Top 20 The Big Bang Theory Moments That Made Us Happy Cry

In Season 3, Leonard tells Penny that he loves her. To which a grateful and uncertain Penny responds with an awkward “Thank you.” Not only does she not say it back, but it’s this lack of reciprocation that leads to them breaking up. Jump ahead three seasons - they’re back together and she finally says it! She might not mean to say it; it just kind of slips out. But she truly feels it, and the significance of the moment can’t be overstated. While the two of them try not to cry, we can’t stop at least a few tears of joy from falling.

Sheldon and Leonard’s friendship is the bedrock of the show and the basis of many great moments. However, given everything Leonard has to deal with, it’s also fair to ask the question… Why does he put up with it? It’s a question many, including Leonard, have asked before. In Season 8, the guys get into yet another argument about such matters. But when the conversation turns to Leonard possibly moving in with Penny, things go from confrontational to tear-filled, as they both realize how much they truly mean to each other.

The living room of Apartment 4A was the center of the “Big Bang” universe for twelve seasons. There might not be a more iconic image from the show than the gang sitting around the coffee table, talking and sharing a meal. So much so that it was part of the opening credits every week and was perfectly chosen as the final visual tableau of the series. How can that not bring a smile to your face? Now for the crying part. As happy as that final scene makes us, knowing it’s the final time we’ll see the gang (reruns not included) makes the moment bittersweet. And overlaying a slowed-down, acoustic version of the theme song… it gets us every time.

Once Howard gets into space, there’s a number of scenes that involve him crying and us laughing at him - not exactly the happy crying we’re looking for with this list. The kind we’re looking for comes before Howard gets into space, just as he’s setting off in that direction. With Howard and his fellow astronauts counting down in Russia, his friends have all gathered back in Pasadena to watch the liftoff live. As they watch, and as ten counts down to one, they each sit in quiet awe - both scared for, and proud of their friend. Even Sheldon, Howard’s most vocal critic, can’t help but watch with wonder.

Bernadette’s quiet and emotionally distant father Mike isn’t a character fans would generally associate with happy cry moments. Especially when it comes to him and his son-in-law, Howard. But the moment in question here doesn’t involve Howard. This one brings together Mike and Sheldon. It begins when Dr. Cooper surprises Mike with his uncanny knowledge of football, a knowledge he gained from his own father before he passed away when Sheldon was still a young boy. This revelation tugs at Mike’s heartstrings, heartstrings we didn’t know he has. What follows is one of the most surprising bonding moments the show ever gives us, along with one of the best happy cries.

Even though things don’t go very smoothly the first time Leonard proposes, we all knew that one day he and Penny would get married. However, just because we knew it was going to happen doesn’t make the moment any less happy-cryable. In fact, the way it happens almost makes it more so. What starts off as an argument turns into Penny proposing and Leonard half-heartedly accepting. Nope, not happy crying yet. But then, just when it seems like the least romantic engagement in the history of television, the romance ninja hi-ya’s his way back into Penny and our hearts. He pulls out a ring he’s been carrying around in his wallet for years and gets down on one knee. Now we happy cry.

For much of the series, Sheldon’s father is relegated to jokes about his excessive eating and drinking, plus the revelation that his infidelity was the catalyst to Sheldon’s three-knock ritual. But in the Season 12 episode “The VCR Illumination,” we get to see another side of Sheldon’s father and his appreciation for him. Still sad and angry about the failure of his and Amy’s super-asymmetry theory, Sheldon watches a video he made for himself years earlier when he was a kid. Unfortunately, his dad recorded over the VHS tape with his high school football game. But this turns out to be a good thing, as his dad’s halftime speech leads them to a new and improved theory and Sheldon thanking his father.

In the Season 2 Christmas episode, Penny gives Sheldon a napkin. But this is no ordinary napkin. This is a piece of cloth that Leonard Nimoy signed and wiped his mouth on. It’s a great gift for Sheldon for sure. But what makes the scene so perfect isn’t just the gift, but Sheldon’s reaction to it. In an attempt to match the napkin’s “value,” he gives Penny all the gift baskets he’d gotten as well as, and this is the big one… a hug! While the scene is one of the funniest of the entire series, witnessing Sheldon in a rare moment of human connection adds a little cry to that happy.

When Dr. Ramona Nowitzki kisses Sheldon and he immediately gets up and walks out of his office, we have no idea where he’s going. When he leaves the university and gets in a cab, his destination is still unclear. Even when he gets on a plane at LAX, most of us watching could never have guessed his plans. And sure, when he finally knocks three times on the door of Amy’s apartment at Princeton, we finally know his destination - but not what he’s planning to do when he gets there. It isn’t until she opens that door that it all comes together. And if the screams from the studio audience don’t get you, Amy’s reaction sure will.

You know the expression, “You’ll laugh, you’ll cry?” Well, Howard’s song for Bernadette in Season 7 is a great (and super catchy) embodiment of that. To celebrate the anniversary of their first date, Howard surprises Bernadette with an original song he wrote for her. Due to unforeseen circumstances, he has to play it for her outside of an isolation room at the hospital, but that doesn’t make it any less sweet and funny. And did we mention how catchy it is? If the romance of it all doesn’t have you happy tearing up from the start, when he sings about how good she’s made his life, Bernadette won’t be the only one crying with a smile on her face.

Sheldon has always avoided celebrating his birthday because when he was a kid, no one came to his parties and his sister and her friends would tease him. But when he finally agrees to have a party, he gets overwhelmed and retreats to the bathroom. Penny goes after him and the moment they share is quite touching. Penny points out that there was a time when she too would’ve teased Sheldon, but now he’s one of her favorite people. It could be argued that the central relationship of the show is the loving friendship that develops between Penny and Sheldon. And this sweet scene is a wonderful encapsulation of that.

We, the audience, found out that Bernadette was pregnant at the end of the previous episode. However, she didn’t get a chance to tell Howard because he was bitten by a wild rabbit and went to the hospital to be safe. So, in a very cute gesture, Bernadette sets up a little kitchen scavenger hunt that leads Howard to the reveal that he’s going to be a dad. The moment of silence and absolute joy that we see on his face when he reads the word “pregnant” was definitely a happy cry moment.

Sheldon and Amy had agreed not to exchange gifts at Christmas, but Sheldon decides to get her a present anyway. Not to be nice of course. But to get back at her for throwing a Victorian-era-themed party that he’s angry he has to go to. However, his plan backfires when Amy loves his gift and has gotten him something as well. This makes him even angrier, until he opens the gift and discovers that she’s made him cookies just like the ones his Meemaw used to make him. His shock and happiness left us all smiling too, while also wiping our eyes.

As mentioned earlier, fans experienced the disappointment of Leonard telling Penny that he loves her, without her replying in kind. So, when Amy was preparing to tell Sheldon how she felt, we were all nervous that the same fate might befall her – especially given that Sheldon had always been so emotionally closed off. At a prom night organized by Amy and Bernadette, Amy decides to tell Sheldon how she feels, but is nervous about how he’ll respond. So, not only did it make us happy to hear him say it, but for him to cut in and say it first, well that just added some tears of joy to our happiness.

At Howard’s stag party, Raj gets drunk and makes a speech that pretty much covers every sexual adventure Howard has had since they’ve known each other. Wil Wheaton films the speech, puts it on YouTube and Bernadette watches it and finds out about a lot of things Howard never told her. So, where does this go from angry sad to happy sad? Well, that happens when Howard asks Penny to deliver a message to Bernadette about how she’s made him a better man. Sure, it was reminiscent of Jack Nicholson in “As Good as It Gets.” But it was heartfelt and revealing of just how much Howard had changed since the early years.

This is yet another moment of happy tears that initially looked like it might just be tears without any of the happiness. When Amy falls in love with a wedding dress that both Bernadette and Penny dislike, she feels sad and starts to doubt her choice. However, that sadness and doubt vanish the moment Sheldon comes home and sees her in the dress. His reaction of pure joy and love at how amazing she looks is exactly what Amy needed. It’s just another indication of how perfect a match these two are.

When Penny’s attempt at romance falls short, she shows Leonard a box of mementos that she’s saved from over all the years they’ve known each other. The box is filled with gifts from Leonard and mementos of the times they’ve had together. Seeing everything she’s held on to reinforces the fact that she’s loved him for longer than she might be willing to admit. However, the eye-watering, cherry on top of it all is what she says when Leonard can’t believe she’s saved all this stuff: “Of course I did. It’s you.”

For the first eight episodes of the series, Raj couldn’t talk to girls at all. Then he discovered that he could talk to the opposite sex if he was drinking alcohol. And Penny was the first girl he talked to. Five seasons later, and we’d become accustomed to Raj relying on alcohol. So, when Penny came over to console him after Lucy broke up with him, the assumption was that he was talking to her because he was drunk. However, in one of the biggest surprises of the entire series, Raj was completely sober – turning this moment of heartbroken tears into one filled with happy ones.

Before this episode, all we know about Howard’s father was that he left when Howard was a little kid. However, on Howard’s eighteenth birthday, his dad sent him a letter – a letter he never opened. When Sheldon is organizing Howard and Bernadette’s closet, he finds and reads the letter. Howard doesn’t want to know what the letter says, but eventually everyone else does know. To provide Howard with some type of closure, Sheldon comes up with the idea of telling him six versions of the letter, with only one being the truth. The happiness that this brings Howard is so touching, and probably the first time the thought of his father has brought a smile to his face in a long while.

Sheldon had dreamed his entire life of winning the Nobel Prize. And to expect a speech focused on anything but himself would have been absurd given how selfish and self-focused we know he can be. But when Amy finally opens his eyes to how his actions have truly hurt his friends, he makes his speech all about them. Each one of the main characters went through some kind of transformation and growth over the course of the show’s twelve seasons. But maybe none more than Sheldon Cooper. His Nobel Prize acceptance speech is the perfect culmination of that growth. And the most happy cry-worthy moment that the show gave us.