Treehouse of Fun

He actually builds this. Somehow.

A tree house, a free house,
A secret you and me house,
A high up in the leafy branches
Cozy as can be house.
A street house, a neat house,
Be sure and wipe your feet house
Is not my kind of house at all—
Let's go live in a tree house.

— "Tree House", Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

Treehouses make a great place for kids to hang out. They're located in the great outdoors, provide a high vantage point to watch for parents or rival gangs, and are naturally secluded enough to hide contraband (unapproved comics or magazines) but just close enough to sneak into the kitchen for sandwiches, cookies and lemonade. They make good clubhouses, and "no babies allowed" is an easy enough rule for them to make when they're up so high. Rope ladder optional — otherwise just nail a ladder of boards to the trunk.

This trope is prevalent in Western Animation, as it provides characters with a kids-only space for play and it contrasts with the conventional interior spaces in the home. The poorer kids might have a basic 2x4 platform crudely nailed up with clapboard sides. A rich kid might have a luxurious, carpenter-build treehouse with windows, curtains and seating.

Less commonly, adults may build large treehouses.

Compare Arboreal Abode and Treetop Town.

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Examples:

Comic Books

• The first issue of Phil Foglio's revival of Stanley and His Monster revolves around Stanley's attempts to build the world's best ever treehouse, following the instructions in a book of Fun Things For Boys he finds in the attic, without his parents finding out.
• In Crossing Midnight, Toshi jumping out of the treehouse that the twins loved playing in so much is how she discovers that she is Made of Iron.
• In one issue of the Reboot Legion Of Superheroes, Spark and Triad, who are on Spark's homeworld, hide out in the Ranzz siblings old treehouse. Triad, who grew up in an Orphanage of Fear, is deeply moved by what it represents, much to Spark's embarassment.

Comic Strips

• In Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin and Hobbes are in the treehouse a lot. Hobbes gets a lot of mileage out of the fact he's the only one who can climb up without the rope ladder being down, and can force Calvin to do ridiculous, flattering, and humiliating things to access the ladder.
• A Peanuts Sunday strip had Linus startled by a falling plank of wood. He stops and watches as more planks, tools, and eventually Charlie Brown crash down from above, then consoles him on how hard it is to build a treehouse.

Film — Live-Action

• Juliet's sexually liberated neighbor Suzy has a decidedly adult version of one in Juliet of the Spirits, where Suzy entertains male lovers. But her sex house is an actual treehouse, which is in an actual tree, complete with mechanized lift to bring up her boyfriends.
• In Sleepover, Julie and her friends have to sneak out of the house and go into her treehouse, painted in bright pink and yellow.
• Stand by Me has the boys hanging out in one of these at the beginning of the film.
• The Monster Squad hold their meetings in one.
• In the movie version of Bridge to Terabithia there is one used by the main characters as refuge place from real life problems.
• Step Brothers features a traditional tree-house enjoyed by the two leads and stocked with an impressive collection of porno magazines from several decades. Eventually replaced by an even cooler tree-house made from the remains of a small boat.
• In Disney's Swiss Family Robinson, the titular family contrives to build one as a home on the island where they're stranded. Why didn't they put their ingenuity and materials toward building a boat? Rule of Cool, of course!
• Tony has a grown-up's tree house in Our Blushing Brides. The tree house is actually a fully tricked-out apartment with electricity, a fireplace, phone service, and oh yeah, an electric ladder for climbing up.
• In Dennis the Menace, Dennis, Joey, and Margaret find an abandoned treehouse in the woods and decide to restore it to its former glory as their own personal hangout. During this time, Switchblade Sam steals Margaret's baby doll, and Margaret accuses Dennis and Joey of doing so due to their objection to having a nursery in the treehouse.
• Return of the Jedi has the Ewok village. Based of a Finca Bellavista in Venezuela, the Ewoks live in villages suspended in the tall trees of the forest moon of Endor. Bonus points for not only being a village, but also connecting by rope swings and ziplines.

Literature

• The Treehouse Series by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton is about two boys who have an elaborate treehouse that includes a library, bedrooms, a bowling alley, and a shark tank. There are numerous sequels, in each of which they add more stories; as of 2019, the most recent is The 117-Storey Treehouse.
• George and Harold from Captain Underpants hang out in a treehouse most of the time, to the point that all of their comics have a "Treehouse Comix, Inc." logo.
• The Magic Tree House series has two kids, Jack and Annie that go into their magic treehouse and are transported through time.
• Rush Melendy builds himself one in Elizabeth Enright's The Four-Story Mistake and it's also in Then There Were Five.
• In Doris Fein's Andrew Henrys Meadow, Andrew Henry builds one for a friend, though not for himself.
• From Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends, "Tree House" talks about how wonderful a treehouse is, contrasting it against a street house where people have to be neat.
  A tree house, a free house,
  A secret you and me house,
  A high up in the leafy branches
  Cozy as can be house.
  A street house, a neat house,
  Be sure and wipe your feet house
  Is not my kind of house at all—
  Let's go live in a tree house.
• Truth or Dare (2000): In 1959, the Jordan siblings became obsessed with aliens and pretended their treehouse was a starship.

Live Action TV

• The live action The Brady Bunch briefly had a treehouse too, just long enough for Bobby to sprain his ankle climbing up, developing a fear of heights.
• Barney & Friends features a treehouse which debuted in season 3 and was renovated and put to extensive use throughout the next three seasons.
• Cory moves into his treehouse in the pilot of Boy Meets World because his brother betrays him and his parents take his brother's side.
• Animal Planet has a series called Treehouse Masters that follows a team of treehouse builders. As these are professionals working for adult clients, the treehouses can get very elaborate; including things like multiple stories, lighting, and plumbing for kitchen or bathroom areas.
• Good Luck Charlie:
  • In the episode, "Up A Tree", Bob makes a deal with Mrs. Dabney to cut down the tree branch that holds up P.J. and Teddy's childhood treehouse so that she will bring her noisy dog that she was pet-sitting for a neighbor inside at night. Teddy, however, doesn't want Charlie to miss out on the experience, so she, with the help of the rest of the family, protests against Bob. Towards the end of the episode, Bob surrenders and joins the rest of the family in the treehouse. The treehouse collapses from their combined weight, but they rebuild the treehouse.
  • In the semi-final episode, "Down A Tree", P.J. is unable to afford the rent for his and Emmett's apartment, so he moves into the treehouse and makes Gabe promise not to tell Amy. Gabe keeps his promise, but Amy finds out anyway when she finds an extension cord that power's P.J.'s electronic devices. After the rest of the family (barring Charlie and Toby) talk to P.J. about how he shouldn't be afraid to ask his parents for help in dire situations, their combined weight once again causes the treehouse to collapse.
• The Good Night Show has the You and Me Tree, introduced in 2011's sixth season.
• In the Jonathan Creek episode "The Scented Room", the appalling Sylvester Le Fley and Lady Cutler, upon learning that their Lonely Rich Kid son wants a treehouse, install a metal box in a tree, with a lift so he doesn't get dirty climbing. He is not impressed.
• Punky Brewster features a huge treehouse, complete with a pulley to bring up Brandon the dog, behind Punky's and Cherie's apartment building. (The same treehouse still exists when Punky and her kids live in the building, although one episode of the short-lived Punky Brewster (2021) reboot centers around its desperate need for renovation.)

Tabletop Games

• Toon has a setting called "Toony Tykes Adventures" for fans of stuff like Calvin and Hobbes, Little Lulu and the like. One of the scenarios features the "Treehouse of Doom", a super-awesome treehouse designed with input from actual kids.

Video Games

• Click Clock Wood in Banjo-Kazooie features a treehouse in different stages of completion, throughout the various versions of the world. If you go in it once it's finished, you can find a Jiggy.
• The Hub Level/menu screen for the first world of A Boy and His Blob (Wii) is a treehouse. A really epic treehouse, with three stories as well as a lookout.
• Subverted by Cosmic Osmo. In the middle of a universe of fun, the treehouse is "a place of relaxation" with nothing but a hot beverage dispenser and some teacups on a picnic table.
• One of the earlier edutainment computer games had a treehouse. There was a chalkboard you could draw on, and a telescope you could look through, a few links to mini-games and some 'just for fun' clicky-things. It was neat, for the time, but really quickly you tended to run through the limits of what you could do.
• Limbo has lots of treehouses. How fun they are, are left up to the player's imagination.
  • The kids who live in them seem to be having fun, at least.
• The PC game The Treehouse is all about this.
• Heart of Darkness - A boy keeps his spaceship in his treehouse, along with many other fun things.

Webcomics

• The duo of Suicide for Hire run their questionable business out of their old treehouse. The "fun" part is for them, as the door for customers is lined with booby traps.
• xkcd has a strip claiming some part of the artist's brain is always dedicated to "planning the ultimate treehouse". He has plans in his room that, at least according to that page, he'll giddily invite someone to see.

Western Animation

• Hey Arnold! has Mighty Pete, a tree that Helga's father Big Bob wanted to tear down to put a Big Bob's Beepers chain in its place, but in the end, the kids and Arnold's grandma saved the tree.
• The South Park episode "Clubhouses" had the kids building a treehouse to play Truth or Dare in. Randy and Sharon both remembering playing in a treehouse is part of the subplot.
• In The Simpsons, Bart Simpson has a Treehouse of Fun, which occasionally turned into a Treehouse of Horror. It has a trapdoor entrance which comes in handy when Marge serves as a police officer in "The Springfield Connection".
  • In "Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part One", the actions of Burns' oil drilling company cause the treehouse to be blown to smithereens.
  • In "Das Bus", the kids imagine living in one while stranded on the island. When Bart and Nelson attempt to actually build it, however, the result is described by Milhouse as "kinda really crummy". Bart, in the tree's defense, says, "When Monsoon Season comes, you'll be glad it's there." The treehouse promptly collapses.
• The Fairly OddParents!: Timmy Turner had a treehouse.
• The title characters of Phineas and Ferb rebuilt their's and Candace's treehouses in "Tree to Get Ready", with an additional feature to transform into battling robots. Notable for being one of the few times Candace actually has fun with her brothers instead of trying to get them in trouble.
• The kids of Arthur often are seen in their treehouse, or a "clubhouse".
• Codename: Kids Next Door has a huge, sky-scraping monstrosity of a treehouse as not only a clubhouse, but a secret headquarters, one of many across the globe. The KND even have a tree house on the Moon; after it gets lost to a Colony Drop in The Movie, they build a BIGGER one.
• The Brady Kids in the Band Toon of The Brady Bunch were often seen in their treehouse.
• The treehouse from Adventure Time has got to take the cake: it's Finn and Jake's actual home, built into a hollowed-out tree with numerous rooms connected by ladders. Also, it was apparently built by a vampire.
  • Here's◊ a breakdown of the treehouse.
• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Twilight Sparkle lives in an apartment at Ponyville's Golden Oak Library, which is built into a large tree. Also, in "The Show Stoppers", Applejack lets Apple Bloom and her friends use her old tree-house as a clubhouse for the Cutie Mark Crusaders. It's a mess when they first find it, but Apple Bloom manages to fix it up.
  • This event is why most people agree her talent is carpentry or craftsmanship.
  Applejack: It's a bit broken down, but all it needs is a little TLC!
  Scootaloo: Tender Loving Care or Totally Lost Cause?
• The treehouse in My Pet Monster had a surprise slide staircase.
• T.J. owns one in Recess. It features most prominently in The Movie, Recess: School's Out.
• The Little Rascals have a treehouse with an elevator which they operate with a rope and pulley.
• The Ed, Edd n Eddy episode "Virt-Ed-Go" has the Eds build their own treehouse after seeing an advertisement for Joe's Clubhouse. Then the Kanker sisters commandeer it.
• Tom Terrific's "world headquarters" is a treehouse.
• Buckle from American Dad! lives in one of these, having learnt how to build one from his time as a Disney Imagineer.
• In the Ready Jet Go! episode "Treehouse Observatory", the kids build their own treehouse which serves as a hangout for them and an observatory.
• Harvey Street Kids: The Bloogey Boys have a treehouse as their clubhouse, and they are very reluctant to let anyone else in.
• In the Rugrats episode, "Angelicon", Stu and Chas build a treehouse in Chuckie's backyard for the babies to play in, but Angelica wants it all to herself, leading to a King Kong parody. A Kid's Meal promotion from Burger King tied in with this episode, with eight different toys that formed a different part of the treehouse.
• Most of the characters in Disney's Winnie the Pooh cartoons live in a house that involves a tree in some way. Usually it's inside the hollow trunk of one (even Rabbit's hole has a "back door" in a tree that was retconned into his front door by The New Adventures); but Owl lives in a proper house-shaped house nestled into the branches of a tree. Or he did, until the whole tree blew over in a windstorm. In The New Adventures, Tigger's home is also introduced, and it's a much more traditional makeshift treehouse.

Other

• Disney Theme Parks:
  • All of the main "Magic Kingdom"-style parks have an elaborate treehouse placed in Adventureland. The one in California was originally based on the one from Swiss Family Robinson, and this style carried over to the parks in Florida, Paris, and Tokyo. But in 1999, the California treehouse was revised to be Tarzan-themed instead, and this design was the one brought over to Hong Kong Disneyland. The California one was later remodeled again between 2021 and 2023, becoming the Adventureland Treehouse "inspired by" Swiss Family Robinson.
  • The Mickey's Toontown area in Tokyo Disneyland also includes Chip 'n Dale's house built into the trunk of a tree (the Toontown in the California park used to have it, but it was removed in 2022 when the land was renovated).
• As mentioned in The Other Wiki Treehouses have become popular recently has serious homes and architectural projects. They also have practical uses in tropical regions like New Guinea to protect the dwellers from the elements. They are also eco-friendly, reducing the need to make a clearing for the home.

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