Since Mr. Crabby Tree was a plant, rooted to the ground, he couldn’t go anywhere.  He couldn’t go to the action.  The action had to come to him.

In Season Three, “Mr. Crabby Tree’s Really Great Adventure” changed all that.  By wishing on a shooting star, he was magically released from the ground, and he spent the rest of the episode doing all the things he wished to do for umpteen years:  play tag, hockey, hide-and-seek, dance, do gymnastics, fish, and surf on a whale, of course.

Terry, Julia, Sally, Matt and Sammy the Frog were amazed—not just because the tree was mobile, but because he wasn’t crabby!

Alas, Mr. Crabby Tree had wished for just one day to be ground-free.  That day ended.  He had to stick himself in the dirt again, the poor fellow.  But this was the world of Dudley the Dragon.  Here, dreams come true.  And so it happened another shooting star appeared and Mr. Crabby Tree could make another wish.  “Here we go again,” said Dudley.

That was the last time Crabby was stuck.  The next time we see him, in Season Four, “Dudley and the Tiny Raincloud,” a four-leaf clover has enabled him to walk.  In “Good Knight Dragon,” he’s moving around after wishing on a lucky rabbit’s foot.  After that, in “Mama Crabby Tree,”  Crabby became mobile after throwing a penny in a wishing well.  In his next two appearances he’s fully mobile, with no explanation. His independence was a fait accompli.

But the Crabby Meister had yet another wish.