Grandma Ethyl reads the Baby the titular story. In the story, Earl is to push down a really old tree which he has trouble pushing down. When lightning hits them, Earl's soul transfers into the tree, while the spirit of the tree takes over Earl's body. While Earl's face is on the tree, only birds can see it or interact with Earl. During this experience, Earl learns about the importance of trees. He learns that birds live in trees and that they help the trees by eating the bugs that get onto them. Meanwhile, the spirit of the tree learns that since the tree couldn't be pushed down, Mr. Richfield has ordered for it to be blown up. The spirit of the tree convinces Fran that her husband is now the tree, and she finds which one it is when Earl manages to bring leaves down to spell a message to her. Earl learns that his employer is going to blow him up and he tells the birds that live in him to leave. The spirit of the tree, however, takes a stand. When he gets near the tree, lightning strikes them again. The tree is destroyed, but Earl is back in his own body, having forgotten all about his experience as a tree. Ethyl tells Baby that while the tree was destroyed, its life was taken away from nature instead of Dinosaur.
This episode includes examples of:
- And I Must Scream: Earl's face is sticking out of the tree's trunk; however, he is unable to be heard by any dinosaur he begs for help.
- Broken Aesop: In-Universe example. The Baby points out that since Earl forgot everything that happened when he was a tree, he didn't learn anything, including the importance of trees. Ethyl inquires Baby if he did learn from the story. Baby realizes that he did. The story's not meant for the character to understand the lesson, it's the reader who should.
- Framing Device: The episode's plot is treated as a bedtime story read by Ethyl to Baby.
- Green Aesop: On the importance of trees.
- Lightning Can Do Anything: In Ethyl's bedtime story, Earl is struck by lightning while trying to push a large tree down. It results in him and the tree switching souls, leaving the tree enjoying life as a dinosaur while in Earl's body and Earl trapped inside the tree's body while unable to interact with the other dinosaurs. Another lightning strike near the end of the story undoes the soul swap. Baby finds the idea that lightning could swap the souls of a tree and a dinosaur and that lighting would hit the same tree twice like that hard to swallow.
- Take That!: This episode begins with Ethyl reading Goodnight Rock to Baby.Ethyl: And so it was time to say goodnight. Goodnight, rock. Goodnight, stone. Goodnight, stick. Goodnight, another rock. Ugh! Goodnight, dirt. Goodnight, yet another rock. Ugh!
Baby: This is a classic?
Ethyl: Goodnight, book!
[Ethyl tosses the book aside]
Baby: Good! - Transflormation: In Ethyl's bedtime story, Earl, who works as a tree pusher for the WeSaySo Corporation, magically exchanges souls with a tree. At the end of the story, Earl and the tree switch back, each having learned the importance of the other (but it's just an in-show story, so there are no long-term effects).
