’90s Kids’ Movies Made Us a Forgotten Epic Promise That We Never Ended up Getting

Growing up in the 1990s meant that I had a specific set of expectations for the entertainment I watched. The protagonists were usually teenagers, mutants, ninjas, or a combo of all three — especially where the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were concerned. Adjectives including “radical”, “extreme”, and “mondo” were used as a stamp of quality. But the biggest thing that stuck out in nearly every show or movie I watched as a kid was the presence of a treehouse. Nearly every TV show and movie that caught my attention featured a treehouse, which naturally made me want my own. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. I grew up in Texas, arguably one of the hottest places on Earth, and there weren’t any trees in my backyard. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t live vicariously through fictional characters!

The Treehouse Was a Foundation for Adventure in Some of My Favorite Movies

The treehouse might be a mere collection of wooden planks and haphazard architecture, but in the movies it meant more than that. It was both a sanctuary and an unexplored frontier for adventure, no matter what I was watching. The Sandlot had Scotty Smalls (Tom Guiry) and his friends meeting in a treehouse when they aren’t playing baseball, and it soon becomes a place for them to carry out their plans, especially when Scotty has to get a Babe Ruth-autographed ball from the junkyard that houses the dreaded “Beast”. Hook features the Lost Boys making their hideout in a treehouse, which isn’t just thematically perfect for a Peter Pan film but also underlines their rough and tumble nature; it’s one of the many reasons why I fell in love with Hook, and still consider it one of my favorite Steven Spielberg films. Even The Little Rascals had the “He-Man Woman-Haters Club”, which takes on an ironic turn due to one of its members, Alfalfa (Bug Hall), getting a girlfriend. The message was clear: all the cool kids had a treehouse. My point was further underlined when I saw Tarzan; the moment where Tarzan discovers the literal treehouse his parents used to live in is heartwarming and heartwrenching in equal measure.

Steven Spielberg and Robin Williams in Hook

Steven Spielberg Dismissed His Own Film — But It’s One That Means So Much to Me

No other movie perfectly sums up the themes of Spielberg’s career like this one, even if he doesn’t have the fondest memory of it.

But if there’s one film that really made me want a treehouse, it’s Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi. It’s not a ’90s movie, but I did start watching the original Star Wars trilogy with my Dad in the ’90s. The Ewoks have what is one of the most badass treehouses; not only were they able to haul Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Chewbacca and two droids up there, but it also felt like the kind of place you’d want to live. Giant huts and a blazing bonfire at the end only solidified the Ewoks as pint-sized badasses, plus the fact that the Ewoks helped take down the Empire, is one of many reasons why Star Wars: Return of the Jedi remains one of my favorite Star Wars films.

‘The Simpsons’ Only Solidified My Desire for a Treehouse, Thanks to Bart

Marge Simpson holds up blueprint plans in front of the treehouse in the backyard in The Simpsons. — Image via 20th Century Fox Entertainment

The character who solidified the idea of the treehouse as a childhood staple is the kid who arguably defined ‘childhood’ for my generation: Bart Simpson. The Simpsons took great pains to solidify Bart’s treehouse as a place where he could get into various misadventures, particularly in the Season 2 episode “Three Men and a Comic Book”. In “Three Men and a Comic Book”, Bart (Nancy Cartwright), his best friend Milhouse (Pamela Hayden), and their nerdy classmate Martin Prince decide to pool their money for a comic book, but since none of them trusts the other with it, they end up sleeping in Bart’s treehouse. “Three Men and a Comic Book” is probably best known for being the first appearance of the Comic Book Guy, but it’s a tense episode that escalates into a full-blown fight between Bart and his friends. It wasn’t until I seriously started collecting comics that I understood the furor Bart, Mihouse, and Martin succumbed to.

If that wasn’t enough, Bart’s treehouse gave birth to one of The Simpsons‘ best traditions with the “Treehouse of Horror” specials. Most people forget that the very first Treehouse of Horror actually takes place inside of Bart’s treehouse, where he and Lisa (Yeardley Smith) tell each other scary stories on Halloween. The first Treehouse of Horror established longstanding traditions, including the appearances of alien conquerors Kang and Kodos. It swung for the fences by having James Earl Jones as the guest star for its first installment; Jones’ performance of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” is still a standout. Whether haunted or otherwise, a treehouse is still a heart’s desire for my inner ’90s kid.