I feel like there is a word–a single word, not a phrase–that means something like “a thing that is ridiculously sentimental, gratuitous with all the silly crying.”
Maybe “Glurge” is what I’m thinking of, but I feel like there’s a different, less recent word for this kind of thing.
I thought it was “schlock” but it turns out that means “shoddy.” I think I may have misused this term before. I wonder who I confused.
-FrL-
Are you sure it was a… natural noun, so to speak? It’s easy to consider words such as, say, “mawkishness”, “soppiness”, or “saccharinity”.
Perhaps “slush” is what you want?
Schmaltz?
Oh, yes, that’s a very good one. I endorse that now.
Mushy? As in “that’s so mushy it’s sickening”
Not so ‘with all the silly crying’, but nostalgic?
Maudlin?
I second maudlin, although it is an adjective.
Schmaltz! That’s it!
That’s why I thought “schlock.”
Thanks!
-FrL-
Maybe if your name was Frymaltz … 
Anyway, I figured it was another Yiddish word.
Isn’t “schmaltz” literally chicken fat, like the fat on top of a can of chicken noodle soup when you open it?
I never could figure out how the same word got those two meanings.
Yes. Schmaltz literally means chicken fat. Schmaltzy is the word that the OP seeks which comes from the word schmaltz. I have no idea how one came from the other.
Same as “corny” and “cheesy”, probably.
I think it’s because it’s used to thicken food.
It’s oily and tasty and while it helps food go down smoother you’ll wake up the next morning with a severe case of heartburn.
Word Maven’s on Schmaltz.
I offer “treacle”
I also thought of Maudlin: “tearfully or weakly emotional; foolishly sentimental”
Bathos
Hmm. I’m not sure about this-- the word schmalzig is in use in German for, in addition to just “fatty”, the same meaning of treacly, sappy, maudlin, cheesy, kitschy, etc.
cloying
–adjective 1. causing or tending to cause disgust or aversion through excess: a perfume of cloying sweetness.
2. overly ingratiating or sentimental.