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#92: 'Round Springfield
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Show: The Simpsons
Original airdate: April 30, 1995

"Saxophone! He was a jazz musician! You didn't know him! Nobody knew him! But he was a great man, and I won't rest until all of Springfield knows the name Bleeding Gums Murphy!"

The all-time great Simpsons episodes blended humor with heart, and few in my opinion did that as well as 'Round Springfield, in which Lisa mourns the death of her friend, the jazz musician Bleeding Gums Murphy. The episode first sees Lisa visiting Murphy in the hospital to get inspiration for her upcoming jazz recital, while in the B-plot, Bart sues Krusty the Clown after being injured by a metal Krusty-O. These two plots come together in the end, but it's fun to see them both play out, as well as some other classic moments including Willie's classic "cheese eating surrender monkeys" line and Homer's quest to get a hot dog, in which it's revealed that the hot dog vendor follows him around everywhere he goes, including to funerals "Lady, he's putting my kids through college!" After Lisa is shattered by her friend's death, she desperately tries to get a hold of his only album to play over the radio, and in the end, we get one of the most heartfelt sibling bonding moments in the entire series, as Bart gives up his court settlement (a humorously low $500) to buy the album for Lisa, culminating in one of the series' best endings in which Lisa and Bleeding Gums (appearing from beyond the grave in a scene lampooning the recent Lion King movie) jam out to Carole King's "Jazzman" (its second appearance in the episode and one of the best uses of a licensed song in the entire show). This episode made me cry from both sadness and laughter, the hallmark of a true Simpsons classic.