Tear-jerkers

That's easy. "Bambi," "The Lion King," and most recently, "How To Train Your Dragon 2."

For what it's worth, I managed to save the old thread from the gossamer forum as a text file.
Would it be appropriate to import those responses here? Or should this thread regrow on its own?

I believe you did indeed start a "Cartoons That Made You Cry" thread, back in the old, obsolete Gossamer forum. In fact, I think I have a text-only copy running around in one of my hard drives; I'll have to dig it out and see about reposting it here. Good memory, BloodyChamp, f/k/a 60a1wrestling60.

Aha, I wuz rite. Me founded your original post. Here it is:
Posted on 26 April 2004 at 21:00

Has a cartoon ever made anyone here cry? Not me but I admit I had to fight it a few times.

One of my all time favorite cartoons is the one where Casper befriends the fox who comes back as a ghost. That's an incredible cartoon.

Another one stars Raggedy Anne who is carried around by the poor blind girl with a single momma. They're both friends of some police officer, too.

> addendum by eminovitz =

Those were both Noveltoons by Famous Studios, which was good
at making tear-jerkers. You're talking about There's Good Boos
Tonight (with Ferdie the Fox; 1948) and The Enchanted Square
(1947). <
"The Little Mole" is another good one.

I also enjoyed some BnW Mickey Mouse cartoon that I saw. It was a Christmas one where Mickey trades Pluto for cash and then regrets it. Sad stuff.

What are your picks?

Oh, I have a fair number of old Gossamer threads saved as text-only files. The trick is to figure out which hard drive holds them; I have eight, currently, three with the 40-pin connector and five with the newer SATA plug. The next post in your old thread was this one:

Posted on 26 April 2004 at 21:16

Well to stay away from full features including Disney's catalogue, one of the my favorite sad cartoons is Blue Cat Blues. It's nice to know some other than me as heartached over a girl before. More ache than cry though.

Time to dig up more for the archives.

Posted on 27 April 2004 at 05:06 by TammiToon

Well, how about this for a tearjerker? Cock-A-Doodle Dino. A mother hen adopts a brontosaurus, then cries twice: when he's sold to a circus, and later, when she believes he's dead. Her prehistoric stepson also sheds tears when he misses the only family he knew. This is definitely one for the Kleenex.

And although I hardly ever cry while watching superhero cartoons, the one exception is "Mind Pollution," an episode of Captain Planet. In this one, Linka and her cousin Boris get hooked on a drug called Bliss. Linka doesn't see the error of her ways until Boris dies of an overdose. By the time the episode gets to that part, tears start running down my cheeks.

and this one:

Posted on 27 April 2004 at 08:34 by Jor-El

Many, many, many years ago (it was probably 1956 or so), my aunt took her daughter and me to see Bambi. My cousin and I were both about 5 or 6 years old. I naturally ended up bawling my eyes out, but my cousin was apparently unaffected by the story. Of course, being a male, it was somewhat embarrassing.

More archives coming:

Posted on 27 April 2004 at 15:27 by eminovitz

Another very sad toon with Raggedy Ann was Suddenly It's Spring (1944). Raggedy implores the weather to cooperate so that her owner, little Nancy, can enjoy the benefits of the sun to recover from illness. The wind blows the clouds away, and the sun comes out and Nancy gets better. The doctor says it must have been a miracle.

The Song Of The Birds, a 1935 Color Classic by Fleischer Studios, is a near cryfest. A boy with an air rifle goes out into the garden and shoots at a nest, then at one of the little birds. The bird falls to the ground, and it appears the boy has killed it. The robins stage a bird funeral. The boy's conscience gets to him, and he falls to his kneels, crying and praying for the bird. The sky also weeps with large tears of rain, which cause the little bird to awaken. This was remade by Famous Studios in 1949 with Little Audrey instead of the boy, but it doesn't tear at the heartstrings nearly as much.

A couple of Warner Bros. cartoons with very sad scenes are 1952's Feed The Kitty (where Marc Anthony thinks that Pussyfoot has been baked into a cookie) and 1942's Ding Dog Daddy (in which the Shy Dog has his beloved "Daisy" taken away and heads to the factory to find "her").

and

Posted on 27 April 2004 at 16:22 by 60a1wrestling60

I can't believe I forgot Feed the Kitty. You are so right.

There's also another that I'm kicking myself for leaving out. I dunno the name, of course. It's the one where the baby in the playpen outside is friends with raccoons. They eat watermelon and spit the seeds out in patterns like kids often do for fun. The parents move and the child cries when it's time to leave. When they get to the new house in the city the baby destroys everything without getting caught and the parents decide the house stinks and they go back home, much to the baby's and raccoon's joy. Good cartoon.

> addendum by eminovitz =

Little Lambkin (Color Classics; Fleischer Studios, 1940). The penned-up little boy is friends with a raccoon and a squirrel. <

Posted on 27 April 2004 at 16:57 by WileECoyote

I think it's sad (but not crying-sad) when Dinkleburg on the Fairly Oddparents episode "The Grass is Greener" kills a cow on a grill to make four steaks. Isn't that cruel? I mean, actually showing death, dying, and killing on an innocent kids-aimed cartoon!

I also feel sad on the Simpsons episode "Bart on the Road" when Nelson throws Martin's electronic toy Scottie Dog out the window of their car. The dog barks twice, flips through the air, and then gets run over and smashed all to pieces! Then we hear Nelson call out a low-pitched "haaw-haaaw!

and

Posted on 27 April 2004 at 19:02 by eminovitz

Another cartoon in the Color Classics series is also a weepie.
In the climax of Hawaiian Birds (1936), the singing girl bird is thrown out of a swanky big-city jazz club in mid-winter. Alone and thinking that she has lost her boyfriend forever, she kisses his picture and attempts suicide by jumping off a skyscraper. Both sad and scary, because you don't know what happens next. But there's a happy ending. (Best Hawaiian music I've ever heard in a cartoon, by the way.)

Plus, for myself, I've gotten into the josei series Usagi Drop, based on the story by Yumi Unita. Rin is such a little sweetheart, and a goodly portion of the story is told from her perspective. If you remember Bill Bixby's The Courtship of Eddie's Father or Brian Keith's Family Affair, then Usagi Drop runs on the same mechanics.

Posted on 28 April 2004 at 03:09 by Cartoonmadness

I can't remember an animated series/special/film that either made me cry or made me fight back tears (yes, I never got in touch with my inner self).

I do remember being in the first showing of a packed movie theatre for "Transformers: The Movie" and there were very few dry eyes during the Optimus Prime death scene.

and

Posted on 28 April 2004 at 12:16 by artytoons

The segment in "Allegro Non Troppo" with the homeless cat walking through an abandoned building thinking of its past days of comfort with Sibelius's "Valse Triste" playing. Rather heartbreaking.