken Hawk setting up the "snare" trap, and putting corn in it. Foghorn mocks him roundly, about how a smart chicken would just pick up the corn, and then ends it with "A smart chicken would jump over it, like so!" and demonstrates. Too bad he hadn't thought of Henery [[Batman Gambit|building a pitfall trap right next to the snare]].
* George and Junior try this in the [[Tom and Jerry|MGM]] short ''The Henpecked Hobos''. Junior cuts the rope too early, while George is trying to explain the plan...
* Near the beginning of ''[[Goliath II]]'', the titular elephant accidentally gets knocked into a puddle while attempting to knock over ''a flower''.
* ''[[The Herculoids]]'' episode "The Raiders". In a light-hearted moment Igoo uses his great strength to turn a tree into a catapult to throw Dorno into a really high dive into the water.
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== [[Real Life]] ==
* [http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/monkeys-catapult-themselves-out-of-primate-research-institute.html Monkeys using trees to clear the walls of a research facility in Japan], via a ''[[Cracked.com|Cracked]]'' [http://www.cracked.com/article_18702_5-greatest-escape-artists-ever-were-animals.html article].
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]
[[Category:Just for Pun]]
[[Category:Tree Buchet]]▼
[[Category:Tropes Examined by the Mythbusters]]
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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