As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- The "Mother's Day"
video. which talks of how our mothers care for us and are our biggest fans. - The "Acceptance" video, which depicts the monsters cheering because they accept each other.
- Sulley telling Mike he is scared of failure, and only because he now considers him a friend.
- This last line from Dean Hardscrabble, where even though she keeps Mike and Sulley expelled, wishes them good luck.Dean Hardscrabble: Oh, and Mr. Wazowski? Keep surprising people.
- And the gentle smile she gives at this scene. Remember, the Dean does not smile throughout the whole film, only at this scene. Now that is heartwarming, indeed.
- "Perhaps I should keep an eye out for more surprises like you." Because of their actions, Mike and Sulley actually changed the University for the better.
- The scene where Mike decides to bring Oozma Kappa to Monsters, Inc. to give them motivation to win the scare games, and when Mike and Sullivan begin to settle their differences. It's really heartwarming to see.
- Also, the scene after this when Sulley comes out of his room wearing the Oozma Kappa sweater.
- Mike and Sulley's Group Hug with the Oozma Kappa fraternity Club near the end of the film. No words need to be said to describe that scene because it's just that heartwarming.
- The Oozma Kappa fraternity Club Group Hug was fully drawn and coloured, as well as included in the children's illustration book of Monsters University.
- Mike getting starstruck when Hardscrabble comes in, musing about her record-breaking status to Randall.
- Mike and Sulley's happiness at doing their jobs as they rise up the ranks of Monsters Inc. From Mail-room operators to Scare-team in the first film!
- The montage where Mike and Sulley finally start to get into a groove, cooperating and working together, eventually waking up at 6 AM and getting ready in a symbiotic, almost choreographed routine. It just shows how well they've come to know and work with each other.
- Everything about Randall, before he decides to join ROR. Mike cheering him up and assuring him that his invisibility is cool. The scenes with him quizzing Mike for the tests, and just how happy he is to be helping.
- Despite never becoming a scarer himself, Mike still gets enough recognition for his later work in Monsters Inc. that he gets included in the Scare Cards, which have the only good, full image photo of his. Being a collector himself, and considering how happy Mike gets when his partial image appears in any important photo, you can imagine how much it means to him to have his full image in a Scare Card, right next to his best friend.
- Even better is when you realize that Mike would, in the end of Monsters Inc., have an even better career as a comedian to make children laugh. After all those years of staying backstage, Mike finally takes the spotlight at the Laugh Floor and does a great job doing it. Heck, he is such a success that he even currently has his own hit comedy show at Walt Disney World!
- Even more so Sulley, since he was the one who founded the strategy of making kids laugh and saved Monsters Inc (and thus the Monster world's entire energy supply). Sulley, a disgraced flunky of Monsters University, is now the guy keeping Monsters Inc. afloat.
- The intro with Mikey as a child visiting MI on a school trip. Frank McCay, one of the Scarers, actually stops to share some nice words with the class. Mike then gets the idea of sneaking after Frank into a child's room while he does his job. He manages to be so still and quiet that Frank doesn't even notice him and is immediately impressed. So impressed, the he gives Mikey his MU baseball hat that Mikey cherishes for most of his life.Frank: That was real dangerous, kid. I didn't even know you were in there! Wow… I didn't even know you were in there. (Takes off his hat and puts it on Mike) Not bad, kid.
- The smile on Mike's face when he departs Frank's room. He had just witnessed greatness and fallen in love with it. It sets off all his hard work and effort to attain this greatness.
- Also, doubles as both a Freeze-Frame Bonus and a Call-Back, but the way Mike scares the test dummy child in the last round of the Scare Games resembles how he saw Frank McCay back when he was little...erm...more little than he was, scare the child back at the beginning of the film.
- Along the lines of the above, just before Mike performs his scare, he hears one of his classmates, Johnny Worthington, and Dean Hardscrabble telling him he doesn't belong. But the last thing he thinks of is Sulley coaching him the night before. Perhaps it's Foreshadowing their relationship as Heterosexual Life-Partners.
- Terry and Terri seeing the three-headed monster at Monsters Inc. and realizing there can be a place for them as scarers. The looks on their faces really sold it.
- Similarly, Don seeing an older monster working as a scarer and realizing that being older doesn't make him useless.
- The look on Sulley's face when he watches M.I. It's dawning on him that he has to really shape up for his dream.
- Don Carlton's farewell to Mike and Sulley, asking them to keep in touch and handing them his usual business card. On the card, Don had scribbled the word "Scarer" over his original occupation title.
- Don revealing he and Sherry are getting married.
- Oozma Kappa going berserk when they discover that Mike is stuck in the dangerous human world. And even after the revelation of Sulley's cheating, they still love and trust him unconditionally to help him rescue Mike.
- OK's willingness to stand up to Hardscrabble when she shuts down the door to the human world while Mike and Sulley are trapped inside. Ineffective, but it shows how much they care about their teammates.
Don: They're still in there!Hardscrabble: Until the authorities arrive, this door stays off.Squishy: [charging into the room] No! You can't do that!- Sulley's reaction. His charging through the door into the human world to rescue Mike somewhat resembles his rescuing Boo from Randall and Waternoose's using the Scream Extractor on her.
- Mike rescuing Sulley when he can't get up the cliff.
- A subtle moment at the ROR party. Squishy does his little dorky dance and coax Sulley to join him at the dance floor. Sulley just stands by with a frustrated sullen expression, since he still considers it a disgrace to be part of O.K. But after many gestures from Squishy, Sulley relents, grins, and joins Squishy on the dance floor, showing that he is warming up to his O.K. brothers.
- Sulley finally expressing his respect and understanding of just what makes Mike special: "Mike, you're not scary. Not even a little. But you are fearless." Doubly heartwarming when you realize that Mike settling for "It's ok to be ok," seems to be the film's message, only for Sulley to subvert this message and understand that it seems ok at first, but in truth, it's extraordinary.
- Mike's farewell to O.K. "you guys are the scariest out there, and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise." Mike, as well as Sulley, have to live with the dishonor of their expulsion, but Mike was able to give O.K. their happy ending.
- For that matter, the whose sequence with Mike's locker, where you see that, working from all the way at the bottom, Mike and Sulley managed to make their own happy endi- ah, beginning, actually!
- The way Mike is breathing in the attention of a group of MU students in the "he's the heart and soul of the team" scene, as well as Oozma Kappa making it very clear that every single one of them recognizes him as their leader. After all the struggling and the put-downs, both must feel incredible to him.
- Even when the Dean forcefully asks Sulley if he thinks Mike is scary, the first two times he adamantly responds, "We couldn't have gotten this far without him!" and "He's the heart and soul of the team!"
- In Bonus Features of Monster's Inc, the interviewer asked Sulley how he became Monster's Inc's top scarer, he replied that he didn't do it alone, as he has the world's best assistant: Mike Wazowski. After seeing this we realize that Sulley wasn't simply being modest; he actually meant it.
- He cares that much for Mike that he does some last minute training on practical scaring with him, telling him to dig deep. It becomes a Tear Jerker when he doesn't have the heart to tell him he doesn't have it and he considers cheating to spare Mike from the truth.
- It was foreshadowed previously Sulley was willing to cheat in order to get himself in the Program. But by the time he becomes friends with Mike, Sulley does cheat but with a more benevolent intentions for both Oozma Kappa and Mike.
- "Stop being a Sullivan and start being you."
- After young Mikey emerges from the child's bedroom into a crowd of frightened Monsters Inc. workers, a Freeze-Frame Bonus would show that Earl "The Terror" Thompson was among those who witnessed Mike's first taste of the Scaring Career. It resonates with even more meaning when years later, Mike spotted him at the factory again and gushed over him.
- According to the collectable Scare Cards, Frank McCay and Mike share the exact same birthday (November 16). It's a small but sweet touch by the creators to draw another connection between the two.
- Mike and Sulley's talk to each other by the lake. It may be a Tear Jerker, but when Sulley tells Mike that he feels he's an insult to his family's reputation, Mike asks him why he never told him that before, promoting him to reply that it was because they weren't friends before. It was that moment when Sulley fully accepted Mike as his friend, and even with their previous bad blood, you can see Mike's understated elation upon this.
- All of the "Drama Class" Deleted Scene. Mike calls out on Sulley for studying a basic manual on scaring and offers to help him learn if he'd only ask. Sulley storms off, yelling angrily during an acting assignment, "I don't need help! I don't need anyone, alright?!". It soon becomes obvious that Sulley just isn't much of a book learner and struggles with just only few lines in the play. This causes some of the drama students to mock and insult him when he freezes up on opening night. Realizing this, Mike wrote all of Sulley's lines on his eyelid so Sulley could read off of him. Keeping in character with the play's plot, Mike denounces he and his "fellow" naysayers (who can't do a thing since the show must go on) and messes with them all the while, getting back at them for making fun of Sulley. It's just a storyboarded scene, but seeing someone like Sulley getting picked on for once and Mike backing him up despite their tensions was pretty sweet.Sulley: Thanks for the help.Mike: Anytime.
