The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air/Tear Jerker

Examples of Tear Jerkers in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air include:

• In "Papa's Got A Brand New Excuse", Will's dead-beat dad, Lou, comes back into Will's life after fourteen years, and Will tries his best to try to get to know him better. Even after Uncle Phil calls out Lou over not being there for him when he was a child, Will -- for the first time in the show -- outright defies Phil by telling him that he isn't his father. In the end, Lou's true colors show as he becomes more concerned over some new business and has to cancel a planned summer trip with Will. It's clear from their last talk together that Lou's not coming back -- and Will doesn't want him to come back. Will tries to shake it off and defiantly yells about all of the things he learned to do -- and hopes to accomplish -- without his father around to help him. He eventually breaks down as the weight of the situation fully hits him. Will finally just looks at Uncle Phil with the saddest look on his face and says one of the shortest, yet saddest lines ever uttered: "How come he don't want me, man?". Phil then gives him a Cooldown Hug. The camera then zooms in on the present Will had bought for his father: a wood carving of a father holding a young son. Link
• In "Bullets Over Bel Air", Will takes a bullet for Carlton when the two are mugged while withdrawing money from an ATM. After seeing Will hurt so badly, Carlton's feelings of helplessness push him over the edge, and he ends up buying a gun. Will ends up begging Carlton to get rid of it so that he doesn't intentionally or accidentally hurt someone in the same way Will was. After convincing Carlton to give up the gun, Will breaks down in tears. Link
  • What makes it more of a tear jerker is that Will stares at the gun as if he was contemplating suicide, before taking the bullets out of the gun.
  • That, or he hesitated to check if the gun was indeed loaded, and then when he did check, he realized that, yes, Carlton actually bought a gun and loaded it with ammo with the intent to shoot someone out of self-defense, or to defend a loved one, if the need came for it. This is Carlton we're talking about.
• Will confessing that the pep pills that almost killed Carlton were his. A true He Really Can Act moment by Will Smith as he slowly breaks down during his speech explaining the whole situation. Link.
• After Jazz inadvertently throws Phil's chances at being a judge into jeopardy, Will blows up at him and tells him to leave.

Will: So, as of now, this friendship is over, you're not welcome here, so I'd like it if you just got the hell outta my crib! Jazz: You're not even gonna bother to throw me out? Will: You're not even worth it, man.

• After Will reluctantly admits that the drugs which put Carlton in hospital came from his locker, there's a moment of anger and disbelief before Will all but starts crying and Uncle Phil hugs him. I've never seen a Studio Audience so quiet in my life.
• The Fresh Prince of Bel Air had a few Tear Jerkers that managed to be effective without being falling into the maligned Very Special Episode territory. The episode where Will reunites as an adult with his absentee father (played by Ben Vereen), only to have the latter abandon him again, gets me every time.
  • Oh God, the last scene, where excited Will realizes his dad ran out on him again and starts angrily saying he doesn't need him, he learned how to shave without him, to play basketball, etc., and he's crying by the end (Will Smith! Crying!), and finally he just breaks down and asks Uncle Phil why his dad doesn't want him, and Uncle Phil holds him, and THAT could be dealt with until the credits, where they show the present Will had bought for his father: a sculpture of a father holding his son. And it was all downhill from there.

Will: How come he don't want me, man?

• Will's reaction is sad enough, but it's the look on Uncle Phil's face that gets to me the most -- he's absolutely furious with Will's father, yet clearly on the verge of tears himself.
• And re: Phil being Will's father in every real sense, he tells him as much in the last episode.

• The final part of "Bullets over Bel Air" always got me. At the start of the episode, Will and Carlton are held up at gunpoint when they get some money for a camping trip they've got planned, and Will ends up diving in front of a bullet for Carlton. In the last act, Will, still in hospital and having barely escaped being paralyzed or killed, is confronted by a Carlton so shaken up by events and determined to prevent something like that happening again that he's bought a gun. Will's desperate attempt to keep it together while he orders Carlton to give him the gun, in exchange for having saved his life, is bad enough. But when he finally does and Carlton leaves, Will holds on just long enough to unload it before he finally breaks down, alone, terrified and injured in his hospital bed.
• The episode where Will and Carlton are driving a Mercedes for a business partner of Uncle Phil's and are pulled over and arrested after driving slowly through a wealthy neighborhood. At the end, Will and Carlton have an argument about whether it was racial profiling or the police just doing their job. Will leaves and Carlton asks Uncle Phil about it and Uncle Phil expresses his anger over it. That's not the tear jerker, though - it's Carlton sitting alone in the living room and saying, "I'd have pulled us over" again and again, trying to make himself believe it and accept the injustice.
• Trevor's death. At first Hilary just passes it off, but over time, she sees it as a real loss. Even when she tried to move on with another man, she still couldn't get over it since he died so suddenly, she never got to say goodbye. This leads to Will telling her it's never too late to say goodbye and he'll live on in her heart. This cheers her up and she is able to move on, but not before one final goodbye to her late lover.

"Goodbye, Trevor."