Futurama/Heartwarming

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • In "Leela's Homeworld", where Leela meets her biological parents who turn out to be mutant humans living in the sewers, there's a flashback montage at the end of the episode showing how they've anonymously helped her and watched over her all along.
    • What made that moment even better was the pure joy/WAFF in Fry's face as Leela cried and hugged them.
      • Made even better by the Pizzacato Five song playing during the montage. Baby Love Child, indeed.
    • Not to mention how even Magnificent Bastard Bender couldn't resist being touched by this heartfelt moment. "Awwwww."
      • Even though he's dumping discarded saliva (a.k.a. spit) on them?
      • That's just Bender being Bender, baby! Even heartwarming moments can't cramp his style!
  • The end of "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings", the show's original final episode: Fry sits dejectedly, alone in the theatre after the opera he tried to perform is ruined and with the knowledge that he'll never be able to perform one ever again. He looks up and sees Leela, the one he did it all for, still in her seat:

Please don't stop playing, Fry. I want to hear how it ends.

    • And the way it ends? Fry summons up the skill to play one little coda - a crude and less accomplished, but clearly heartfelt, image of Leela and Fry. They kiss and, holding hands, walk into the sunset together. Awww.
    • Bender actually managed one earlier in the episode, when taking Fry to his recital.

"You know sometimes I wish your real parents were still alive.(hugs Fry) Not often though."

    • Which, in a way only Futurama can do, manages to be both heartwarming, and completely hilarious.
    • And in a tragic, but simultaneously heartwarming bit, the reason Fry loses his ability to finish the opera was because if he didn't give up the Robot Devil's hands, Leela would be forced to marry the Devil. And the reason Leela made the deal at all? She was ashamed that Fry went to the trouble to write such a wonderful opera for her, and she couldn't even hear it for him.
  • In "Parasites Lost", Fry is transformed by beneficial worms into a paragon, being so talented he's even able to play the holophonor (which only a few people were previously able to do...and they did that badly), using his new abilities to win Leela's heart. After the Reset Button is pushed (for a very understandable reason), as the strength, wisdom, intelligence, and creativity leaves him, he nonetheless manages to play it one last time, for himself, creating an image of Leela along with an almost worshipful chord.

Worm King: He's bluffing. No sentient being would willingly make an idiot out of itself.
Fry: Obviously, you've never been in love!

      • Note that the king had outright answered the question "do you know what it's like to be in love" with this.

Fry: Your majesty, have you ever been in love?
Worm King: No. I thought i was once, but then i remembered my species reproduces with a cloud of spores

  • The ending of "Jurassic Bark". If it takes forever, I will wait for you...
    • Not to mention it's devastatingly sad.
      • Watch "Bender's Big Score". Fry went to the past, and through a series of events, he made a time-parodox copy of himself while he went back to the future. The copy went on living in the past, including spending time with Seymour...until Bender blew up the pizza parlor, fossilizing him instantly.
  • The ending of "The Sting".
    • The part of "The Sting" where Bender says "All those times I'd say 'Kill all humans,' I'd always whisper '...except one.' Fry was that one, and I never told him so!" is both hilarious and heartwarming (although it technically didn't happen).
    • Fry: "You've got to be more careful Leela. I don't want anything to happen to you." Leela: "That's so sweet Fry, but don't worry, nothing's going to happen to me."
    • Fry: "Just wake up."
      • He was with her the entire time, until her awake.
  • The ending of "Luck of the Fryrish", where Fry, after spending the episode thinking his brother Yancy hated him his whole life and stole his name after he was frozen, attempts to steal back his rare seven-leaf clover from what he assumes is Yancy's grave. As it turns out, Yancy gave his son the name Philip J. Fry out of love for and in memory of his brother. Cue tears.
  • The ending of Into the Wild Green Yonder: "Fry, maybe I waited too long to say this, but...I love you too."
    • Just before that: Paraphrased: "I don't need a reason, you're you."
  • From the pilot:

Fry: Wait, you're the only friend I have!
Bender: You really want a robot for a friend?
Fry: Sure. Ever since I was six.

  • In the episode "Love and Rocket", when Leela learns that Fry had connected his oxygen supply to Leela's mask after hers ran out, she tries to resuscitate him. He coughs and spits out a candy heart, which sticks to her cheek. She takes it off and reads, "You leave me breathless." Cue awwwww.
    • Zoidberg gets a quick, minor one at the end of the episode. He humorously narrates the effect of the candy-causing radiation and the romantic side effects of couples on Earth, then obliviously interrupts Fry's and Leela's own romantic moment with a big hug. After a second of hesitation, both hug him back.
  • The history of Lars in Bender's Big Score. That is all.

"Wait for me, Leela! I'll be there in a thousand years!"

  • The scene in The Beast with a Billion Backs where Bender begs Fry to take him into "Heaven" qualifies, as does "Humans like cabbage ... Right?"
  • Fry in "Time Keeps on Slippin'" - moving the stars themselves as a romantic gesture, and Leela never knows.
  • In the episode "The Why of Fry", Leela is still a bit irritated with her former date (the mayor's aide), but softens up when Fry brings her a simple flower.

Leela: You know what, Fry? I don't care if you're not the most important person in the universe; it really makes me happy to see you right now.
Fry(smiling): Then I am the most important person in the universe.

    • What makes this even better is the way he says it. It's the same tone someone would use for something like, "Of course. Didn't you know?"
  • "Godfellas": "Sure wish I had Bender back...wish I had Bender back...wish I had Bender back..."
    • "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back"

Grade 19 Morgan Proctor: He was a bad robot.
Fry: No, he was a bad friend. I demand that you give Bender back right now!

  • In "The Cyber House Rules", Bender adopts twelve orphans hoping to sell tham to make a profit. At the end, he returns them to the Orphanarium, and they give him a picture of him smoking a candy cane as a reminder. Bender acts disgusted, but when he thinks no one's looking, frames the picture on the inside of his door. Cue twelve overjoyed orphans.
  • The Professor's random idea to breed "some sort of albino shouting gorilla" to shout his love for Mom from rooftops turns into one of these moments when he actually does, at the end of "Mother's Day".
  • Despite being a robot (and, for that matter, a Jerkass), Bender is not immune to this. He's been known to save his friends on several occasions (even in the absence of a cash prize), and remains doggedly loyal to Fry to the point of mutilating his antennae (robot equivalent to genitalia) just to remain his roommate.
  • Igner and Professor Farnsworth have a sweet moment at the end of Bender's Game.

Farnsworth: Can I give my boy a hug?

  • Surprisingly, despite his role as the resident Butt Monkey, even Zoidberg gets one in "That's Lobstertainment!". After making a disastrous attempt at a film with his uncle, silent hologram star Harold Zoid (each of them under the impression that the other one is their ticket out of despair), Calculon (the film's benefactor & co-star) forces them to rig the Oscars so he can win under threat of death. Just as Zoidberg is about to announce Calculon as the winner, he looks over at his uncle and announces him as the winner. Then his uncle gives his acceptance speech:

Harold Zoid: "What really matters in life is that people care about you. Whether it's a whole crowd --"
[looks at Zoidberg]
Harold Zoid: "-- or just one die-hard fan."

  • A rather unexpected one in the recent episode "The Duh-Vinci Code".

Fry: I may not be clever, but I have a good heart. That's what my mom used to say.
Farnsworth: She was a wise woman.

    • Even moreso when you realize that Fry's mother is also Farnsworth's great-great(+1)... great grandmother.

Fry: She also said I wasn't much to look at.
Farnsworth: A wise woman indeed.

  • Hermes Conrad, bureaucrat, gets one in "Lethal Inspection". He gave Bender a chance at life. And that episode gets even better when you realize that when Bender said #5 looked at him with (good) tears in his eyes, he was right. And, of course, yet another musical montage.

Little bird, little bird, fly through my window...

      • This may count as one of the biggest tearjerkers in the series.
    • Fridge Brilliance when you realize it makes "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back" the second time Hermes has saved Bender's life.
    • Another thing: when Bender says Hermes is now part of his "Do-Not-Kill List". This is a strange compliment, but it still makes Hermes smile.
    • And one more, Hermes has made several comments over the series to really hating Bender. (Which makes sense, he's a super anal want everything in their place kind of guy and Bender LOVES messing shit up and being generally useless.)
  • "The Late Philip J. Fry", specifically the Fry/Leela angle.
    • Much of the episode has small crowning moments of heartwarming, but the whole episode builds up to a colossal one when Leela finds out that it wasn't Fry's fault that he disappeared, and she carves a message for him to find telling him that their time was short, but it was the best time of her life.
      • The message Fry leaves for Leela in her birthday card is equally sweet, particularly the "I love you."
      • And when Fry finds the message, he decides that he's had a full life, and suggests that he, Bender and Farnswarth should just sit back with a sixpack and watch the universe end. And subsequently restart again.
  • "The Mutants Are Revolting": Leela, who loved Fry when he was in Zoidberg's body, can't get over what he looks like after he dove into the mutating sewer muck. Then he goes to Bender, who hasn't been dealing with the absence of the rest of the crew well. Bender screams, and then...

Bender: Aw, what the heck. [they hug]

    • From that same episode; the revelation that Mr. Astor, seeing that one of the mutant labourers had a child, wordlessly gives up his seat on the escape pod for the two of them, and waves them off with a tip of his hat and a smile. It turned out to be Leela's grandmother and her great grandmother that survived.
      • Mrs. Astor, who had spent the whole episode being antagonistic towards mutants, is so overjoyed to see her heavily mutated husband alive that she unhesitantly embraces him.
    • The Mayor of NNYC going "sure, why not" to the idea of letting mutants live on the surface.
  • In "Three Hundred Big Boys", Zoidberg spends the whole episode trying to find something emotionally satisfying to spend his money on. What does he ultimately decide to do with it? Spend it on a turkey dog feast for a group of homeless people.
    • Hell, you know it's heartwarming when even Mom decides to join in with them.
  • Seeing the little subtitles on the theme song's title card again. It's like coming home...
  • Amy reaffirming her feelings for Kif as he gives birth to their babies towards the end of "Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch". Even though she feels she's too young to take on the responsibilities as a mother of a dozen or so of little alien tadpole-like children, it's her love for Kif that allows her to complete the birth rites with him.
  • In "Rebirth," this moment between Fry and Leela is among the heartwarming-est of them all...

Fry: I love Leela, always and forever. And if I loved Robot Leela, too...well, it's only 'cause she had so much of real Leela in her. I thought she loved me, too, but obviously I was wrong as usual.
Leela: Wrong again. You were right.

  • In the episode where the alien giant is engulfed in the Bender clones. In his first appearance, he is mocked for being ugly, and went berserk when Fry accidentally insulted his mother, and seeing him get this one moment of being gorgeous was breathtaking. Giant: "At last I'm beautiful..."
  • A reused one but poignant nonetheless, in "Ghost in the Machines" Bender as a ghost, after realizing that Fry is the only entity to ever praise Bender or hold affection towards him, follows him around, tries to help him in his endeavors, (in spite of his non-corporeal form) praises Fry's shoddy baking and even tries to hug him. Let's restate that for candidacy. Bender tries to hug Fry.
    • And let us not forget Bender's dramatic "I LOVE YOU" as he's saving Fry from imminent death.
    • But what got me the most was Bender lying at the foot of Fry's bed like a contented dog. Too sweet.
  • "It's on me, Johnny."
    • Followed by Zoidberg and the Professor sandcrabbing out of the Planet Express headquarters, doing their best "Woop woop woop!"
  • The whole end of "Cold Warriors". After giving him a hard time in every flashback, Fry's dad tells Fry in the last one that he loves him, only wants him to be strong, and believes that one day he will accomplish great things.
    • Turned Up to Eleven (with a dash of Tear Jerker) when his dad finishes by telling Fry to wrap up warm. "I wouldn't want you to get frozen." Bwaaah ...
  • Fry and Leela reading their ultimate fate together.
  • In "Why Must I be A Crustacean In Love", a Not What It Looks Like situation results in Fry and Zoidberg fighting to the death in Zoidberg's peoples' 18-yeard old traditional deathmatch Clawplache. When he's about to issue the killing blow, Fry stops, and tells the Decapodians that while he doesn't have the right to criticize their stupid traditions, he can't kill Zoidberg because he's his friend, and nothing can stop that. Later on, after the usual Mood Whiplash occurs, Zoidberg thanks Fry for the chance to feel human emotions, such as love, jealously, and the thrill of disembowling people.
  • In a recent[when?] flashback style episode, Fry recalls how indifferent and tough his father was on him. The final flashback shows that his dad admitting of why he's always so tough on him; he wants to give him a backbone for when he can handle the world on his own, and that he would make him proud one day. Also that he loves him.
Back to Futurama
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Futurama/Heartwarming?oldid=1721571"