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  • Almost every Very Special Episode about drugs is the Faust legend updated; either the drug dealer or the kid who turns Our Hero on to drugs is Mephistopheles. (For instance, the Ghostwriter episode "What's Up With Alex?")
  • A version of this occurs in the midway through season 8 of 24, after the peace treaty negotiation is postponed by the kidnap (and later death) of President Hassan, and the Russians decide they want to pull out of the treaty. President Taylor is tempted and does make a deal with disgraced Ex-President Logan (from series 5) who offered to make negotiations with the Russians in return for being credited as having a major role. It goes terribly wrong when it turns out the Russians were involved in the assassination of Hassan, and Logan begins to exert his influence over Taylor, 'advising' her to order more arrests, going against her beliefs and policies (and causing her most trusted advisor Ethan to resign in protest) and drawing her into a massive cover-up. However, the deal is compromised due to Logan's involvement in Renee Walker's death. Needless to say, Jack was not happy about this. The deal is broken when President Taylor announces at the signing ceremony that she will not be signing the treaty, thus winning back her dignity and conscience.
  • 666 Park Avenue: This trope comes with the show.
  • On The Amazing Race, Season 11, Danny & Oswald sold their Yield to Dustin & Kandice when they found themselves out of money. Immediately upon using to Yield another team, they seemed to lose all heart and will to win the race, and equated the deal to this trope.
  • There are far too many of these to list in American Gothic (1995), but one of the earliest and most representative is Carter's deal with Buck in the episode "Damned If You Don't" (which could almost be an alternate title for this trope).
  • In American Horror Story: Coven, Marie Laveau achieved immortality through making a deal with Papa Legba, in exchange for her soul and the soul of one innocent every year. Fiona tries to do the same, but is told by Papa Legba that she, in fact, has no soul.
  • The perennial antagonist of Angel was a luxurious law firm, Wolfram & Hart (an anagram for its founding members, Wolf, Ram & Hart), which was actually a front for human-demon cooperation and bribery. Aside from the obvious jokes, such as the patent holder of cancer being a client, the firm was dedicated to spreading injustice and societal rot. The trope is used for a Visual Gag when Angel denies this trope, only to have a Big Red Devil in an Armani suit walk up and do a handshake deal.
    "Everything's in place, they'll draw up the paperwork. Racquetball Thursday?"
    • Wolfram & Hart invoke this in season 2 by tormenting Cordelia with stigmata, and then offering to cure her in exchange for Angel bailing out a "client" from a hell dimension.
    • In "Home", Angel accepts a deal wherein they will erase the memories of his son, Connor, and set the boy up in a good life. In exchange, Angel and his team will fold their heroic organization and transfer their activities over to the firm's L.A. branch, effectively neutralizing them.
    • Gunn, dissatisfied with his role as the muscle for the group, accepts a deal to make him into a superhumanly competent lawyer schooled in all areas of law, even demonic law. However, to make the upgrade permanent, the doctor wants him to sign a release form to bring some contraband through customs. The parcel turns out to house a tyrant god that takes over his best friend Fred's body.
      Wesley: Nothing from Wolfram & Hart is ever for free. You knew that.
    • In "Double or Nothing", Gunn also traded his soul to a demon for a truck (which he used to great effect in his war against vampires), knowing that that if he perished in his Suicide Mission against vampires before the demon came to collect, the deal was void. When Gunn survives long enough for the demon to show up again, Angel manages to convince all the other people who owed something to the demon to gang up and kill him. The demon notes that Gunn is perhaps the first person to willingly walk back to demon when time was up, which Gunn did to make sure the demon wouldn't go after anyone else.
    • And there was also the kiddie show host who made a deal to make the show a hit, and then the demons turned him into their own literal puppet in "Smile Time".
  • In Babylon 5, this trope is played out with anyone who chooses to do dealings with the Shadows, especially Londo Mollari. "What do you want?", indeed.
    • Notably, Londo makes several of these deals while knowing better but under duress, almost always regretting it only hours later. Reefa and Carthagia make an unknown number of (off-screen) deals and drive the Republic near to ruin in the process. A subversion comes when Londo's assistant, Vir refuses dramatically (See Quotes Page), asking to see the Shadows' agent pay the price for such treachery. Vir gets what he asks for, too.
    • Interestingly, also the case for anyone who makes a deal with the Vorlons, the enemies of the Shadows. (For instance, they make Lyta Alexander the most powerful telepath that has ever existed... at the price of being their slave, even after they leave the galaxy forever.) The reason for this applying to both is that both species long ago entirely lost their objective of helping the younger races develop, and instead fell into a bitter rivalry about how to do it. Now all they care about is which species is right.
  • An episode of Big Wolf on Campus featured a girl who was so desperate to become Student Council president, she told her teacher (who was a devil in disguise) that she'd sell her soul to win. When she wins, he takes her soul and prepares to take it back to Hell with him. But, after a fight with Tommy, Merton shows the devil a postcard the girl had written him over the summer when they were children, back when she was more open about her crush on him. On that postcard she promised Merton her heart and soul. Realizing that the girl was double-dealing him, the devil reluctantly returns her soul on the grounds that it legally belonged to Merton and was not hers to offer.
  • Invoked in Blue Bloods. Assistant DA tells a teacher who has been taking money from his gang leader brother "You made a deal with the Devil and now the bill has come due."
  • In the Halloween episode of Bottom, Richie attempts to sell his sells in exchange for twenty years of unlimited sex. All he gets is a visit from Hedgehog's daughter and a flaming rear courtesy of the 'sprouts Mexicaine'.
  • The entire series Brimstone was about a dead cop who was offered a chance by the Devil to go to Heaven if he would locate and dispatch 113 Monsters Of the Week that had escaped from Hell.
    • Somewhat subverted, however, as the cop was already IN Hell and therefore had absolutely nothing to lose.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • The Mayor made several, one of which included selling his soul.
    • Kumiko gained much of her power from Aluwyn.
  • Camelot: It is implied that Morgan made one at the end of the second episode, with a mysterious being whom she meets (nude, for some reason) in the form of a wolf, apparently in exchange for power.
  • In El Chapulín Colorado's retelling of Faust, the titular character's Deal with the Devil involves obtaining a magic riding crop that makes objects appear and vanish. When Mephistopheles tells Faust about the deal and its price (Faust's soul), he makes the contract vanish.
  • Charmed (1998):
    • Inverted. Drake dè Mon, played by Billy Zane, makes a deal with a sorcerer to become human (as in, to gain a soul rather than lose one) but keep his demonic powers with the condition that using them offensively will cause him to be sent to purgatory (as in, he's forced to be good rather than bad). The deal only lasts for one year, after which Drake will die anyway (as in, the only thing this means for his place in the world is that he's now on a clock to die), but as it turns out the whole deal was made with help from Cole as part of a Batman Gambit to restore Phoebe's faith in love (as in, the underlying force behind the deal was doing something good).
    • Another inversion, Cole was willing to transfer the essence and powers of the Source to a Wizard. Only for the deal to be ruined by Phoebe under the influence of the Seer and the unborn Source kid.
    • A more traditional Faustian Deal with the Devil happens in the episode "Soul Survivor".
  • The TV series The Collector involves nothing but deals with the Devil; every episode, the title character goes to another person who's made a deal with Satan, and tries to get the person to earn redemption. Sometimes, he succeeds.
  • The Comic Strip Presents episode "Demonella" features the devil offering a record producer success, wealth and power in exchange for his mother's recipe for chicken soup.
  • Cutthroat Kitchen continues the trend. In the Halloween episode, "SaBOOOOOtage", Alton auctions off a deal with the Devil in the first round - a promise that they won't be eliminated in the first round (if they normally would be, Alton will tell the judge to eliminate someone else instead.) Alton does warn the chefs that the Devil will take payment in the second round (in addtion to the cash from the auction) - and that payment is the ability to bid on sabotages for the rest of the competition. The chef that won the auction benefited from it, as he would have been eliminated the first round - but was then cut in the second round.
  • On Degrassi: The Next Generation, Jay's sole function is to corrupt the other characters.
    • Degrassi subverted this plot beautifully in "Moonlight Desires". It's the climax of a Story Arc where Jay lures his latest Faust into committing worse and worse crimes — until the Faust spontaneously decides to do something that scares Jay. But Even Evil Has Standards.
    • Degrassi also subverted it badly in "Queen of Hearts", where the Mephisto keeps her promise. This was supposed to be a moral about trust, undermined by the fact that only a total idiot would have believed the promise in the first place.
  • This is the entire premise of the Egyptian series The Devils Promise. Desperate to cure his terminally ill wife, Ibrahim goes to a man who people directed him to thinking he's a blessed man who can help him. In exchange of curing his wife he makes a deal with the mysterious guy not knowing he's the devil or Iblis.
  • An arc in Dharma & Greg had Greg quit his well-paying job as a lawyer to "find himself", leaving both of them with no money. Greg's mother, Kitty, graciously agrees to lend them money and take Dharma out to dinner. It turns out that Kitty is plotting to have Greg take a high-powered job at a prestigious law firm. Kitty even distracts Dharma by taking her to the opera, which is performing Faust. Dharma soon realizes the scheme and tries to stop Greg just as he's signing an employment contract... with red ink.
    • Lampshaded further when Kitty offers Dharma dessert... a piece of flambeau cake with a six inch tall flame on top.
  • Diablero: Well, technically with an Aztec death god. In order to get the crew out of the land of the dead, Elvis sells the ferryman his life.
  • Doctor Who:
    • The Doctor's Companion Turlough makes a deal with the Black Guardian, the Anthropomorphic Personification of Chaos, to kill the Doctor in exchange for the Black Guardian helping him leave Earth.
    • In "The Evil of the Daleks", the deal Maxtible made with the Daleks seems similar to a deal with the Devil. He is helping them in the hope of getting the secret of turning base metal to gold. His eventual reward is to be turned into a human Dalek.
    • "Dragonfire": Kane with Belasz, and unsuccessfully Ace.
    • "The Pyramid at the End of the World": The mysterious Monks offer to save Earth from destruction, in exchange for ruling the planet. Bill, the Doctor's companion, eventually takes them up on their offer to save the Doctor's life, in the hope that he can stop them.
    • There is certainly this vibe in "Seasons of Fear", where Decurian Sebastius Graylus makes a deal with the Nimon for immortality in exchange for helping them conquer Earth, which he tries to help them with the next 1500 years. Further points for him effectively joining the demon of Mithraism.
    • More explicitly, in "Master" the Seventh Doctor makes a deal with Death; Death will erase the Master's memory of his past and let him live the kind of life he would have lived if Death had never 'marked' the Master as her servant, giving him his lust to destroy and conquer, but in return the Doctor must kill the 'innocent' Master- now going by the name John Smith- ten years after this new life began. As the audio concludes, the Doctor has been unable to complete his side of the deal and Death has killed an innocent child just to make a point while John Smith will seemingly inevitably become the Master all over again.
  • The Drew Carey Show combines the Trope with Virgin Sacrifice. (This is naturally a Halloween Episode, by the way.) A guy named Jack who claims to be the Devil had made this deal with Kate because she claimed to be a virgin. As it turned out, she had been drunk at the time, and was lying. When this revelation is made, Jack doesn't want her soul anymore, and simply leaves. (Whether Jack was telling the truth about who he was or whether he was just a nutcase is left ambiguous. Stranger things happened on the show...)
  • When Aeryn is captured by the Scarrans in season 4 of Farscape, she prays, first to the Sebacean's ancient, forgotten Jerkass God, then to "anything that will listen." Meanwhile, Crichton promises Scorpius the wormhole technology he's spent three years fighting and fleeing to keep from him if he'll help rescue Aeryn.
    John: I don't care - about much. War. Death. Wormholes. I don't care about the things you care about.... I care - about one thing. One. God have mercy on my soul. I think I'm gonna need your help, Mr. Scarran half-breed, to get Aeryn back. Help me get her, and I will give you wormholes. Aeryn for wormholes. That's the deal.
    • Pretty much everyone who tries to cut a deal with Scorpius finds themselves in one of these. The only reason he played fair with Moya's crew when Crichton infiltrated his Command Carrier intended to destroy it and the wormhole project is because Rygel really is that shrewd of a negotiator and politician.
  • The premise of Friday the 13th: The Series is based on a Deal With the Devil made by the uncle of the protagonists, and their efforts to recover the cursed antiques that he sold as part of the deal.
  • Game of Thrones: Craster is left alone by the White Walkers in exchange for the sacrifice of his newborn sons.
  • In Good Eats, a Louis Cypher character appears to a woman who had just lost a cake-baking contest and promises her a new recipe in exchange for her soul. (She agrees, and wins the next bake-off with Devil's Food Cake.) The Louis Cypher character then appears to her longtime rival and makes the same pact with her, giving her the recipe for Red Velvet Cake.
  • The entire premise of the series Good Versus Evil: our heroes try to persuade victims into exercising the escape clauses of aptly-named "Standard Faustian Contracts" to save their souls.
  • The Haunting Hour:
    • In the episode "Long Live Rock and Roll", where a garage band frontman named Holden visits a music shop owned by Sir Maestro, a former rock and roll star (who looks like Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones and is almost dressed like Slash from Guns 'n Roses) who quit the music business because of how corrupt it is (yet has no problem with what he's doing)note  and sells Holden a golden electric guitar that once belonged to Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia, and Kurt Cobain (implying that these three talented guitarists got their talent from Sir Maestro and died or had their careers ruined when they refused to give Sir Maestro what he wanted), but Holden doesn't have the money, so Sir Maestro takes whatever Holden has and has him sign a contract promising he'll pay for the rest. When Holden learns of what he's done, Sir Maestro targets Holden's friends, Tibbs and Squiggy, with similar offers and forces them to play for him forever (because The Haunting Hour is a kids'/family show and censors these days are wary of referencing anything that could be religious, they don't directly say that Sir Maestro is going to take their souls, but given what type of story this is, viewers can easily draw that conclusion) and Holden gets out of the contract by trying to beat Sir Maestro in a guitar duel.
    • "Headshot" is another Deal with the Devil episode, only it's more based on The Picture of Dorian Grey.
  • Incredible Story Studio had featured a story named after the trope, starring a boy named Jeff who, envious of his more athletic brother Mike, wants to beat him in a football game. The Devil (who also happens to be the school's football coach) shows up in Jeff's bedroom to offer him a contract, which involves him having to wear a ridiculous shirt with frilly ribbons that will boost his playing skills. At the end, their match ends in a tie, and the Devil/Coach comes to collect both their souls, revealing that Mike had also made a deal with him before. They manage to get away by pointing out that Mike's contract stated that he would beat everyone, but since the game against Jeff ended in a tie, he did not beat him, and also when Jeff "beat" Mike (throwing a football so hard that it knocked him to the ground), he wasn't wearing his ridiculous shirt, so the Devil/Coach had nothing to do with that, meaning that he didn't fulfill his contract for any of them. The Devil angrily yells that "Hell's too good for any of you!" before getting a message on his beeper that a figure skater is willing to do anything to be the best in the world, and he vanishes.
  • Interview with the Vampire (2022): Multiple mortals believe that Louis de Pointe du Lac, Lestat de Lioncourt and Claudia must have made one due to their immortality and eternal youth. Some even ask for details on how it works.
    Tom Anderson: Where do you meet the Devil, and what are the terms of the agreement?
  • Subverted on an episode of Jonathan Creek, in which Lenny Spearfish believes that he's sold his sold to the devil in exchange for wealth, power and immortality, only for Jonathan to discover that all the "miracles" that happen to him were in fact orchestrated by MI5. Having recently discovered that Lenny's wife was the illegitimate and unacknowledged daughter of a royal, they were commissioned to ensure that she was provided for. This not only involved rigging up a buried treasure in her back garden, but also protecting her against the criminal that her husband managed to enrage whilst high on his newfound success.
  • Kamen Rider:
    • The main plot line in Kamen Rider Den-O. Imagin would form a contract with a human and grant them one wish, whether they want to or not. After fulfilling it in a way, they will travel to that person's past and destroy it.
    • Kamen Rider OOO:
      • Uva eventually makes this his main method of using his Yummy. They begin carrying out the desire of their host, even following orders on occasion, but it always ends up coming back to bite the host in the end.
      • Kazari ended up making such a deal with Dr. Maki. But finds out too late that he wasn't the devil in the deal...
    • In Kamen Rider Fourze, a deal was struck between Ryusei and Aries Zodiats, who has the ability to put people in a deep sleep and can bring people out of one if he wishes and honestly does look like a traditional devil with his curled sheep horns. Throughout the series, Ryusei has been seeking Aries out to save his friend, Jiro, who has been heavily injured and put in a coma due to using a faulty Zodiarts Switch. Aries agrees to help him bring his friend out of the coma... If he kills Gentaro. Ryusei goes through with it and Aries kept his end of the bargain. Though it was only for a brief amount of time due to the fact that it didn't heal the injuries and when he found out what Ryusei did, he fell right back into a coma. Cue Ryusei's revelation.
    • In Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: Kuroto made a deal with Parado, the de facto leader of the Bugsters to create the Deadly Game to end all games, Kamen Rider Chronicle. Unfortunately, he deluded himself into thinking he is in control and ignored several reminders to know his place, resulting in Parado taking his sweet time while killing him after their deal was complete.
    • Kamen Rider Build: Evolt loves having this sort of affair with humans. Many characters tried to use him for their plans or even outsmart him and it only led to them eventually losing their identity, dignity, sanity, or life. The Faustian deal is outright referenced in the prequel special ROGUE, where Evolt is likened to Mephistopheles and a terrorist organization is founded under the name Faust. Notably, he doesn't bother to hide the true nature of his offers, unlike his real identity, which makes it so that the full consequences are not obvious until it's too late anyway.
    • Used as an explicit theme in Kamen Rider Revice, where the villains release peoples' literal inner devils; and the Monsters of the Week are formed from actual contracts that are sealed with the rubber-stamp Transformation Trinkets. Main character Ikki has his own demon to deal with, but he manages to set up a contract that's one-sided in his favor: "Behave or I'll kill us both"... but of course it's not that simple. Ikki's demon had actually emerged in his childhood to defend him, and erased his traumatic memories afterward — and that contract is still in place, even after the demon has become friendly and no longer wants it. Every time they become Kamen Riders, Ikki loses more memories; and by the end of the series he doesn't even recognize his own family any more.
  • Happens in an episode of The Kids in the Hall where a stoner, during a massive pot drought runs into the actual Devil in a back alley. The Devil doesn't want the stoner's soul or his body, but actually his jacket as he's starting a rock band, "The Noodles". In exchange, the devil gives the stoner the ability to grow ready-to-smoke marijuana from his hair. Subverted in that everybody ends up happily ever after with the result.
  • Legends of Tomorrow: Season 3 revolves around this. The Big Bad is an ancient demon named Mallus, who has gathered a cult of followers who seek for his return spearheaded by Nora Dahrk, the daughter of Damien Dahrk who became her vessel in exchange for reviving her father. While Damien Dahrk is fully on board with it at first, he quickly backs down and teams up with the Legends to stop Mallus once he realizes that his return means Nora will die, and purposely lets himself become the vessel to save his daughter from that fate.
    • In the fourth season, Ray becomes partially possessed by Neron, who is looking for a new vessel after he was casted out of Desmond. Ray attempts to find a way to cast him out but since their resident exorcist is no-where to be seen, Ray’s only options are to give in and make a deal or Neron will kill someone he loves. When Neron nearly beats Nate to death, Ray gives in and makes a deal— Neron owns Ray’s soul and body as long as Nate is never hurt. Ray’s soul is then sent to hell, and Neron has full control of his body.
    • At the conclusion of the fifth season, John Constantine manages to make a deal with Hell to be released from his original fate of going to Hell after death, Astra- a girl who became a prominent figure in Hell after Constantine botched an exorcism- returning his soul in exchange for renting his house while he stays with the Legends.
  • Lost's Michael makes a deal with the devil (in this case, the Others) to secure freedom for his son. He agrees to free "Henry" (which entails killing Ana-Lucia) and betray four of his friends. Eventually his guilt leads him to attempt suicide.
    • A much more literal example happens in season 6, when Sayid makes a deal with the smoke monster to get "anything he wants" (implied to be Nadia) in exchange for killing Dogen so Smokey can massacre everyone at the Temple. Turns out this was a ploy, however: the "Devil" here wasn't dealing fairly and was looking to kill Sayid along with all the other candidates. Then again, "fair" and Lost never did quite go hand in hand.
  • Lucifer (2016):
    • Since the main character is the Devil, this comes up a lot. However, as Satan Is Good he doesn't bargain for souls (or anything else that might be harmful). Instead he does them a simple favor (such as getting them a job) in exchange for an unspecified favor in return later; "a little devilish IOU." He has a good reputation around Los Angeles for being a power broker.
      Chloe: Who would take a deal like that?
      Lucifer: They all do.
    • In season 3, the "Sinnerman" shows up, a criminal who does something similar. Lucifer is extremely annoyed that someone is stealing his thing.
      Linda: It's not like you invented the concept of giving away favors.
      [Lucifer gives her an "Oh, really?" expression]
      Linda: Ha! Yep, forgot who I was talking to. I suppose you did.
  • One episode of Married... with Children has Al Bundy selling his soul to the Devil for the opportunity to take the Chicago Bears to the Super Bowl. Al is drafted by the Bears and has a spectacular season, but when the Bears finally get to the Super Bowl, the Devil tells Al that it's time to hand over his soul. When Al protests, the Devil points out that he only agreed to let Al take the Bears to the Super Bowl, not actually play in the Super Bowl.
    Al: But that's not fair!
    Lucifer: Duh! I'm THE DEVIL!
    • The same episode states a real-life person made a similar deal:
      Lucifer: "I want my soul back! I want my soul back!" That's all I ever hear from you and Tiger Woods.
      Al: You mean Tiger Woods—?
      Lucifer: Please. You didn't think anybody was really that good, did you?
  • In the series finale of Midnight, Texas Bobo makes a deal with a trickster demi-god. In exchange for restoring Fiji's soul, Bobo agrees to let the trickster take the soul of a stranger, someone Bobo has never met. He later learns that Fiji is pregnant, the implication being that Bobo has sold his unborn child's soul.
  • One episode of The Mighty Boosh has Howard sign a contract with The Spirit of Jazz in exchange for musical talent.
    Howard: Do you want me to sign this in blood?
    Spirit of Jazz: Biro's fine.
    Howard: Oh, okay. (Signs contract) Hang on, what's this bit about 'soul ownership'?
  • Series/Legacy Of Monsters: In "Will the Real May Please Stand Up?", Monarch Deputy Director Verdugo reluctantly bails May out of trouble with Applied Experimental Technologies by cutting a deal with the company to form a partnership. AET are actually the Apex Cybernetics corporation from Godzilla vs. Kong, meaning that they're planning to use the deal with Monarch to aid their plans to build Mechagodzilla and create Engineered Heroics that will endanger millions of people further down the line.
  • Played straight in an Emmy-nominated episode of The Monkees called "The Devil and Peter Tork". Peter (the innocent, lovable "dummy" of the group) unwittingly sells his soul to a man named "Mr. Zero" in exchange for a beautiful gold harp, and the ability to play it. The Monkees soon realize who "Mr. Zero" is, and desperately fight to have the Devil spare Peter's soul. In the end, Mike wins the battle for him in court, in which he proves that Mr. Zero didn't give Peter the ability to play the harp at all, stating, "if you love music, you can play music."
  • Monsters: Spoofed in "The Demons". An alien wizard tries to summon a demon to bring him riches, but accidentally conjures and binds a humble insurance sales rep from Earth. The insurance guy then tries to summon his own demon to get the money, but he accidentally summons another insurance rep, albeit one from another world. Said alien insurance rep then tries to conjure his own demon to get the money and ends up summoning and binding the alien wizard instead. Free of the wizard, the human insurance guy and the alien insurance guy quickly bond once they discover they have a lot in common.
  • Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Touch of Satan episode concludes with Crow telling Mike that he sold his soul to Satan and looks forward to getting power real soon - but then Mike takes a look at the contract and finds that Crow actually sold his soul to Stan, a C.P.A. When they try to call him for a refund, he says that he has already re-sold Crow's soul with a big block of souls to City Corp.
    Crow: "Oh man, I'm gonna have to make so many phone calls to get my soul back!"
    • The episode for Devil Doll also features Crow making a number of deals with Pitch, to Mike's disapproval.
    • The Thanksgiving Day episode had segments where characters from various films sit at a dinner table. Pitch the Devil from "Santa Claus" gives thanks for his new clients, including the cast of "Friends".
  • NBC's 1980s short-lived sketch comedy program The New Show had a series of quick Twilight Zone blackout skits doing the show's standard bits. In one, the Devil grants a man's wish to become the most powerful man in the world - to his horror he finds he's become Jimmy Carter at the lowest point in his term. Also he's in an extraterrestrial zoo.
  • In one Halloween episode of Night Court, Dan comes to the horrified conclusion he's literally done this, but it turns out to have been an elaborate prank on Mac's part.
  • In Once Upon a Time, this is about 99% of what Rumplestiltskin does. For example, season 1's version of Cinderella only got to go to the ball because Rumple gave her her dress and slippers, but demanded her first-born baby in return. His deals with people including Cora, Regina, Snow White and King George all ensure that things are going exactly as he wants them...up until the Dark Curse is broken, anyway. Rumple was also on the receiving end of one; when his son Baelfire was bit by a venomous snake he signed away his next child to a healer for the antidote; the healer turned out to be Hades in disguise, and does attempt to collect on the deal once Belle is pregnant with what will be Rumple's second child.
  • The Outpost: In the Season 4 premiere, Falista agrees to be the new One in exchange for Two resurrecting Tobin.
  • In one episode of Poltergeist: The Legacy, Nick's late older brother escapes from Hell pursued by a hunter from Hell called the Soul Chaser. At the climax, the Soul Chaser reveals to Nick that Nick's brother made a deal with him: Nick's soul in exchange for his, the only way to escape from Hell. His brother ultimately can't bear to go through with it and sacrifices himself to save Nick.
  • In Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue, Captain Mitchell was forced to do one to save Ryan's life. Being in a Literal Cliffhanger, using one hand to hold onto a branch and the other to hold Dana, Ryan was left hanging from his father's foot when Diabolico appeared as a spirit, offering to save him in exchange for taking the boy with him. At first the Captain refused, but when Ryan's hold finally slipped, he was forced to accept, and Diabolico would take him until his 20th birthday.
  • In Reaper, the protagonist's parents' Deal with the Devil before he was born forces him to work for Satan as the title character. Mr. S. regularly tries to make the title character's job easier by offering various forms of assistance. The series also included a failed attempt at solution number 5 involving the protagonist's girlfriend that left them both bound for Hell by season's end. Unfortunately they'll never get out of it now.
  • Room 104: In "Crossroads," a young woman sells her soul to Hell in exchange for a lifestyle of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. Many years later she returns to Room 104 to try to weasel out of the bargain.
  • In Salem, this is the source of the witches' powers, in line with the traditional view of things.
  • On Saturday Night Live, a hairdresser who sold her soul takes Satan (Jon Lovitz) to The People's Court for breach of contract, and the Prince of Darkness tries to defend himself by pointing out the obvious.
    Satan: It's more or less customary for me to cheat mortals in this way. By observing only the letter of the agreement. For example, I'll give someone eternal youth, then have them sentenced to life imprisonment. That sort of thing. It's pretty standard. I'm the Devil!
    • In a later episode, an aspiring musician considers selling his soul for a guaranteed hit, but decides against it when it becomes apparent that all the Devil's songs suck.
    • In yet another sketch, a recently deceased man in Heaven is delighted to find out that his instincts about Bruce Willis and Sugar Ray Leonard having made deals with the devil are true.
    • In still another sketch, a young Simon and Garfunkel make a deal with the Devil for musical success (his first piece of advice: lose the tubas, get guitars). "We're going to be friends and partners forever, right?" Simon asks the Devil at one point. His reply: "Yeah... Yeah, that's the ticket!"
    • Discussed in another episode where the Devil threatens to go back on his deal with Colin Jost to allow the latter to marry Scarlet Johansson.
  • Shaka Zulu: Shaka's "alliance" with the British is described as this from his point of view, as he's primarily interested in the power their mysterious technology can offer him, while his advisors warn him that the "white men" might be deceitful about their long-term intentions. Nevertheless, he states that if the bird were to offer the leopard the ability to fly, he would be foolish not to take it.
  • She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: Madisynn, a Hard-Drinking Party Girl, gets thrown into a hellish fireland and survives due to her making a deal with a goat demon she calls Jake in exchange for six drops of her blood and having to withold the pact to keep her and her family's souls safe.
  • In Sleepy Hollow, Andy Brooks sold his soul to Moloch for an as-of-yet unknown reason before the events of the series. Also, the Horseman are all humans who made a deal with Moloch, with Ichabod explicitly using the trope name to describes Death's deal.
    • Death aka Abraham Van Brunt made a deal in return for possession of Katrina.
    • War aka Jeremy Crane/Henry Parrish made a deal in return for revenge on his parents Ichabod and Katrina.
    • Malcolm Dreyfuss, the Big Bad of Season 4, sold his soul to Satan in order to eliminate his business partner and become a giant in the tech sector. And spotting the potential loophole, he then spent years seeking out the means of becoming immortal so that he'd never die and thus be condemned to Hell. After he succeeds in doing so, Ichabod makes a deal of his own with Satan for the means of rendering Malcolm mortal again so that he can be killed.
  • In Smallville:
    • Jonathan makes one with Jor-El to bring Clark (who's under Red Kryptonite influence) home in "Exile".
    • In "Reckoning" , Clark makes another one to save Lana's life. Jonathan dies instead.
    • In "Vessel", Lionel says Lex has done it, and the devil (Zod) will always come to collect.
    • In "Sleeper", Jimmy makes one with Lex to protect Chloe from government agents. He knows there would be a price. Lex comes to collect in "Arctic", Magnificent Bastard-style.
  • The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Devil's Due" involves an alien race who believe that their ancestors made a deal with the devil for a thousand years of peace and progress for their world. On the date when the contract is supposedly due, a woman named Ardra appears, claiming to be the demon of their mythology, come to claim the planet. Picard ultimately proves that Ardra is merely a con artist, using technology to recreate magical effects to convince the populace of her demonic origins.
  • Supernatural:
    • The episode "Crossroad Blues" concerns the main characters trying to save several people who have made deals with the Devil, or rather Crossroad Demons. Upon making the deal, the person has ten years before the demons come to collect. They do in the form of hell hounds, who tear the victim to shreds. Notably, the only one they succeed in saving is the one who made a deal to benefit someone else (to save the life of his terminally ill wife), whereas all the characters who made wishes for success or talent end up being taken down to Hell as planned. Robert Johnson (mentioned above) even puts in an appearance.
    • It must run in the family: Mary gave permission for Azazel to enter her house, which he used to poison Sam with demon blood (in 1983, the year that she died) in exchange for John to be alive again, John makes a deal with Azazel in the first episode of season two: his soul and a mystical gun made by Samuel Colt for Dean's life. After Sam dies in "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 2", Dean summons a crossroads demon and trades his soul in order for Sam to live again and while he failed, Sam still tried to make any deal he could in order to save Dean from hell. God, that family is screwed up.
    • Another surprisingly depressing example occurs for Bela in season 3's "Time Is on My Side". She was fourteen, it's implied her father was abusing her sexually, the Crossroads Demon (in form of a child) killed her parents for her, and the ending is her hearing the hellhounds coming to get her.
    • Back when he was human, Crowley sold his soul for "a few extra inches below the belt". He swears that he was "just trying to hit double digits". These days, he's the one making the deals as "King of the Crossroads". He seems rather embarrassed about his reasons for making the deal when explaining things to his time-displaced son.
    • Bobby makes a deal with Crowley in order to help the brothers save the world from the Apocalypse. It takes him half of season six to find a way out of it.
    • The biggest reveal of season six is that all that happened was due to a deal Castiel made with Crowley. Unlike standard deals it is actually more of a partnership where either partner could walk away at any time. However, by the time the brothers find out about it both participants have too much invested in the scheme to back out.
    • Another non-standard deal was Sam's entire relationship with demon Ruby during season four. He sacrificed his humanity (and by extension, soul) by following her lead and drinking demon blood so he could develop abilities that would let him destroy that season's Big Bad, Lilith, to prevent the Apocalypse. Ruby did get him strong enough with the Dark Side to kill Lilith. Too bad killing her was the key to start the Apocalypse.
    • Just to be clear: the whole series is made of this trope. The Winchester brothers are regularly called out for their willingness to make deals with people and things one should never make a deal with.
    • "Season Seven, Time for a Wedding!" features an interesting example: a demon makes the standard "You get what you want and die ten years later" deal with people — then has his partner kill them within days, thus exploiting a loophole in the deal-making process (the demon making the deal can't collect early; nothing says another demon can't). When Crowley finds out about this, he is pissed, because their whole business model depends on people knowing Hell will hold up its end of the bargain.
      Crowley: This isn't Wall Street, this is Hell! We have a little something called "integrity"!
  • There was an episode of Tales from the Darkside that had the Devil made a deal with a frustrated movie script writer.
  • In Teen Wolf, accepting "the bite" from an Alpha werewolf. Selling your humanity for power, health, and popularity doesn't seem like much at first until: The full moon turns you into a homicidal jerk, the Alpha forces you to kill with him or die, and the Hunters turn up to (at best) bully you or (at worst) turn you into a pin cushion before cutting you in half.
  • The Twilight Zone (1959):
    • In "Escape Clause", the severe hypochondric Walter Bedeker makes a deal with the Devil, calling himself Mr. Cadwallader, for Immortality in exchange for his soul.
    • Subverted in "Still Valley". Making a deal with the Devil is necessary to access all of the spells in the warlock Teague's book of Black Magic. However, the Confederate soldier Sgt. Joseph Paradine burns the book as he would rather let the Confederacy die and be buried in hallowed ground than renounce God.
    • In "Jess-Belle", after buying a Love Potion from Granny Hart, Jess-Belle Stone learns that her soul has been extinguished and that she has been become a witch.
    • In "Printer's Devil", Douglas Winter, the editor of the failing newspaper The Dansburg Courier, hires a reporter and linotype operator named Mr. Smith, who lends him $5,000 to keep the paper going. Winter eventually discovers that Smith is the Devil who wants his soul in exchange for saving the newspaper.
    • In "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville", William J. Feathersmith is approached by the Devil in the form of a beautiful young woman named Miss Devlin. She agrees to send him back to his home town of Cliffordville, Indiana in 1910 with all of his memories of the intervening 53 years intact in exchange for his entire fortune, save $1,412.14. Feathersmith initially believes that the price will be his soul but Miss Devlin reveals that his unscrupulous business practices mean that he is already going to Hell.
  • The Twilight Zone (1985):
    • There's a comedic variation in "I of Newton". A mathematician named Sam accidentally summons a demon through an equation he was working on, and the demon announces that Sam's soul is already forfeit, unless he can give a question the demon can't answer or a task he can't perform. Sam is allowed to ask two (well, three, but one gets wasted) questions about the demon's powers, from which he ascertains that the demon can travel anywhere in the multiverse, and can find his way back from anywhere he has traveled.
      Demon: Now, a question I cannot answer.
      Sam: Not a question. A command.
      Demon: Lay it on me.
      Sam: Get lost!
    • A variant that may or may not involve infernal forces happens in the story "Button, Button", in which a poverty-stricken couple are given a box with a button on it and are told that if they press it, they'll get a lot of money but someone whom they don't know will die. They press it and the person who gave it to them comes to collect the box. They are given the money and are told that someone they didn't know has died. They are also told that the box will now be given to someone they don't know.
    • "Time and Teresa Golowitz" has an interesting variant: the deal is offered to someone who has just died, and the deal is not for the person's soul. A music composer is offered to be allowed to revisit a moment in his past to have another chance with a popular girl in school in exchange for simply coming "down below" once in awhile to share his music. He agrees, but learns afterward that his tampering with history (preventing a shy girl's suicide and causing her to be a successful singer in the present) is apparently frowned upon "top side", necessitating that he spend a little while "lying low" in Hell for a bit. To be fair, it's implied to be a nice place in Hell (possibly Limbo), and he's told that the arrangement is only temporary.
    • In "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich", a man gets help escaping a demon to whom he owes his soul. Said help turns out to be a mob boss who's also a demonologist. Oops.
  • Tends to come up from time to time on Ugly Betty with Wilhelmina in the Mephistopheles role and either Betty or Christina in the Faust role.
  • The Ultraman Ace villain, Yapool, being an immortal demon, will occasionally form pacts with desperate humans whom are willing to sell their souls to Yapool for various reasons, which will result in having giant monsters rampaging across Japan by the end of each episode. Notably...
    • One episode has a narcistic Mad Artist named Mushitaro who decide to form a pact with Yapool after being rejected by a woman he loves, in exchange for Mushitaro having total power and bringing his artworks to life, including that of Garan, a prehistoric fish monster.
    • In another episode, a man who wants to punish modern day Japan for not respecting the ancient tradition of the Lion Dance and worships a statue ends up unleashing two different monsters, which the man is granted the ability to control after offering his soul to Yapool.
    • There's a later instance when the senior chief of a village becomes desperate to punish city-dwellers over their disrespect to the environment, to the point of giving his soul to Yapool so he can summon a giant salamander monster, Hanzagiran, at will.
  • An episode of Wayne and Shuster had a musician selling his soul to the Devil in order to become Canada's greatest hockey player.
  • In a WKRP in Cincinnati episode, the frustrated employees try to form a labor union. Carlson's mother, who owns the station (and only bought it for the tax writeoff), threatens to shut it down or sell it rather than negotiate. Station manager Andy Travis laments at one point, "I would make a deal with the Devil to keep this station open!" Finally everything is resolved, and we learn Travis has made a secret deal — with Mrs. Carlson.
  • The short-lived 1977 series A Year at the Top was an allegedly comic look at a two-man garage band (played by Greg Evigan and David Letterman band leader Paul Shaffer) who sold their souls to the son of the Devil for a year of super-success as rock stars.

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