Heartwarming / Puppet History

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

• Despite being incredibly vocal about her desire to win the Coveted Cup throughout the entirety of "Stealing The World's Most Expensive Necklace", when The Professor announces that there was a tie Kate immediately tells Ryan he can have the Cup. Doubly heartwarming considering how desperate Ryan is for a win in later seasons is how he responds, telling Kate that they can share it instead.
• During "The Grisly Journey of The Donner Party", Ryan, The Professor, and special guest Joyce start talking about modern day Reno. The Professor mentions he vacations there, at which point Joyce suggests they could go together some time. The Professor sounds absolutely delighted at the prospect, and the two agree to plan the trip after the episode.
  • Making it even more heartwarming, the second episode to feature Joyce, "Ching Shih: The Pirate Queen", reveals that they did end up going on that trip together! Aww...
• From the Christmas special:
  • The oars' song, where it's revealed that not only did they get back together after the Musashi episode, but they're now traveling the world and creating a future all of their own. After how miserable the two were after they were separated, it's nice to see them be Sickening Sweethearts.
    The Two Oars: Every trip you take is a gift/When you love the livin' hell outta the one that you're with!
  • Kate is so moved by her Christmas gift from the Professor that she cries.
    Kate: This is honest to god the sweetest present... and uh-oh, I haven't cried properly in a minute... [cries]
• The song at the end of "Ching Shih: The Pirate Queen" is a surprisingly normal-sounding folk pop/rock song by the flower boat that Ching Shih worked on before her piracy career, in which he admits that he's a little sad and jealous that she's moved on to bigger and more exciting things - but is overwhelmingly happy and proud to hear of how wildly successful she's become, in a similar manner to someone reflecting that an old friend's gone on to fame and fortune, and comments that she can always visit him again in her retirement if she'd like. It's a pretty touching and genuinely nice song for a serenade from a literal boat to a ruthless pirate in a comedy puppet show.
• In "America Vs. Smallpox", when the Professor reveals that smallpox had a fatality rate of 30%, Ryan realizes that one out of the three people in the room (him, the professor, and Jermaine) would have died, and immediately states that he would take the fall for either of them because he thinks they're "both really nice guys." It becomes a lot funnier when the Professor has little to no reaction to this, however.
• In Season 5, it turns out that after the Professor was swallowed by the T-Rex in Season 4, he was reborn from an egg to her and her pterodactyl partner. The whole deal is very much played for laughs when it's first introduced in "The Vietnamese Sisters Who Fought An Empire", but the unconventional family gets a surprisingly sweet scene at the end of the next episode, "America's First Black Aviatrix", wherein they're stargazing together, the Professor teaching his new parents about space before his dad suggests they all start making up their own constellations together. The T-Rex makes one up of a bird that she claims she was uplifted by the song of on especially hard nights incubating his egg; and the Professor makes one up of Ryan, who he happily describes as his friend and who he reflects he wasn't always especially kind to. His mother understandingly comments that people sometimes do nasty things out of carelessness and that she's sure it'll all be all right if he just tells "Beef Boy" he's sorry, and he admits that he'd indeed like to reconcile someday. It's honestly good at being touching as a bonding scene and as Character Development.
  • We finally get the payoff in "The Dreadful Demise of the Dinosaurs" where Ryan fights a demonic imposter version of The Professor to save him and his parents from an asteroid killing them, and just as he thinks he's failed, THE REAL PROFESSOR RETURNS! With his parents in tow, too. Ryan and the Professor are clearly happy to see each other again, with Ryan apologizing profusely for what he did and The Professor doing so in kind.
• Somehow, the comet smashing into the Earth and wiping out the dinosaurs in "The Dreadful Demise Of The Dinosaurs" is made this as the anthropromphized comet shyly asks the Earth if it's OK to crash into it (almost as if it's asking it out), opening up it's afraid to stop but reassuring itself, and briefly admitting if it has to stop, "this is a pretty good place to do it", complete with a montage of various beautiful landscapes.
  • The Professor and his parents go to watch the impact and enjoy their presumed last minutes of life together. The parents, despite finding out they're about to die horribly along with the rest of their species, try to comfort their son and just embrace their final moments as a family.
    The Professor: Mom and Dad, I love you. You're all I ever need.
  • The whole song "The End of History" is almost a eulogy for the dinosaurs, paying respect to the incredible creatures of yesteryear, while also celebrating the wonderful things that came about in the millions of years since then.
• The fact that the Season Five finale starts with The Professor giving his dino parents a history lesson, complete with a stage and "the magic of theater," and they love it. He even alters his usual spiel, referring to himself not as "your beloved host" but as "your beloved son."
  • The Professor's parents, Dinosir and Dinosara, have little to no point of reference for what The Professor discusses during the lesson due to living millions of years before the creation of the terms and inventions he references, such as the solar calendar or movies. Despite this, they're nothing but supportive of their son's interests throughout the entire lesson, reassuring him on multiple occasions that all they care about is the fact that teaching them about history makes him happy.
    Dinosir: Yeah, we like that you laugh, son. That's all we want.
    Dinosara: As long as you're happy, baby.
• In season 6, rather than the usual "Ryan, thanks for trying" when nothing Ryan's loss, the Professor instead says "Ryan, thanks for being a friend." Awww!

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