10 Kids’ Cartoons That Made Adults Cry

Like children themselves, kids’ cartoons have a way of making adults cry. While kids tend to resort to meaner ways of making adults shed tears (i.e. calling us old and uncool), children’s cartoons hit grown-ups where it really hurts. The realities of aging, the inevitable death of loved ones, the weight of real-world responsibilities — cartoons turn grown-up themes into weapons to stab us in the heart. Adult shows certainly sting, but how is it that fun stories about talking animals and wacky wizards somehow cut deeper? Because cartoons know how to stick the knife in when it’s least expected, and these 10 go straight for the tear ducts.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show about people throwing rocks at each other with their minds, but those boulders often hit you straight in the feels. The series begins with devastation: 12-year-old protagonist Aang finding the century-dead skeleton of his beloved father figure in Episode 3. After that, the hits just keep on coming. Watching middle-school-aged Sokka bid the Water Tribe warriors goodbye. Seeing baby-faced Zuko take a fistful of fire to the skull in an Agni Kai. But the biggest emotional stone gets thrown in the infamous Tales of Ba Sing Se episode, when Uncle Iroh tearfully sings a song for his dead son to commemorate his birthday. I can’t even think about it without feeling my lip quiver harder than the ground under King Bumi’s feet, and knowing that the episode was made to honor the passing of Uncle Iroh’s real-life voice actor, Mako, makes my heart crack completely.

Adventure Time

Adventure Time is a deceptively deep show about much more than a boy, his dog, and the villains they punch. One of those beat-uppable baddies is the Ice King, a whacked-out, frost-wielding wizard who serves as comic relief… until suddenly, he doesn’t. Ice King’s backstory is a tragedy worthy of the Globe Stage, a King Lear-like descent into melancholy and madness. Forced to use the power of a cursed crown to protect his loved ones from the horrors of the post-apocalypse, Simon Petrikov’s mind is slowly corrupted by the artifact until nothing but a parody of the original man remains. The most crushing moment comes when Ice King’s obsession with capturing princesses is revealed to stem from his past love for Betty, a long-gone woman he once called his princess. If penguins had tear ducts, I’m sure there wouldn’t be a dry eye among the Gunthers of the Ice Kingdom.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power starts as a charmingly adolescent show about two sapphics fighting over the fate of a fantasy kingdom. Aside from some unfeeling robots, Adora and Catra’s battle for Etheria has relatively few casualties… until the season 3 finale killed off a main character and the show’s innocent tone with her. To save her realm and her daughter with it, Queen Angella sacrifices herself to close a magical portal and is caught in the resulting explosion. From then on, She-Re and the Princesses of Power become a very different show, one where bad things happen to good people… a lot. And while plenty more bad things follow, the show ultimately ends with tears of joy. It’s hard not to weep watching Adora and Catra make history with a series finale lip lock, marking a groundbreaking moment when two central female protagonists became canon romantic partners in children’s animation

Up

This film’s reputation as a tearjerker precedes it. Up had audiences bawling in the first 10 minutes due to its unexpectedly devastating intro montage chronicling the highs and lows of a married couple’s life. With the heartstring-tugging nostalgia of a home movie, the sequence follows Carl Fredricksen from the first day he met his wife, Ellie, to the day she died. The doctor’s office scene, where Ellie is implied to have had a miscarriage, is possibly even sadder than her funeral scene. Kids’ movies often show characters dying of old age, but never before had audiences seen something as traumatic as a failed pregnancy in something marketed as a family film. People simply weren’t emotionally prepared, and the results were devastating. Not even Kevin’s flightless bird antics later in the film can make me feel better.

Batman: The Animated Series

Batman: The Animated Series is one of those special sorts of children’s shows that adults can unironically enjoy. Known for its somber tone and dark subject matter, this Batman title was unafraid to tackle the ugliest and saddest aspects of Gotham City. One of its most infamous tear-jerking moments came with the introduction of Mr. Freeze, a one-time goofy B-villain rewritten with the gravitas of a tragic hero. Unlike his pun-slinging Arnold Schwarzenegger counterpart, who spent 1997’s Batman and Robin freezing stuff purely for the love of the game, this Mr. Freeze was once a brilliant cryogenics scientist who froze his terminally ill wife in hopes of keeping her alive long enough to develop a cure. It’s one of the most devastating retcons in DC Comics history, and one of the best.

Inside Out

Who would have thought that a fuzzy pink elephant/raccoon named Bing Bong would have audiences ugly-crying in their seats? Evidently, the writers of Inside Out. Once the beloved imaginary friend of the film’s adolescent protagonist, Bing Bong finds himself lonely and ignored once Riley begins to grow older. Does this cause him to lose his childlike charm and become jaded? Nope, he’s just as tenderhearted, fun-loving, and optimistic as the day Riley dreamed him up. That’s the heartbreaking part. He loves Riley so much that he sacrifices himself to protect the personification of her inner happiness, Joy. The ugly-cry-inducing moment? His last words to Joy: “Take her to the moon for me, okay?” Yes, I teared up a little writing that.

Toy Story 3

Never did I ever think that I would be forced to watch childhood toys contemplate their fiery deaths, but then Toy Story 3 happened. The incinerator sequence had audiences white-knuckled with sorrow and dread. The scene is so devastating because it so ruthlessly strips away hope. “Surely, someone’s coming to save Woody and friends,” viewers thought as the toys edged closer to the flaming pit. “They’re not actually gonna die, right?” And while the toys didn’t actually die, they sure thought that they would, and faced the end with hands clasped while audiences wrung their own.

SpongeBob Squarepants

While SpongeBob SquarePants is often tear-jerkingly funny, it’s rare that something actually sad happens. Sure, watching Spongbob put of missing posters for a lost Gary was pretty upsetting, and SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs’ “Just a Greasy Spoon” duet was also pretty emotional. But personally, I think the show’s biggest make-you-cry moment comes hand in hand with another once-in-a-series instance: a win for Squidward. Watching Squidward, a struggling artist, achieve the ultimate musical triumph at the Bubble Bowl was downright touching. The rock ballads, the swaying lighters, the sight of Squilliam being carried off on a stretcher — it was sweet victory, alright. When that once-disgruntled octopus leapt for joy as the episode faded to black, my heart leapt with him.

Hey Arnold!

For a show about a bunch of middle schoolers, Hey Arnold! was deceptively adult. Helga’s dysfunctional family. Arnold’s loss of his parents. Mr. Hyunh’s reunion with his daughter after their separation in the Vietnam War. But perhaps the show’s most emotionally charged moment comes from a character who only appears in one episode: Pigeon Man. Maligned and rejected by a society that can’t understand him, the sensitive Pigeon Man prefers to spend his time with other urban outcasts: pigeons themselves. While Arnold comes to recognize Pigeon Man as a sensitive soul, some of his classmates do not. They destroy Pigeon Man’s home, and Pigeon Man is carried off into the sunset by the creatures he loves. Knowing. the tragic, real-world history of pigeons, the episode hits even harder.

Pretty Much Any Classic Disney Movie

Is it an animation studio, or a childhood trauma factory? Maybe a little of both. Disney films famously do not pull their punches, and as a result, have altered the brain chemistry of generations — pointing us all toward therapy. The death of Bambi’s mother. Widow Tweed abandoning Tod in The Fox and the Hound. The death of Mufasa. The tearjerking banger that is “You’ll Be in My Heart” from Tarzan. Koda finding out about his mother’s death in Brother Bear. The sad little kitten sequence at the start of Oliver and Company. Nemo’s family getting eaten by a barracuda. The tearjerker list goes on, and on, and on. And while modern Disney movies have dammed up the waterworks here and there, modern devasators like Up and Inside Out show up with a sledgehammer. Unless Disney is stopped, the tears will continue to flow, and no adult will be safe from children’s movie-induced trauma ever again.

(featured image: Warner Bros Animation / DC Comics)

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