As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- "Pictures In My Head." Kermit's sense of nostalgia and loss is conveyed extremely well.Kermit: I mean the only way we can raise that kind of money is to....... to put on a show. ...and I haven't seen the old gang... in a long, long time. ... I guess... the world sort of forgot about us."
- It gets especially great when the portraits come to life and The Electric Mayhem starts playing. The lyrics so beautifully capture what was "lost" and how great those memories truly were... and how wonderful it would be to have them back.
Should we do it all again?Make them laugh like we did then?Back on stage where we belong
We could harmonize for one more song- It gets especially heartbreaking when Kermit gets a glimpse of Miss Piggy's portrait and sadly covers it again.
- The moment when Walter, Gary, and Mary are trying to talk Kermit into doing the telethon. They each quote a line of the Muppet Show theme song... and then Kermit plays the final 7 notes very slowly and regretfully on the piano.
- Kermit singing "The Rainbow Connection" and being joined by Piggy and then the rest of the cast. (And the in-movie audience. And probably more than a few of the real audience.)
- When Animal starts drumming again, you will cry.
- It's one behind-the-scenes as well: this was Steve Whitmire's first portrayal of the song, which was very strongly associated with Jim Henson.
- Though it could just be Whitmire interpreting the lyric differently, the way Kermit sings the line "Look what it's done so far" sounds almost bitter, as if he's become disillusioned by harsh realities and, for a moment, thinks he was a fool to ever have dreams.
- When Animal starts drumming again, you will cry.
- The moment when the countdown is over... and the telethon is shown to have failed. Even though the ending quickly turns into a awesome and heartwarming moment, it really just hurts to see all of them go quiet, finding all their effort to have been seemingly for nothing.
- Watching Tex Richman harassing the Muppets after the telethon failed. The way he gets in Kermit's face makes you want to punch the guy. Even the in-movie audience is appalled.
- When Walter first enters Kermit's old office, he sees on one wall an assortment of photos of Kermit with old celebrities, the center of which is... Kermit with Jim Henson.
- Just seeing what's happened to Fozzie without Kermit and the others is absolutely heartbreaking.
- Gary's friends making fun of Walter's Kermit Halloween costume. Anyone who's ever been picked on for liking "old" things (including the Muppets) can relate.
- Seeing the pictures of Jim Henson and knowing how much he'd love this movie, not to mention Kermit's "It doesn't matter if everyone loves us: we're a family" speech, if he were still alive.
- The "Man or Muppet" number has a bittersweet ending in which Gary takes a bus all the way back to Mary's house and apologizes to her, then the two of them embrace.
- For Mary's part, it's hard not to feel sorry for her. For all the support she provides when around with the Muppets, Gary being completely absent for the day that was supposed to be "theirs" (to say nothing of his forgetting their anniversary dinner) clearly makes her feel like a major third wheel. Even worse when you recall the entire reason for the whole trip in the first place was to celebrate her and Gary's anniversary, and visiting the Muppet Studios was more or less a glorified afterthought. Poor girl.
- Jerry Nelson's very brief vocal appearance is a Tear Jerker in light of his August 2012 passing, since this was the final Muppet movie he lived to see and be involved in.
- Why, hell, it was even this before he died. Just the fact that they got Jerry - who had mostly retired from puppetry at that point and limited himself to voicing what Sesame Street roles he had left (those being Count von Count and Mr. Johnson), and was suffering from respiratory complications which would claim his life not long after - to do this one brief vocal appearance just for the fandom to notice is Awesome, Heartwarming and a bonafide happy Tear Jerker all rolled into one.
- The Theater. Dear God, the Theater. When the gang walks into that old place for the first time to see how run down and all but annihilated it's become...If nothing else counted as a tear jerker in this film, that damn well did. Seeing the place so run down and decrepit was known to bring audiences to genuine tears when the film was in theaters. That's how heartbreaking it was to see the Muppet Show Theater like that. Makes it even worse when you remember that in an earlier Muppet film, the gang had been fighting their hearts out to keep it from being torn down. And yet after all of that, to just seeing it wasting away like that was a massive gut punch for so many longtime and lifelong fans alike of the Muppets as a whole.
