Tear Jerker / Television Channels

TCM Remembers

Every December, Turner Classic Movies releases a channel bumper honoring movie stars and crewmembers who passed away over the past year. And they are devastating. Instead of the traditional award-show parade of recognizable names, these bumpers, produced by TCM's Andrew Alonso and directed and edited by Scott Lansing of Sabotage Film Group, often intersperse images that tell a small story^note several times they've had a theater closing (in 2012, a drive-in re-opens and it's implied aliens were involved), someone developing photographs in an old house, falling leaves on water, or the Afterlife Express, cover a lot of lesser stars, writers, technicians and others, including many foreign artists, that the Oscars miss, and mostly use melancholic songs from lesser-known indie bands that reach crescendos at just the right time for emotion to take hold. And they always save the best (and for us, worst) moments for last.

• 2006: an angel dances and scatters roses in an abandoned house to Robinella's "Press On", which is specifically about peaceful death. This was the one that really grabbed viewer attention, even though TCM had been doing them since 1995. Earlier ones used classical or soft modern instrumental Background Music.
• 2011. Three words: "As you wish."
• 2014: People walk around a forlorn, palatial house (it's Swan House in Atlanta, once the home of the Inman family, now part of the History Center) to the tune of Kodaline's "All I Want". As the film goes along, we see they're coming to a party, perhaps a wake. The breaking point is 4:24: as they sing "If you loved me, why did you leave me?" — it cuts to...Robin Williams.
  • That's not the end of it, though. There's still about a minute left, and we're left wondering who could possibly be bigger than Robin. The song ends, the party-goers leave the ground and disappear...and then we hear a little girl singing "Auld Lang Syne".
  • Even before that: the clip of Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart from Dark Passage. Backing lyrics: "Our love was made for movie screens".
  Bogie: I'll be waiting for you.
• 2015's song "Quickly Now" was written especially for that year's clipreel, by Chuck Moore & Reid Hall. The singer is Eryn McHugh.
• 2016 is arguably not as effective than the others, but maybe that's for catharsis after an infamously tough year. And that's not saying it's any worse.
  • The song that year was Dan Auerbach's "Goin' Home", which is more touching than flat-out soul crushing.
  • Music lovers could choke up at seeing Prince and David Bowie right next to each other, and within the first thirty seconds, no less. Bowie's clip is from The Man Who Fell to Earth, as Auerbach sings "I've spent too long... away from home..."
  • The closeout is the Close Encounters of the Third Kind project committee approaching the mothership (cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond was among the departed that year), implied to be all the artists preparing to be taken off the earth and to new horizons. The final clip is of Willy Wonka's somersault entrance. However, there is an edit where this clip is preceded by Zsa Zsa Gabor (looking delighted, as if she sees the ship too) and Carrie Fisher (as Leia removing her hood, as if she's looking back from the spaceship), who died in late December.
    • Fans expressed a lot of concern and regret over the fact that Carrie's mom Debbie Reynolds had died the day after her daughter, after saying all she wanted was to be with Carrie. They had hoped for a second re-edit to include her. The following year, TCM Remembers included a clip showing Debbie and baby Carrie kissing and playing.
• 2017 is a special case, as it doesn't end with an actor; it ends with TCM's very own host, Robert Osborne, who died March 6 of that year.
  • Happy tears abound for animation fans with the inclusion of legendary voice actress June Foray, especially since animation is a medium where some particularly talented and influential VA's have been glossed over in major In Memoriam reels (or, in Mel Blanc's case, died before such reels became common). She was also given representation in the channel's annual In Memoriam marathon, via an airing of The Phantom Tollbooth.
• 2018 may be the worst in years. The camera tours an empty town, set to Lord Huron's "When The Night Is Over". Toward the last minute, it reaches a theater with "TCM Remembers" on the marquee, Stan Lee of all people looks upward...and then they set off fireworks. While you set off waterworks.
  There's an emerald in the sky...
• 2019 doesn't have any images other than the stars, but Alice Boman's "Waiting" is just plain haunting.
  "This is the moment. Once upon a time in my life."
  • Rutger Hauer was accompanied by the "tears in rain" quote, fittingly enough.
• 2020, like the previous year, doesn't have any images other than the departed, but it does feature a somber cover of the poem "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" set to music, to a poignant effect. And it's bookended by the two last remaining major movie stars of The Golden Age of Hollywood: Kirk Douglas and Olivia de Havilland, both of whom managed to survive into their hundreds, a feat not many major actors can claim.
  • On the other hand, there is one image noticeably newer than all the rest: King T’Challa.
  • And one little Take That! sequence:
    Sean Connery as James Bond. I must be dreaming.
    Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore. You can turn off the charm.
    Peggy Pope as Margaret in 9 to 5. Atta girl.
• 2021 is themed to neon-lights in an artist's studio, and set to a Softer and Slower Cover of "Shiny Happy People" by Reuben and the Dark (that was featured on a Grey's Anatomy episode the year previously).

  We're on our way, Ellie.

  • At least four primarily comedic actors were shown near the first use of “shiny happy people laughing” (Jessica Walter, Norm Macdonald, Jackie Mason, and George Segal, the latter with a full guffaw.)
• 2022 is themed around a car cruising alone, and set to another Lord Huron song, this time their Signature Song "The Night We Met". The montage is fittingly capped with a clip from Buck And The Preacher of Sidney Poitier tipping his hat, seemingly to the viewers.
  "It is your duty to change the world, if you can. Good luck."

Network Death

Network Death and the like can result in this for television and radio stations if they are shutting down or changing formats. Some may be just be a brief or abrupt sign-off with little to no fanfare, but some do go the extra mile to pay tribute to their history before turning off the transmitter for good (or switching to "stunt" transitional programming).

• On June 12, 2009, all television stations in the United States switched from the NTSC analog format to an all-digital signal. Many stations around the country chose to mark the occasion by airing short pieces in the final moments before the switch.
  • WNBC, New York City, NY. (probably the most tear-inducing one of them all)
  • KDKA Pittsburgh, PA.
  • KYW, Philadelphia, PA.
  • WLWT, Cincinatti, OH.
  • KADN, Lafayette, LA.
  • WKRG, Mobile, AL.
  • WFAA, Dallas, TX.
  • WRTV, Indianapolis, IN.
  • WFTV, Orlando, FL
• It's heartwrenching any time a network signs off, but The WB's final moments just take the cake.
• The last moments of G4TV's original run. No matter what you may think of them after their Network Decay, their last year or so of programming was sad. They'd canceled both their flagship shows and Lost their acquisitions, effectively becoming a zombie, with even owners Comcast removing them from their service. Their final signoff, a nod to a week-long Pong marathon they launched with, ended up airing to little fanfare on what carriers still had them, following a re-run of the first episode of X-Play.
• German music channel Viva's last moments on December 31, 2018. Appropriately, the penultimate music video being played was the Spice Girls' "Viva Forever".
• British movie channel Carlton Cinema folded with the rest of the short-lived ITV Digital operation in 2003: its closedown included a montage of film scenes set to Alice Faye's "You'll Never Know".

Other

• After the passing of Fred Rogers (of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood fame) in late Feburary 2003, PBS North Carolina (at the time known as UNC-TV) aired a memorial tribute that featured Mr. McFeely and the network's Kangaroo mascot Read-A-Roo watching one of Rogers' speeches. As Read-A-Roo starts to cry, Mr. McFeely comforts her by saying "Yeah, I miss him too" as he gently embraces Read-A-Roo's hand (which is holding a tissue) which she does back.
  Your support of UNC-TV has an impact... beyond what you watch.
• Cartoon Network's tribute bumpers to William Hanna and Chuck Jones when they died.
• This bumper aired immediately after the final airing of Family Guy on [adult swim] on September 18, 2021. [as] was the network that gave Family Guy its audience while it was on the verge of cancellation (for better or worse) and with its move to FX Networks and Freeform, the bumper marked the End of an Age.
• In 2009, on the 65th anniversary of D-Day, one channel gave this simple but effective tribute:
  Someday, sooner than we think, there will come a time when there will be no one left who was there on the 6th of June, 1944. And that's why, more than ever, we should take the time to say "Thank you".