The Tree Medic is the 65th animated cartoon

Animated cartoon

An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot...

 short subject

Short subject

A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...

 in the Woody Woodpecker

Woody Woodpecker

Woody Woodpecker is an animated cartoon character, an anthropomorphic acorn woodpecker who appeared in theatrical short films produced by the Walter Lantz animation studio and distributed by Universal Pictures...

series. Released theatrically on December 19, 1955, the film was produced by Walter Lantz Productions and distributed by Universal International

Universal Studios

Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

.

Plot

A tree surgeon halts his car in front of a hollow tree in the forest and hangs up a sign saying, "Doctor Is In." He commences to operate. The tree, however, is Woody Woodpecker's home, and he's rudely awakened by the noisy surgeon's drill. Determined to protect his home, Woody jams a cake pan over the drill, which the surgeon tugs at furiously, to no avail. But when Woody removes the pan, the doctor stumbles backward onto a tree stump and into the jaws of an irate squirrel. The doctor proceeds to treat the tree with repeated intervention from Woody, who proceeds to have his revenge in classic cartoon style. Woody kicks the doctor into a bird's nest after ruining a root-reflex test. Woody blows up his stethoscope tube with a bellows. Woody accuses the doctor of being a "peeping Tom" after the doctor's tree-photograph proves to be one of glamour gal Marilyn Monroe (woo-woo!). When the doctor takes a pot shot at Woody, he hits a passing duck instead, and Woody drives up in a sheriff's car to bonk him for hunting out of season. Woody also treats the tree surgeon to a falling anvil and egg in the face (twice!). After an unsuccessful attempt to lasso Woody, the doctor tries to saw the tree down, only to saw his own ladder in half, from which he crashes to the ground. Woody reverses his sign to read, "Doctor Is Out," and he goes back to sleep.

Woody's new look

The Tree Medic marked one final change to Woody's look; his eyes were now simple black dots, having eliminated the usual light brown/green/light blue pigmentation around his eyes. The diminutive woodpecker also shrunk in size even more, making him more stylized. It was this simple version of Woody that became his official look for the remainder of the series.