Phineas and Ferb/Tear Jerker

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"Hey, Buford, are you...sweating out of your eyes?"

"...No! I'm just cryin'!"
—Isabella and Buford
"...We can't."

Examples from The Movie go here.



General

  • Several songs throughout the series:
  • Most of Phineas and Candace's brother/sister moments are accidental ones because for some reason, Ferb is almost. Never. There.
    • On a related note, there's Candace's tendency to call just for Phineas when she needs help, even when Ferb is there and especially when he's the one who ends up saving her. Even worse, in "Gaming the System," when Candace thinks both the boys are dying, she runs to Phineas and holds him while he fizzles out, only thinking about Ferb once Phineas is gone.
      • On another related note, which isn't so much a tear jerker but a sweet sort of thing, is when Candace is in the boys' kiddie ride in one of the episodes. She eventually falls down a canyon after the engine sputters out... then she doesn't have another quarter to put in to power it up. She screams for Phineas to help her but who's the one who realizes shes falling and pretends to be a dancing little statue thing (I don't actually know what it's called) all just to get a quarter to save her? Ferb.
      • Bonus points for Ferb actually showing a bit of shock and fright at the sight of Candace falling to her doom right before he goes and saves her. Knowing that it takes so much for Ferb to show emotion is a subtle way of showing the sibling bond.


Season 1

  • In "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted", the boys have both been heartlessly brainwashed, removing their creativity and imaginations (Which may, in itself, be an example). They and Candace have been cornered by the Smile-Away sergeant, so their only means of escape are by building a bridge. Candace begs them to come to their senses, telling them that, despite the way she's treated them all summer, their creativity isn't bad but, in fact, the best thing about them and she's always secretly been proud to be their big sister. She then starts to sob and cries out "What have I done? WHAT HAVE I DONE?!". Slowly, Phineas blinks, then reaches forward to take the wrench from her hand. She looks up at him with tears running down her face. Phineas smiles and she smiles back. Granted This was all a dream, but it still shows she loves them.
    • "Chains On Me" in the same episode is a slow, but catchy song, about Phineas and Ferb having their creativity and imagination slowly and cruelly stripped away from them.
  • The song from "Voyage to the Bottom of Buford". It's a tear-jerking song about a bully and his goldfish, full of fish puns!
    • Made exponentially worse if you, personally, have ever lost a pet fish and can therefore relate quite directly to the song.
    • Since everyone else is linking to songs, watching this kid try to play ping pong with a fish is rather depressing.
    • Buford has proven to be a bully with sentiments and does like a few of the characters- his overwhelming crying over losing his goldfish is mostly played for laughs- but it's still crying, and it's from the bottom of his heart!
  • Doof and Perry's plot from "It's About Time". Even though it's full of Foe Yay, it's still heartbreaking.
  • "Mom's Birthday" at the part where Candace keeps picking up instruments to play for her mom on her birthday, only to have them vanish thanks to Doofenshmirtz. Sure, it was Played for Laughs, but still.


Season 2

  • The episode "Oh, There You Are Perry".
    • The Come Home Perry song.
    • The part where Perry leaves gets me every time. The normally stoic Perry looks almost driven to tears when he is forced to relocate and leave his family behind.
  • The end of Chez Platypus should count for Doofenshmirtz when the De-loveinator ended up zapping his date and making her feel nothing for him. And this was immediately after an "evil love song" and Doof saying he's never been so happy in his entire life.
  • "Nerds of a Feather" gives us Ducky Momo is my Friend.
    • Most of the song is a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, but the end says that, while Candace still loves Ducky Momo, and loved him throughout her childhood, she is made fun of because she is now a teenager. This is made sadder due to the fact that it is true in real life. Still loving something that you loved when you were a child would get you mocked and teased when you get older.
  • It's already been listed as a CMoH, but 'Not So Bad a Dad After All' has the potential to reduce watchers to an absolute wreck, particularly if the watcher has experience with a divorce or daddy issues-- made infinitely worse if both criteria are met.
  • Upon being replaced by a more advanced robot, Norm says, "Now I know I have a heart... because it's breaking."
  • "Couldn't Kick My Way Right Into Her Heart" is partly as comically ridiculous as any other Doofenshmirtz backstory, but at the same time very sad.
  • The boys' Disney Death in "Gaming the System".

Candace: ...Phineas?...Ferb?...Phineas! Ferb! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! (begins to cry)


Season 3

  • In 'Phineas and Ferb Interrupted' we get to see the aftermath of one of Perry and Doof's fights: Doof is sitting in the middle of his lab next to the remains of his latest Inator, hugging his knees and crying. Really takes the fun out of all the other battles, seeing this poor man defeated for the millionth time by a small animal and crying all by himself next to the ruins of his latest creation. The fact that he spends the rest of the episode gleefully convinced that Perry has had a change of heart and wants to be partners only makes it worse.
  • Norm. Watch A Real Boy and try not feel terrible for that lovable 'killer robot man'. Especially at the end, when it looks like Doof is about to apologize to him. Given the show's (and Doof's) track record, you know what's coming, and it's simultaneously hilarious and heart breaking to hear "There's someone I always have considered family, and that person is... Perry the Platypus!". At least he took it well...

Norm: Apology accepted... Dad!

  • In remains of a Platypus the sad look on Perry as he gets mindwiped and how he uses all of his remaining will to write “I fight evil“ gets me everytime.
  • Bully Bromance Break Up is about Buford and Baljeet "breaking up" over plastic. This sounds funny, and, for the most part, it is. That is, up until the song. While most "sad" songs in this show are merely Played for Laughs, we get Buford and Baljeet tearfully singing about missing each other, saying that there's a "bully sized/nerd shaped hole" in each of their hearts. Damn...
  • This list has featured a break up between a bully and nerd, a girl who loves a duck, and a bully losing his fish. All of these things are certainly sad, but nothing, NOTHING, beats the unlikely tear jerk-ness of Balloony's death in "Meapless in Seattle". Note that said balloon has a creepy-looking Uncanny Valley face, and that still doesn't make it any easier to see it go.
    • Upon thinking that everything is done for, Candace records a tearful farewell message for her mother on her phone. Yes, it is a reference to The Blair Witch Project, and yes, what she says does become a bit odd, but it is honestly, one of the most emotionally charged things she has said since her "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight in "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted".
  • "Let's Bounce" has Doof get hit by his own Truthinator, which causes him to say "Secretly I'm very lonely."


Specials and Miscellaneous

  • From the comic "The Last Episode". Spoilers, just in case.

Ferb: I don't want to be alone. Where's Perry?

    • Context, please?
  • The heartbreaking yet beautiful song entitled "Where Did We Go Wrong?" from the otherwise very heartwarming Christmas Special, especially when you consider the fact that Phineas is hardly ever sad.
    • Jeremy sulking quietly in the snow. It's always when a secondary character gets enough love to appear in a group scene...
  • Watching Phineas give up hope on the island in Summer Belongs to You. This kid, this ever-optimistic kid who's never given up on anything before, just completely fall apart, realizing he doesn't know what to do.
      • "We could...we can...we can...we...we...we can't..." Hearing one of the biggest and most lovable optimists in modern television say those two simple words is nothing short of heart-gutting.
    • As well as the scene just before it. Isabella never cries, but she did then.
    • "The City of Love". It's the culmination of how many seasons of Isabella's frustrations and Phineas' Freaking. Obliviousness. Her plaintive little voice, and the fact that he's still oblivious as she sings this right in front of him are just sadness on overdrive.
    • Also in the same episode, Vanessa leaves Ferb standing alone at the top of the Eiffel Tower holding a rose that he was going to give to her. Not quite tear-worthy, but still very sad.

"She left me for someone else."

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