Bart Sells His Soul (S07, E04-132)

"Remember Alf?  He's back, in pog form."

Plot Summary
After Bart tricks the congregation at church by replacing a hymn with a version of Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", he's outed by Milhouse afterwards when the latter is threatened with soul mutilation.  As the two are punished (Milhouse for squealing), the two get into a debate over the existence of the 'soul', with Bart dismissing the notion completely.  To further prove his point, he 'sells' his soul to Milhouse, written on a sheet of paper, for $5.  After using those $5 to buy enlarging dinosaur sponges to get Lisa, misunderstanding what they actually do, Bart reveals to Lisa how he got the money for his failed venture.  Lisa harps on him as well about the soul, but Bart also dismisses her.

Meanwhile, Moe's business is in the can (again), but he notices just how successful "family restaurant" type establishments have been and decides to remodel the bar into one as well.  Calling the place "Uncle Moe's Family Feedbag", Moe sets up a rather gimmicky restaurant full of crap on the wall and weirdly named entrees on the menu.  Ultimately, his inability to deal with children dooms him and after snapping on a little girl the restaurant's patrons all depart, leaving Moe to scrap the idea and revert back to the bar.

Strange things start to occur with Bart.  The pets start to act strange around him, he seems to have no breath and scariest of all he seems to have lost the ability to laugh, considered by the widely known Pablo Neruda as "the language of the soul".  Officially worried, Bart tries to get his soul back from Milhouse, but the crafty boy won't sell it back for less than $50.  Bart tries to soldier on, but when the family goes out to Moe's for dinner (before Moe's meltdown), Lisa's dinner prayer taunts drives Bart to the brink, and he runs off to get his soul back.

He quickly learns that Milhouse's house is being fumigated and he's staying at his grandparent's place way over on the other side of town.  The trip, mostly on foot, nearly exhausts Bart, his desperation even gets him to try and take someone else's soul at one point, but he finally reaches Milhouse.  However, Milhouse had since sold Bart's soul to the comic book store for Alf pogs.  Bart runs over to the shop and waits out until morning, but is devastated to learn that his soul had already been sold to an unknown individual.

At his wits end, Bart prays that somehow, in someway he can get his soul back.  Suddenly, the paper falls in front of him, and he learns that it was Lisa who bought his soul at the shop.  He thanks her twice over and eats the paper to ensure nobody can sneak off with his, and his dreams are all the more pleasant.

Quick Review
Bart Sells His Soul is another example of an episode where the subplot really is funnier than the main plot.  That's not to say the main plot was humorless; bits like the Alf pogs and Bart's realization of what's happened were some of the better points of that plotline, but the Moe sideplot was superb, full of gags and hilarity despite not having much screen time, and really carried this episode to the score it got.  Oh sure, you can say this episode has deep meaning and its a great episode because it really makes you think, blah blah blah.  I'm only concerned about how funny the episode is, and this episode is a notch below the few episodes that preceded it.

Final Score: 8.6