Donald Duck is a lumberjack who sets out to top a tall tree on a hill. The tree turns out to be the home of chipmunks Chip and Dale, who decide to fight back once they see Donald sawing into their tree. Chip starts by unhooking the harness holding Donald against the tree, which causes him to fall. Confused, Donald goes back up the tree only to have his harness cut through thanks again to the chipmunks, who add insult to injury by dropping an acorn on Donald's head before he drops back to Earth. A frustrated Donald climbs the tree again with a chain tethering him to the tree. This time he is able to top it, but due to the chipmunks placing his tether over the sawed area, he once again he falls back down to the ground, with the tree landing on top of him. After he gets out from under the topped tree, quipping "how do you like those apples?", Donald discovers the chipmunks' game and decides to saw the entire tree down. Chip and Dale successfully foil Donald again, causing the angry duck to use an axe to chop the tree down in a rage. Despite Chip and Dale's efforts, the tree falls and flips end over end landing on a log flume. Using a pike pole, Donald catches a ride on the log and heads for the sawmill. Chip and Dale catch a ride in a toolbox on a zip line overhead. They ride ahead of Donald, jump from the tool box with a hammer, and dismantle a side of the flume with it. From here, Donald is involved in a race for his life against the log, which ends up crushing his car as it rolls along down a hill. Finally, the log heads into a mine shaft and emerges on the other side with a box of dynamite atop it. Donald frantically tries to get away from the log as it approaches his home, frantically moves everything out of the log's way as it flies through the house not damaging anything. Donald breathes a sigh of relief thinking disaster has been avoided. What he does not realize is that the log got caught in the power lines behind the house and is precariously close to being catapulted back toward him. When Dale knocks on the door moments later to point this out to Donald, he tries to physically move the house away from the path of the log. However, he is not strong enough and the log comes back and strikes the house. All Donald can do is watch with dazed grief as his home is rocketed into the air and explodes while Chip and Dale pretend to feel sorry for him, then precede to roll on the ground and laugh hysterically.
Reception
In The Disney Films, Leonard Maltin described Up a Tree as one of the "funniest and fastest Donald Duck cartoons... a later effort that has one of the most frenzied string of gags ever concocted for a Disney cartoon."
