Cat's Short Cut is the first story in the 17th episode of the animated children's series Little Bear.
Plot
After picking berries for Mother Bear's pie, Little Bear and Owl take a shortcut of Cat's to get home quicker.
The forest is dark and a bit spooky, so Little Bear brings up Goblins, who chase after their shoes. A bit later, Owl and Little Bear are tripped by a pair of shoes running by themselves, and then a goblin, chasing after them. Refusing to believe that was what they saw, they continue on with Owl timidly telling the story of the Laughing Tree, who gets people to laugh and laugh by holding them captive in its branches and telling bad jokes. They are captured by the Laughing Tree a short while later, but Owl makes a bad pun and they use the tree's distraction from his laughter to sneak away.
They find they have been going in a circle, but Cat shows up quickly and tells them they took the wrong path, pointing them onto the right one. But the sun is setting, and Cat tells the scary story of the Giant Crow, a huge crow who eats people. Meanwhile, there is a hole in Little Bear's basket, and his berries fall out, only to be unseeingly eaten by a crow that appears to be huge, though it could also be an intentional distortion with camera angles. Little Bear, Owl, and Cat scare themselves with their stories and eventually run though the forest crying, "Goblins! Laughing Trees! And Giant Crows! What could be scarier? Nobody knows!" (Possibly a play on the 'lions, tigers, and bears, oh, my!' From the Wizard of Oz.)
Luckily, they reach Little Bear's house and bump into Mother Bear. Little Bear realizes his berries have fallen out, but Mother Bear tells him that she picked some, too, so Owl and Cat some in and have some pie.
In the forest, a crow that may be a giant crow eats one of the lost berries and then caws.