I’m taking Bart Sells His Soul
There are a handful I could take here, but I’d be most disappointed in missing this before next round, I think; it’s a personal favorite as selling his soul is such a Bart thing to do.
It starts off with one of the best first 2 minutes of any episode.
Bart hands out the Hymn ‘In the Garden of Eden’ by I. Ron Butterfly:
- “Hey Marge, remember when we used to make out to this hymn?”
- Everyone singing it together with gusto
- “Wait a minute, this sounds like Rock and/or Roll”
- The organist doing the 17 minute solo and at end of song passing out
- Everyone, even Bart, knowing the parts to the Hell speech by Rev Lovejoy
- The Raven cawing at Millhouse when he says “where my tongue will be torn out by ravenous birds” and then Millhouse snitches
Then Bart gets mad at Millhouse for snitching and then they argue over if souls exist
- “Oh come on, Millhouse, there is no such thing as a soul. It’s just something they made up to scare kids, like the boogeyman or Michael Jackson”
- “When you sneeze, that’s your soul trying to escape”
He sells his soul to Millhouse for $5, which he uses to buy dino sponges which barely expands and then runs down the drain.
Then automatic doors stop working for him (best automatic door failure since Better Off Ted), the pets hate him, he has no breath, he doesn’t find Itchy and Scratchy or his dad falling on a skateboard funny, and Marge can tell he’s lost his soul by his hug.
- “I am familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda”
- Santa’s Little Helper inspires the entire genre of “Help, I’m stuck!” porn
- An actually good dream sequence in a show
Then Moe decides to change his bar to a Family Restaurant, which is a great sub-plot that would take another half post to write-up. You should just watch it instead! Seriously, even though I decided it’s too much to write up, I keep getting tempted by all the great lines. Watch it.
Bart tries to sell Lisa his conscience for $4.50. “I’ll throw in my sense of decency, too. It’s a Bart sales event; everything about me must go!”
Millhouse runs a tank over Bart’s soul and offers Bart his soul back for $50. Then he sells it to Comic Book Guy for Alf POGS, who sells it to Lisa, in another display of caring (after being mean teasing him at the restaurant).