Trees in Pop Culture! Movies, Comics, Songs & More

Mike Cassidy from Davey's West Columbus office shares a list of tree appearances in pop culture, such as movies, comics, songs and more, which reminds us of the huge benefit trees play in our world. 

In this episode we cover:  

• Trees have a larger space in our mind (1:17)
• Trees as creatures (2:44)
  • Lord of the Rings (3:26)
  • Maleficent (3:47)
  • Guardians of the Galaxy (4:50)
  • The Wizard of Oz (5:46)
  • The Trees by Rush (6:40)
• Trees as obstacles (7:43)
  • Harry Potter (7:52)
  • Poltergeist (8:54)
  • The Happening (10:04)
• Forests as a setting (11:52)
  • Star Wars (11:58)
  • Tarzan (14:15) (16:26)
  • The Ritual (15:46)
• Trees used as allegory (17:36)
  • The Giving Tree (17:41)
  • Sleepy Hollow (18:48)
  • Pan's Labyrinth (19:09)
• Trees as homes (20:05)
  • Trolls (20:11)
  • Keebler elf (21:15)
• Trees as a spiritual focus (21:35)
  • Avatar (21:41)
• Swamp Thing (21:54)

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Transcript

Doug Oster: Welcome to The Davey Tree Expert Company's podcast, Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each week, our expert arborists share advice on seasonal tree care, how to make your trees thrive, arborists' favorite trees, and much, much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more because, here at the Talking Trees podcast, we know trees are the answer. This week, we're joined again by Mike Cassidy. He's a sales arborist for the West Columbus Davey Tree Office.

The last time Mike and I talked, he was quite a funny dude and pranked me a couple of times when we were talking about deer. We had a great time on the podcast. Over the years, we've talked about how important trees are, about shade, energy savings, beauty, many other things. Today, we're going to have fun. Mike came up with this topic. Mike, welcome back to the show. Tell us what are we going to talk about today.

Mike Cassidy: This is something near and dear to my heart, as someone who was raised by the TV. I'd like to talk about trees in media: books, movies, and TV shows, and the trees that shape our, I don't know, collective myth-making, I guess you could say. It is fun, but I think on another level, you could think of it as-- you and I think about trees all the time. We think about macronutrients and what they need and what species they are, and how they interact.

I think it's important when visiting a property and just when-- sometimes it's nice to take a step back and say, the trees have a larger space in our mind, maybe than a lot of other things in nature. They're majestic and huge and give us these grand ideas and allegories for things in our lives. I think it's fun, but myth-making and storytelling is a huge part of the human experience. It shapes a lot of what people think.

Doug: What was it that made you come up with this topic?

Mike: I think as a salesman and just as a person, a lot of how I interact with people is through storytelling and through my little one-liners and ways to quickly connect to people when I'm on a property, when I'm meeting someone. A lot of that comes from pop culture references. If I can reference something that you know about, we immediately have that connection. I think when it comes to trees, it's no different. When we can immediately connect on something that we both know about, now we have this common ground, and we can go forward. It gives us a little bit almost like we're friends, all of a sudden.

Doug: What are we going to discuss first?

Mike: I have a few categories here. Let's start as trees as creatures. A big one. I don't know anything about the media you consume. For all I know, you could just be specifically reading nature journals [chuckles] because I know you're a busy guy.

Doug: Well, I'm an old dude who was also raised on the television.

Mike: [laughs]

Doug: My cultural references go all over the place. This'll be interesting. I want to see what you've got and what I can relate to. Hopefully, the listeners can relate in the same way.

Mike: All right. Well, the first one, the big one, trees as creatures. The Ent from Lord of the Rings. You remember those big guys? You pick them up and sweep down. I think they had a big battle with Sauron at one point in the book. Lord of the Rings, obviously, highly influential across media. I think those transfer well into the forest army from Maleficent. I had to ask my wife about that. You know about Maleficent?

Doug: I'm completely clueless on that, but Lord of the Rings was a big deal when I was growing up in the 1970s.

Mike: [laughs]

Doug: Lord of the Rings was just a big deal. Melissa Fenn, did I say it right?

Mike: Maleficent.

Doug: Okay.

Mike: You know me neither. She's got a tree army that helps her on her soldiers out there. They're real close to Ents. Ents, too, capture the spirit of what I think a tree would be like if it was a living thing. What they say, their words are so long that the elves can't even stand to learn their language. They just talk forever about nothing. [chuckles] I love those guys. How about Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy now?

Doug: That's a big deal for me from the movies. My son is always buying me Groot stuff because I love Groot. One of my favorite characters in the first movie-- well, first and second movies, I really enjoyed both of them. Groot is definitely a cool character.

Mike: Yes. This is going to be a lot of me telling you what I've cried about. Man, that first movie when Groot dies, I was just sobbing in the theater [laughs] with my girlfriend at the time. She's second-guessing everything. I'm crying about a tree monster.

[laughter]

Doug: Being a tree guy, it makes sense. Groot is such a lovable character that how could you not?

Mike: How about the talking apple trees from The Wizard of Oz?

Doug: That's what I was hoping you were going to bring up because when I first watched Wizard of Oz, we didn't have colored TV. I never saw the transition to color until later into the '80s. Those trees were terrifying to me.

Mike: [laughs] You can imagine.

Doug: Yes. A lot of scary stuff in Wizard of Oz. Those trees were definitely scary. Considering the era, 1939, really well done. Really well done.

Mike: I'm quite the impressionist. You probably didn't know this, but I have a, "How would you like if someone came and picked something off of you?" [laughs]

Doug: That's good. That's good.

Mike: I knew you'd like it. Okay. This is the only song I have, The Trees by Rush.

Doug: Oh, okay. I know Rush pretty well, but I'm not sure if I know The Trees.

Mike: Okay. He said it's about the maples and the oaks, and they're having a battle, because the maples want more sunlight and the oaks say, "Why can't you be happy with what you have?" It's a blend of trees as sentient and trees as allegory, right? At the end, humans are the great. Leveler with their axes and saws. That's one you got to check out if you're a Rush fan and a tree guy, but you don't know The Trees by Rush. A lot of good stuff in there.

Doug: I'm sure I've heard it, but I just don't remember. We had a lot of Rush growing up in the '70s. I'm sure somewhere along the line, I heard that song. In the time, I probably wasn't really into trees the way I am now.

Mike: I understand. I'm going to switch gears here. Trees as obstacle or a plot point. The Whomping Willow from Harry Potter.

Doug: I'm out there. I have no idea. I don't know any Harry Potter, but you tell me because everybody knows about Harry Potter. I'm too old.

Mike: Now, this is interesting for tree people also, not just the-- but I swear in this movie, and you have to Google an image or something, the tree was topped at some point. The Whomping Willow was topped. I feel like I need to talk to JK Rowling just to confirm, but it was topped. Bad practice at Hogwarts.

Doug: Only a tree expert like you would be looking at this fantasy movie and say, "Geez, I think they might have topped that tree."

Mike: [chuckles] They needed a Davey guy to come out there. It's bad practice. If Hagrid was out there with his pole saw, someone went too hard on the Whomping Willow.

Doug: [laughs] That's good.

Mike: Okay. How about-- I got two horror movies for you here. The tree from the scene in Poltergeist, when the little girl's in her bed and it comes smashing through the window.

Doug: Oh, yes. Oh, man. I know that movie well. That was one I saw in the theater as probably 19, 20-year-old, somewhere in there. Any idea what year that movie's from?

Mike: I don't know. Steven Spielberg.

Doug: I'm going to guess '80s, early '80s. That's just a guess. I don't know. We'll have to look it up. Man, what a scary movie.

Mike: I had it on VHS, and I was allowed to watch it when I was a kid because it is rated PG. My mom's like, "Here you go. Here's Poltergeist. Have a good time." I'm just absolutely horrified. [chuckles]

Doug: I don't know how they got a PG out of that one because that is terrifying. That is a very, very scary movie. I don't think anybody who knows the movie could forget that tree coming through the bedroom window.

Mike: That's it. Yes, I think I thought of that in many notes. Okay, one more horror movie and trees as obstacles, The Happening. Do you remember that movie from 2000s?

Doug: That one, I don't know.

Mike: This is trees or all plants are making people go crazy. They're letting out spores, and it's like an environmentalist message at the end that we need to take it easy on the planet. Didn't stick, but a heck of a movie.

Doug: Now, is that something that you saw in the theater or saw later or--?

Mike: Big time theater.

Doug: Oh, theater. All right.

Mike: I'd say between the years 2002 and 2009, I saw about 75% of movies that came out in theaters. That was like the number one place on the weekend. We'd get dropped off at the Rave Cinema in Columbus, and that was it.

Doug: I'd say between '73 and probably around late '80s, '90s, I was about the same. In the '70s, probably almost everything that came out, we went and saw. That's what you did. That was Friday and Saturday. You went and saw the latest movie.

Mike: Did you see Star Wars, the original, in a nearly empty theater because no one was going to see it when it came out?

Doug: No. Actually, for Star Wars 1, I stood in line at a mall to see that. It had already exploded. It was probably a week after it opened. Yes, actually stood in line in a mall to get to see the first Star Wars. Actually, saw it three times.

[laughter]

Doug: Came back and saw it two other times.

Mike: All right. That's a good segue into trees or forest as a setting because the speeder bike scene on Endor in Return of the Jedi is so cool. Just all the Endor scenes with the pulling the corn out and tripping the stormtroopers and all of it, forest as setting.

Doug: That movie, I went with my best buddy and our wives. I forget what else was playing, something else that they were more interested in. We're just like, "No, man, we got to see Return of the Jedi." They're like, "All right." Then that ends up being my wife's favorite of the Star Wars movies-

Mike: Mine too.

Doug: -because of the Ewoks. That speeder bike scene through the trees, amazing. Some of it's shot somewhere in California through the redwoods. That's an amazing scene.

Mike: Yes, it's spectacular. What's your favorite Star Wars? A little bit of a tangent here. What's your favorite?

Doug: Oh, it's got to be Empire Strikes Back for me. The first three trilogies, that one does it for me. Now, I haven't really looked back. When I see the second three, those I did not get into. Then after that, I'm really into all the Star Wars shows and everything when I can get them-- My son actually gets them for me. I don't know if we can talk about that.

[laughter]

Doug: I'm too cheap to buy the streaming service. I love all those Star Wars shows. How about you? What's your movie?

Mike: Return of the Jedi, for sure. Now, I was 10 when Episode 1 came out, so date me there. I was dead on for Jar Jar Binks. I had a little stuffed animal under my arm when I went to sleep. Getting older, I'm like, "Well--" The original series was what it's in.

Doug: Yes, that series with Jar Jar Binks and such, it just didn't do it for me.

Mike: [laughs]

Doug: I was so excited that they brought it back. I was like, "Oh, this is going to be great." I was disappointed. [chuckles]

Mike: Okay. Trees and Forests is setting. Tarzan.

Doug: Oh, yes.

Mike: What was your first Tarzan that you saw then?

Doug: My parents were big Johnny Weissmuller fans. That's early, early Tarzan. Those are the Tarzan's-- [crosstalk] We're talking way back. Those are the Tarzan that I most relate to. That's so far back that no one's going to remember that Tarzan.

Mike: [laughs]

Doug: That's the one I grew up on. Tarzan, after that, what was the first modern Tarzan movie? I don't remember, but it was a big deal.

Mike: The one I remember from being a kid was the animated movie.

Doug: Oh, now, that's a great one. There was one that came out in the modern era. Again, I guess I should have talked to you beforehand. It was a big deal in the modern era when it came out. It was a big movie. I can't remember. It was Tarzan. Oh, I can't remember.

Mike: Now, you just have people yelling at their radios in their car. [laughs]

Doug: Yes, I know. I'm looking it up now, folks. Tell me what's next, and we'll go back to Tarzan.

Mike: This one is a little bit less known. It's called The Ritual. It was a big deal horror movie for me. It takes place in a Scandinavian forest. The way that forest sets mood is just incredible. The whole thing looks like it's been dead for hundreds of years. They're trudging through the snow. The way it envelops them and creates this sense of hopelessness is just perfect. You have to imagine people have felt that way in that forest forever. It's really incredible.

Doug: All right, back to Tarzan. I'm thinking Tarzan, the Ape Man, 1981, Bo Derek. That was a big deal. Then there's also Greystoke, Tarzan, Greystoke. I remember that was a big deal, 1984. The Tarzan animated, 1999. That is a classic. That's awesome. We have a live one, Tarzan and the Lost City, 1998. The Legend of Tarzan, 2016. It's on Hulu. Lots of Tarzans there. Nothing came up with Johnny Weissmuller. I don't know why. [chuckles]

Mike: When you said the modern era Tarzan you're referring to, you were talking about a movie from 40 years ago, right?

Doug: Yes.

Mike: [laughs]

Doug: The modern era, brand new era. It just happened back in 1981. 1981 to me, that's the year I got married. It doesn't seem that long ago. I was 21 years old in 1981, and now, I'm 65. '81 doesn't seem that long ago, even though it was.

Mike: Yes. [chuckles] This one is trees used as allegory. Number one with a bullet, The Giving Tree. Everyone reads it to their kid. I have a two-and-a-half-year-old, and my dad just came over with the giving tree and read it to all of us. My dad and I are just pouring tears reading this book. Although this time on this reading, I did think it's almost an allegory for an abusive co-dominant relationship. The tree, there's a lot of trees. Feels like the tree could have been take a branch from everybody and then build your house. I'm an old man. I just need somewhere to sit.

Doug: Here's my giving tree. Since we're going off on all these tangents, I fish out of a kayak. The giving tree is all the poor guys that throw their lures and get caught in the tree. They can't get to it, but I can get to it in the kayak.

Mike: [laughs]

Doug: That's my giving tree.

Mike: Excellent. You got to bring a little fertilizer out to that tree or something.

Doug: Yes, this is quite a podcast. What else is on your list?

Mike: All right. Do you remember Johnny Depp's Sleepy Hollow with the tree that bleeds when they cut the roots?

Doug: I don't remember the tree, but I remember the movie.

Mike: Oh, baby. That was another one that made a big impression on me, man. I was so scared. That's got to be late '90s, early 2000s. What a movie and what a tree. Then my number one, too, is the tree from Pan's Labyrinth. I don't know if you saw that movie. Fairytale versus historical fiction. They had that fig tree where she had to crawl underneath and feed the rocks to the toad and come back up and heal the tree. It was like an allegory for her mother being healed, life and death, and femininity. I just loved that movie.

Doug: Actually, my daughter-in-law loaned me that DVD to look at. That's really a cool movie. With everything we're talking about, I wonder what the listeners are thinking and what they have when they start thinking of the trees that have affected them in media. Love to hear from you guys and hear what we missed. This is really cool, really fun.

Mike: Yes. All right, let me give you this one. Trees as homes. Trees where they live in the movies, all right? Number one, I was working on this list last week. My kids watching Trolls, they live in that little tree. I don't know how many kids' movies you see anymore, but great movie. It's interesting because these evil orcs or whatever are holding a tree in a cage in the middle of their town. It's the perfect example of ultimate evil and unhappiness. I thought that was a great thing to bring up in this podcast that when they really want to pervert nature and put in a tree in a metal cage, it's such great visual storytelling of something that is very wrong.

Doug: I'm seeing kids' movies that are for really young kids because the grandkids are newborn, two, and four. I have seen a few kids' movies, but my favorite show is Paw Patrol. I love Paw Patrol.

Mike: You got to get on Bluey. That's the show.

Doug: All right, I'll have to check it out.

Mike: Paw Patrol. I watch a lot of Paw Patrol at my house. Not a lot of trees, though. Okay, how about the Keebler Elves in the Hollow Tree?

Doug: That's where I was going to say. I didn't think you were going to go there, but, yes, definitely Keeblers, man. There's no doubt about it. Everyone knows the Keebler living in a tree.

Mike: Yes. This is a good transition from trees as home to trees as spiritual focus or some kind of a part of divinity in movies. The Avatar home tree. Those Avatar, the blue guys, they live in the tree. They have the tree they pray to. They do that big ritual. I think some of that is really interesting. All right, near and dear to my heart, one last thing I really want to talk about is Swamp Thing. Marvel Comics, many series. Sometimes when I need power in my personal life, I think of myself as Swamp Thing, the protector of the green.

Doug: I read the comic as a kid. I loved Swamp Thing. When they made it into a movie, in the modern era, of course-

Mike: [laughs]

Doug: -I loved the first Swamp Thing. How can you not identify with that character? He's got a lot of different emotions, Swamp Thing does. [chuckles]

Mike: Well, my favorite's always, biologist, there's an explosion in the swamp, and then his body falls into the swamp, and then he is reborn Swamp Thing. They find his bones in the swamp, and Swamp Thing still exists. It's the perfect combination of, is Alec Holland the Swamp Thing, the man, or did the swamp encompass all that he is? That is my favorite. That's my number one tree guide, tree in media. Always go back to Swamp Thing, protector of the green.

Doug: We finished up with something that we both love, Swamp Thing. I wonder what listeners will think of that, if they even know what Swamp Thing is. I hope so. Well, Mike, what a blast we had today. This was absolutely wonderful. I want to thank you for coming up with the topic because, like I said, we were looking at trees oftentimes scientifically and in many different facets, but to look at trees this way in our culture, to me, it was really fascinating, and as I said, just really fun. I really appreciate it.

I can't wait to see what you come up with next, man. We can make a series out of this. I can't wait to hear what people say. I hope you send us some messages and tell us what we should do. Then maybe we'll do a part two, even though this part one is pretty long. [chuckles]

Mike: Listener response.

Doug: All right, Mike, thanks so much. Really appreciate it. It was a great episode.

Mike: Thank you, Doug. Talk to you soon.

Doug: I hope you enjoyed that as much as Mike and I did. You can tell we were having some fun. What did we miss? Do you have any ideas for a possible part two? A couple of different ways to reach us, you can send us an email to podcasts@davey.com. That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-S @ D-A-V-E-Y.com. You can also click the link at the end of our show notes to text us a fan mail message. Would love to hear your ideas about trees and the media.

Remember to tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees podcast from the Davey Tree Expert Company. I'm your host, Doug Oster. As always, we like to remind you on the podcast, trees are the answer.

[00:25:13] [END OF AUDIO]