Toy Story 5's Most Emotional Scene Echoes A Classic Futurama Episode

Contains spoilers for "Toy Story 5"

"Toy Story 5" is more uneven than its predecessors, but the Toy Story franchise hasn't lost its ability to make grown adults shed tears. Tom Hanks has been hyping the moment (via The Hollywood Reporter) when Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) gets mocked by the other girls in a chat room as one of the series' "most heartbreaking scenes." That scene is undoubtedly intense, but maybe a bit too on-the-nose and didactic to fully live up to the hype — and it can't surpass the heartbreak of the "When She Loved Me" sequence from "Toy Story 2," one of the all-time tear-jerking moments in animation.

Arguably the most effective such scene in "Toy Story 5" directly follows up on "When She Loved Me," in a way that's not heartbreaking but heartwarming. Jessie (Joan Cusack), still traumatized over her abandonment by her first owner Emily, has found herself at Emily's old house. When she makes her way to the tree that Emily used to swing on, she notices words carved in the tree that she didn't remember: "Jessie was here." Digging up and opening a box buried by the tree, she finds out that Jessie was also the name of Emily's daughter. The cowgirl realizes the impact she made on Emily lasted beyond their brief time together.

It's a beautiful moment that will have viewers reaching for their tissues. It will also remind some of those viewers of when a very different cartoon made them cry for similar reasons: the "Futurama" episode "The Luck of the Fryrish."

While Jessie fears having been forgotten by Emily before learning what she named her daughter, Philip J. Fry (Billy West) in "The Luck of the Fryrish" is convinced that his brother Yancy (Tom Kenny) stole his identity and his lucky seven-leaf clover. He plans to dig up the grave of the seeming impostor "Philip J. Fry" — the first man to go to Mars — to take back the clover, but uncovering the inscription of the gravestone reveals the truth. 

While Yancy did take the clover, the "original Martian," Philip J. Fry, is in fact Yancy's son, named in honor of his dearly missed uncle "to carry on his spirit." "Don't You (Forget About Me)" from "The Breakfast Club" soundtrack plays as Fry makes peace with his legacy.

In both "The Luck of the Fryish" and "Toy Story 5," characters who have, for one reason or another, been separated from or even outlived family members have their hard feelings softened by the discovery that said family members named their children after them. These names offer a sign that these characters remain loved and remembered long after their tragic separation. It's hard not to get emotional at such stories — though thankfully they're more uplifting than the sheer terror of the incinerator sequence in "Toy Story 3" or the depressing fate of Seymour in the saddest "Futurama" episode, "Jurassic Bark."

"Toy Story 5" is now in theaters.