History Heartwarming / Recess

* When the kindergarteners are paired with their Pee-wee pals Tubby who is paired with Freddy says: "Tubby love Freddy".

** It's even better than that. It's revealed that ever since its foundation, Third Street School has had a hamster class pet for the fourth graders, and that the teachers had quietly been replacing the hamsters as they died of old age throughout the decades. While the assembled mourners, including many adults and even the town's mayor, are at first distressed with the realization that the Speedy they knew and loved had died decades ago, T.J points out to everyone that all of them had had a Speedy, whom they all loved. In the end, they bury the current Speedy with full honors, and King Bob decrees the grave site as The Tomb Of the Unknown Speedy. The episode ends with a small montage of the various Speedys that have been at Third Street, from the 50's to present day.

* T.J. defending Spinelli when everyone accuses her of throwing a rock at Randall during a dirt clod war.
* Mikey's description of Spinelli's part in the war.

* And then there was the truth of the matter; [[spoiler: Spinelli did have Randall at her mercy during the whole situation, but didn't have a rock; it was just a dirt clod. However, she noticed Miss Finster, the "mean" teacher of the school, having trouble with her cat. So Spinelli actually helped the long-time pain in the gang's side. Shows that under her [[BruiserWithASoftCenter tough girl side, she's really nice.]]]]
* King Bob's anger that Spinelli got attacked during a time out is pretty touching, especially since she called said timeout because one of his subjects was hurt. Proof that a good king is also [[BigBrotherInstinct the playground's big brother]].

-->'''Gus's Dad:''' [[spoiler: Well, let's put it this way: Gus, you've got one heck of a platoon leader.]]

* Yope and Gus's friendship is quite charming to see, after Gus feels bad when it comes out that he's not really "the hot kid" and does not want to be in the picture at Yope's farewell party, Yope comforts him saying that Gus will always be "head gut"(his way of saying "hot kid") and thanks Gus for being a friend to him when nobody else wanted to.

* Gretchen is about to buy a shiny new bike but decides not to after feeling guilty for setting the others up forfailure since she didn't actually tutor them, so she decides not to buy the bike and gives them all their money back and tutors them for real. Then after school they all surprise Gretchen by putting their money together and buying her the bike as thanks for helping them all succeed.

* Prickly saving T.J. from falling off the roof of the latter’s house, and then standing up to Tad White.

* Prickley saving T.J. from falling off the roof of the latter’s house.

* Gretchen is about to buy a shiny new bike but decides not to after feeling guilty for setting the others up to failure since she didn't actually tutor, so she decides not to buy the bike and gives them all their money back tutors them for real. Then after school they all surprise Gretchen by putting their money together and buying her the bike as thanks for helping them all succeed.

* Just when it seems like the punishment will go through, none other than Thaddeus T. Third V (the grandson of the guy who Third Street and Third Street Elementary School is named) shows up at the courthouse to defend the kids, pointing out that the statue is ''meant'' to be played on and enjoyed by children. To prove it, he shows slides of all of the adults in the room--including Miss Finster, Principal Prickly, and even the judge himself, doing just what the Recess Gang did in their own school days.
** He also gets a PapaWolf moment where during said slideshow, he points out how the child!Mayor was the only kid ''deliberately'' trying to break the statue, unless the Main Six, who had done so completely by accident.

* Gretchen and Hank's [[InterGenerationalFriendship friendship]] over math is really heartwarming to see. Then when Hank is ultimately torn between three promising prospective job offers as a result of his genius, he admits that Gretchen's opinion is the only one he really cares about and she ultimately tells Hank that he has to follow his heart. In the end Hank decides not to take any of the offers, reasoning that if he had to do Math for a living, then it wouldn't be fun anymore, then him and Gretchen go back to their math club.

* Gretchen and Hank's [[InterGenerationalFriendship friendship]]over math is really heartwarming to see. Then when Hank is ultimately torn between three promising prospective job offers as a result of his genius, he admits that Gretchen's opinion is the only one he really cares about and she ultimately tells Hank that he has to follow his heart. In the end Hank decides not to take any of the offers, reasoning that if he had to do Math for a living, then it wouldn't be fun anymore, then him and Gretchen go back to their math club.

* After Becky steals Gretchen's science-fair project for herself so she'll win the trophy, Gretchen sets out to expose her but then when she sees Becky unable to answer the question of what the project actually does, Gretchen steps in and explains it for her. Becky is surprised that Gretchen didn't expose her and Gretchen says that if all Becky wants out of this is a trophy that she's fine with that. Then when Becky gets the award, she can't accept it, ultimately confessing to her fraud and at the two finally bond over science for real.

* Plus the interactions between Gretchen and her mentor-famous yo-yo champ Tommy Tate, who sees a lot of himself in Gretchen and gives her a gold yo-yo he won. Then at the end when Gretchen decides to retire from professional yoyoing he says that he thinks she might the right decision to go back to her friends as by the time he got out of the games he had no friends left to go back to.

* Gus goes to Ms. Finster because of Gelman's bullying and she chews Gelman out and threatens to bring him to the Principle is she catches him bullying any student on her playground, sure it doesn't work to stop him but it is nice to see she has zero tolerance for any bullying in her school, and takes students complaints seriously.

* Right after T.J. and the gang finish their tour of the school to Gus, he begins crying because he's been to twelve schools in the past six years, yet no one has ever been so nice to him before.

* And the reason why Old Rusty was so important to T.J.: That's where he met the other four kids in kindergarten on the first day of school.

* And then there was the truth of the matter; [[spoiler: Spinelli did have Randall at her mercy during the whole situation, but didn't have a rock; it was just a dirt clot. However, she noticed Miss Finster, the mean teacher of the school, having trouble with her cat. So Spinelli actually helped the long-time pain in the gang's side. Shows that under her [[BruiserWithASoftCenter tough girl side, she's really nice.]]]]

* The episode straddles the line between Tearjerker and CMOH. One one hand, Mikey's relationship with Ms. Salimony (the music teacher who teaches him to believe in himself so that he can discover his repressed singing talent) is one big SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}}. But then we see Mikey convinced that he's genuinely ''in love'' with his 25 year-old teacher ''and'' that she loves him back, only to walk in on her accepting her boyfriend's marriage proposal. Even though Mikey's romantic fantasy is impossibly naive, it's still heartbreaking to see him run off crying and then hide in the bathroom in a HeroicBSOD. The final scene, where he sings "Nobody Knows the Troubles I've Seen" while gazing longingly at Salimony and saying farewell to her, hits both ends.
** Ms Salimony whispers "see you in middle school" at the end, which means she's likely to become a CoolTeacher to him by the time he gets there.
** The fact that Ms. Salimony really cared about Mikey despite being only a temporary teacher for him. Not only did she help him discover his talent, but when he was depressed and hiding out in the bathroom she refused to force him to sing and even told Prickly and Finster that she refuses to let them force him either.

* They might be jerks, but the flashback to how the Ashleys met and became friends as preschoolers was adorable. It starts when Ashley A.'s hat is blown off by the wind while at the playground, causing her to chase after it, and bumping into the other girls all chasing after their hats, too.

* Spinelli decides not to appear in the recital because the rest of the kids made fun of the recital, not knowing she was going to be in it. After noticing that this meant that Mikey would be left without a dancing partner, and not going to be able to perform, she comes back for him.

* The entire episode, non-stop. Gus' family has moved a lot so he finally gets a chance to get a school picture, and wants to make his family proud by staying clean. T.J. and the others work together to keep him clean and give him closure, Randall surprisingly (and unintentionally) calms him down with his harmonica music, and by the end of the episode, [[spoiler: he sacrifices his clean self for T.J.]], not to mention [[spoiler:the letter T.J. wrote to his dad about picture day, and how he's proud to be his friend]]. It's an AffectionateParody of ''Film/SavingPrivateRyan'' and it works.

* Just when it seems like the punishment will go through, none other than Thaddeus T. Third the Fifth shows up at the courthouse to defend the kids, pointing out that the statue is ''meant'' to be played on and enjoyed by children. To prove it, he shows slides of all of the adults in the room--including Miss Finster, Principal Prickly, and even the judge himself, doing just what the Recess Gang did in their own school days.
** He also gets a PapaWolf moment where during said slideshow, he subtly calls out one of the adults for actively ''trying'' to break the statue, in contrast to TJ and the gang who did so completely by accident.
*** The context of it. Thanks to Thaddeus T. Third the Fifth, after every mean-spirited punishment the kids have been put through, they are [[EarnYourHappyEnding rightfully forgiven]] for they accidentally did.

* After seeing her completely overwhelmed by the kids in her dilapidated state, the gang unites the kids of the playground unanimously to behave better for Finster until her leg is fully healed.

* The ending counts as well. It turns out that Randall has been blackmailing King Bob with a photo of the older boy being forced by his older sister to model some dresses for her at the mall. TJ devises a plan to help, and a little while later, King Bob's servants pass out copies of the photo to everyone on the playground. Bob tells the story of what happened, and the kids open the photos, which initially leads to mocking laughter--and that's when TJ steps up to talk about the humiliation his own older sister puts him through. Vince and Spinelli share their own stories, and soon, all of the kids are united behind the idea of [[BigBrotherBully siblings who tease them]] (or cousins in Gus's case). Without his bargaining chip, Randall is stripped of his powers, a grateful King Bob undoes all of his harsh rules, and recess is restored to normal.

** Spinelli meets a woman interested with knitting, which turns out to be a method of [[NeverMessWithGranny keeping her fingers strong for boxing]], a skill she picked up in the U.S. Merchant Marines.

* When TJ asks Miss Finster why she hasn't tried to stop Principal Prickly leaving, when she's clearly upset about it, she explains that she's kept silent because Prickly has wanted to be a middle school principal for a long time, and when you care about someone, you have to think about their happiness before your own.

* It is revealed that TJ and Menlo used to be good friends when they were four years old. Even though their friendship has long since ended, TJ still attends Menlo's birthday party every year.

** Former-King Bob returning to his old school after graduating at the start of ''School's Out'' to snap Mikey & Gus out of their AcquiredSituationalNarcissism.

* The episode's overall plot is one big CMOH. Mikey volunteers the Gang to spend a Saturday afternoon at a retirement home, but they're reluctant as it's the same day as the "Senor Fusion Fest" at the mall, and only agree when they find out that they can do both. But as the day goes on, each kid finds a resident that matches up with them perfectly, and the resulting [[IntergenerationalFriendship relationships]] are extremely sweet. Gretchen talks to a now-declassified scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project, who tells her that she "seems possessed of a mind" and is thus smart enough to understand him; Vince befriends a former baseball star who played "back when Birmingham had a team"--that is, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Black_Barons Birmingham Black Barons]], a wonderful example of [[ShownTheirWork the writers putting in effort to be accurate]] (the old man references Satchel Paige and Willie Mays, who both actually played for the Black Barons); Spinelli meets a woman interested with knitting, which turns out to be a method of [[NeverMessWithGranny keeping her fingers strong for boxing]], a skill she picked up in the U.S. Merchant Marines; Gus connects with an [[GentleGiant enormous but friendly man]] who recognizes himself in the boy and helps calm his fears about being small by promising that he'll grow up to be big and strong someday; and T.J. chats with a man who served in World War II and played pranks on his superiors, just as T.J. does on his principal and Miss Finster--and in a bonus surprise, the man turns out to be the creator of Senor Fusion! Mikey, meanwhile, has a miserable time when his singing doesn't go over well, and tries to get the gang to leave, only for them to point out that he [[PoorCommunicationKills didn't bother to listen to what the audience wanted to hear]], and that if he tries, he just might learn something. Mikey gives it another shot and brings the house down, and the episode ends with all of the residents, including the kids and their new friends, joining the audience to cheer him on. Anyone who has a close relationship with their grandparents, or the elderly in general, will be warm and fuzzy by the time the show's over.

** Though Spinelli's [[CallingTheOldManOut angry speech to her parents]] about how they kept telling her to be [[TitleDrop "more like Gretchen"]] during the episode is more a CrowningMomentOfAwesome, their reaction pushes toward this trope--they admit that they're so used to being impressed by all of the wonderful things she does on a daily basis that they sometimes forget to voice those feelings, and promise to do better from then on.

* And at the end of the episode, Prickly returns to Third Street School, [[{{Blatant Lies}} ostensibly because Superintendent Skinner made a poor pay offer]]. Yet, in spite of what [[{{Jerkass Facade}} Prickly tells them]], you can infer that [[{{Jerk with a Heart of Gold}} Prickly decided to stay to prevent Slicer from making life at Third Street School miserable]].

** The use of a highly [[TropesAreNotBad cliched trope]] still manages to be a heartwarming moment. As Spinelli improves in her dancing, the tutor keeps mentioning a "little girl from old country" that Spinelli reminds her of. After the recital...