The Runaway Guys/Heartwarming

General

• A meta-example: Proton Jon inspired Chuggaaconroy, who inspired Nintendo Capri Sun. Now all three are collaborating.
• If something that looks serious happens to one of the guys, the others will sound genuinely worried about them, even Jon.
• The guys will be recording the next few videos at Jon's house. Jon is Canadian, which leaves a good distance between the Wisconsin-based NCS and a massive distance from the Floridian Chugga. The guys are officially close enough friends in real life to traverse the country just to hang out.
• On one of Tim's BreakingNCS videos, a comment war suddenly started up about whether Chuggaaconroy or Nintendo Capri Sun was the better Let's Player. After the fight started to go too far, Jon left this comment on the video:

Proton Jon: Guys, both Tim and Emile have gone through a lot of shit in their lives, and both have found success and enjoyment in LPing. I understand not liking someone's LP's or thinking one person's a better LPer, that's having an opinion, but saying you hate the actual person when you've never met themselves seems kind of ridiculous, don't you think? All you see through LP's is a filtered version of a person, you don't know everything about them.

• Jon made a Formspring post ^{[dead link]} in response to people questioning his apparent rivalry with Chugga. For those who don't want to read the whole thing, it basically says that Jon actually does consider Chugga good friend, and at one point at Magfest, the former got very sick and Chugga stuck around to help him get better, checking up on him and keeping him company. The final line sums it up amazingly well:

Proton Jon: No matter how stupid our bickering back and forth might be in videos, know that I legitimately like the guy and consider him a very good friend, and watch over him like an older brother would.

• The fact that Chugga and Proton Jon treat Tim kindly, even though they're supposed to be competitive.
• Not on the TRG channel, but during part of his own play through of Mario Party 2, NCS selects Mario and DK as two of the NPCs and-- fairly consistently-- refers to them as Chuggaaconroy and Proton Jon.

NCS: They're not really here or anything, it's just... I don't know. I guess I miss them and so I decided to invite them in somehow.

Mario Party

• When Jon tells the story of how they met one of Chugga's fans before even arriving at Magfest, then saying how awesome it was that they met her.
• During Bowser's Magma Mountain, when Jon lands a Chance Time that causes the CPU to give all of its stars to Chuggaaconroy, resulting in him winning the game, Chuggaa's response is to literally hug him.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

• Throughout the series - mainly after the first world or two - Jon is constantly trying to kill Chugga. That's not the heartwarming part. The reason behind this is because Chugga ended up nearly giving him a black eye with a pillow (it was one of those cylindrical pillows stuffed with hard foam, so it hurts a lot) and he's just venting anger. He brought this up in an interview, and stated Chugga's actually a really great guy, and now that he's gotten over the incident he's ready to move on. In the interview he also says Tim is one of the nicest people he's ever met and that he'd really like for Josh to come back and guest star in another LP later on. It does make up a bit for the massive trolling he's been doing lately.
• Maybe even gets more heartwarming when Jon says Josh is like a younger brother to him.
• During the end cutscene, the Guys' commentary as if they're actually the characters onscreen (Chugga is Mario, NCS is Luigi, etc.) is a bit heartwarming. Knowing them, they'd normally have some satirical and sarcastic jabs at the scene. (Except maybe for Tim.)
• In Episode 7 of NSMB Wii, the guys go to collect the third Star Coin in World 4-3. After they enter the room where it's located and see that the Coin is encircled by many other coins in the shape of a heart, the guys give a collective "Aaaaawwww..."
• In Episode 9, Jon and Chugga agree they should probably let Josh and Tim get more lives. Probably. They do end up giving them the first shots in the 1UP minigames from then on.
• In Episode 14, they finally beat level 7-6 by carrying each other around. It's kinda cute, especially when, after screwing everyone over on the previous level play-through, Jon casually carries NCS across an obstacle or two and tells him not to worry.
• He does the same thing for Josh in Episode 15 in 8-7, when Josh is freaking out about the bone dragon coasters.

Josh: Thank you Jon, you're such a good friend!
Jon: I'm always there for you!

• In the same vein, Jon chastises Chugga for being careless/causing his teammates' deaths (NCS and Josh's, anyway) some time into episode 14 (part 2).

Jon: Don't you push him [NCS, Chugga.]

• There's this fine example of retribution (not five seconds after the above) to take into consideration:

Chugga: [After Jon has killed him] You suck!
Jon: You almost killed Tim.

• After Mario ditches Luigi, the Toads pick him up in their balloon, and Jon says "Come on Tim. I'll drive'
• During the ending scene, they never brought up the Mario Party version of Peach, despite the horrible memories. Even though you know at least Jon or Chugga wanted to yell "DITCH THE PRINCESS!".
  • NCS's line of "ladies first" for Peach when he gets out of the balloon is probably one of the best.
• The end of the final episode where they all talk about how much fun they had doing this LP. (Even though Jon is depressed because he didn't force Chugga to use a continue.)

Subspace Emissary

• In Episode 4, when Link and Yoshi first appear, Chugga and Jon are the ones playing, meaning Tim isn't able to be the first one to play as Yoshi. When Chugga mentions this, Jon kindly sacrifices his turn and gives the controller to Tim so he can play.

Tim: Yoshi's so happy!

• Somewhat heartwarming was a few seconds later, Chugga remarks how "nobody can hurt Tim when he's so happy". Tim then receives damage almost instantly. Chugga's response to this, though likely supposed to be funny, is actually pretty heartwarming too:

Chugga: How dare you hurt him when he's so happy! I will decimate you for that! *kills enemy*

• Episode 6 opens with a painful-sounding thumping as Chugga takes a tumble. The other two immediately check on him and are obviously worried, even as he decides to Throw It In.
• In episode 13, Chugga is confused about the "Canadian flowers" and making fun of them. Turns out the flowers he's referring to are poppies, and when he learns about the whole "Remembrance Day" reason behind them, he outright states that he feels bad for mocking them.
• In the final (story) episode, during the end cutscene, Chugga and Tim force Jon into a hug. (Jon is less than pleased.)
• From the final (story) episode, Chugga and Tim fight the final boss. After getting a Game Over, Tim decides to let Jon have a go at the fight, saying they should continuing rotating. This allowed all three to get a chance at the final fight, with the added bonus of Chugga and Jon working together to finish off the last enemy in the game. It also allowed all three of them to end up with the same turn count, both total and for the episode.

Mario Party 2

• Chugga states during Space Land that he actually wants Tim to win.
  • On the same board, Jon cuts NCS a break during a minigame and NCS notices. It's a small moment, but sweet... until Chugga asks Jon why he's never that nice to him. Then it goes straight back to being funny.
• Bowser Land. First turn, NCS gets a hidden block with a star in it. Chugga delivers this line:

Chugga: I think the game just realized that Tim's not playing bad, he deserves to win something.

• Near the end of Bowser Land, Jon is debating on whether to steal a star from NCS or Chugga^[1] After teasing the two, and the viewers, on his decision he's about to go for Tim...but changes at the last minute and steals Chuggaa's star.
  • However, this may have been part of his plan, as in the end he ended up winning the board because he stole that star; if he stole from Tim, Chugga would have won due to getting enough Bonus Stars and having more coins than Jon.
• Jon was glad he won the project, no shocker, but since he stated that he grew up with it, you just had to smile a bit during that statement.
• Mixed with CMoF, Chuggaa being happy to fail so many times in mini-game roller coaster with Wario just to send "D'oh, I missed!" off with a bang, since it doesn't appear in Mario Party 3.
• During the Minigame Coaster, the guys frequently help each other out, such as Chugga and Tim helping Jon remember the button patterns in Move to the Music.

1. ↑ NS has 2 stars, Chuggaa has one, and Jon has a Magic Lamp and was on his way to get a star in the first place.