Cardboard Prison: Difference between revisions

[[File:jaila.jpg|link=Homestar Runner (Web Animation)|frame|You gotta get us out of the joint, man!]]

And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in''|(various artists, [[Older Than They Think|most famously]] Harry McClintock for ''[[O Brother Where Art Thou]]''), "[[Folk Music|Big Rock Candy Mountain]]"}}

In some cases, a Cardboard Prison can also serve as an [[Tailor-Made Prison]] that's [[Sealed Evil in A Can|just waiting to be opened.]]

Contrast with [[Luxury Prison Suite]] (in which the character might not want to leave prison, because of how nice it is), [[Might As Well Not Be in Prison At All]] (in which the character doesn't have to leave the prison to remain a threat), and [[Play-Along Prisoner]] (in which the character doesn't currently ''want'' to leave the prison, but could if they did). Also contrast [[The Alcatraz]], which actually ''is'' hard to escape from, but possible -- see [[Great Escape]]. This problem is frequently solved via [[Self-Disposing Villain]], and the occasional [[Heel Face Turn]].

* Minor villain Beck from ''[[The Big O (Anime)|The Big O]]'' breaks out of prison no fewer than three times over the course of the series, although sometimes he has help.

* Both Lucia and Gale (King) Raregroove broke out of a prison at some point in ''[[Rave Master (Manga)|Rave Master]]''. King escaping a regular jail only three days after being locked up so he could get back at the other Gale. Lucia busts apart a maximum security prison (it's implied that he broke a several feet thick metal wall with his bare hands-he's just that [[Badass]]) ten years later, waiting that long only because he had nothing better to do for that stretch of time.

* Done with ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia (Manga)|Axis Powers Hetalia]]'', where Germany can dig his way out of a prison. England also manages to escape from prison because his Italian guards don't pay attention, but he always gets dragged back by Germany.

* The Mari Land prison in ''[[Onegai My Melody (Anime)|Onegai My Melody]]'': Kuromi and Baku can escape with minimal efforts. Repeatedly.

* One of the classics is Arkham Asylum from ''[[Batman (Franchise)|Batman]]'', although this was [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] a few times in the comics (e.g., as the effect of a curse). Not only is Arkham Asylum worthless, it seems to make its inmates ''[[Go Among Mad People|worse]]'' instead of better. (Of course. What did you expect? It's [[Bedlam House|ARKHAM!]] ''Cue [[Evil Laugh|insane laughter]]''.)

** Surprisingly averted in [[Batman (Film)|both]] [[The Dark Knight Saga (Film)|modern]] ''Batman'' film series. While Arkham Asylum is practically the [[Trope Namer]] in any other medium version of the story, the film versions tend to keep things nice and tight for the most part, with even supervillains staying locked up. Even the mass breakout in ''Batman Begins'' occurs due to the outside influence of the organisation that runs the place (essentially, they cause their own breakout).

** Lampshaded in one [[Superman (Franchise)|Superman]] novel, in which Luthor is sent to prison. [[Jimmy Olsen]] immediately starts writing his report about Luthor's escape, before he had actually done it. In the course of the story Olsen mentions that following one previous escape, Luthor had later broken back into the prison to retrieve something he had inadvertently left behind, then escaped again.

* The first time in DC Comics that the Crime Syndicate of Earth 3 showed up, they were beaten and imprisoned in a bubble created by [[Green Lantern (Comic Book)|Green Lantern]], and THEN thrown into a limbo between dimensions/earths. They kept somehow breaking out and causing trouble.

* Justified in the case of [[The Silver Age of Comic Books]] [[Mad Scientist]] version of Lex Luthor, who was fond of [[MacGyvering]] a [[Applied Phlebotinum|Phlebotinum]]-powered escape device out of absolutely ''anything''. Writer [[Elliot S Maggin]] once had Luthor muse that it had reached the point where the only two items his guards would allow him to have were a pen and a pad of paper. Luthor had, in fact, long since figured out a way to turn the ink, metal, plastic, and wood pulp into a high explosive to blast his way out, but he would never ''do'' so, because then the next time Superman threw him in prison, the prison wouldn't let him have a pen and paper any more.

* ''[[Dilbert (Comic Strip)|Dilbert]]'' has a similar situation to ''[[The Simpsons]]'' example below, when Wally is imprisoned, and Dogbert tells him that the guards just pretend to lock it up. As Wally said, "I'd have to say, the lifers were the most embarrassed."

* [[The Punisher]] occasionally finds himself thrown in jail, but it's usually part of a [[Batman Gambit]] to kill a crime lord who's already behind bars in the same prison (for example: the final level of the video game). One time [[Daredevil]], [[Spider-Man (Franchise)|Spider-Man]], and [[Wolverine]] all teamed up in an attempt to stop the Punisher once and for all, but at the end of the battle the Punisher [[Lampshade Hanging|points out that]] if they put him in jail he'll just kill every inmate in the prison before escaping again. [[The Punisher (Comic Book)/Awesome|The three heroes agree and let him go.]]

* The ''absence'' of these is actually a plot point in ''[[Watchmen (Comic Book)|Watchmen]]''. Because all the supervillains the Minutemen thwarted tended to stay thwarted, they eventually ran out of situations that required a team of heroes to deal with. This was one of the factors that led to the Minutemen breaking up.

* Any time [[Popeye (Comic Strip)|Popeye]] goes to jail, this trope goes into effect as Popeye uses his strength to take the wall of his cell apart brick by brick. In one early strip he was kicked ''out'' of jail for doing this!

* In [http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/956653.html?#cutid1 a comic] based on ''[[Batman Beyond (Animation)|Batman Beyond]]'' featured on Scans Daily the Royal Flush Gang are out committing crimes when they are supposed to be in prison. Terry doesn't know how they could have escaped noting, "This place is locked up tighter than a drum." Despite the outcome, Terry's comment still seems like an odd thing to say when Bruce Wayne has told you all about his past, with one person posting, "Uhh, Terry? You got in, didn't ya?"

* Snap and Loopin in ''[[My Immortal (Fanfic)|My Immortal]]'' are constantly send to St. Mango's or Azkaban, but are usually found somewhere around the school by the next chapter. It's mentioned that Britney had helped them escape once.

* In ''[[Megamind (Film)|Megamind]]'', the title character can apparently escape the prison with ease, as long as he has help from Minion.

* In the remake of ''[[Three Ten to Yuma (Film)|Three Ten to Yuma]]'', the prison train fits this trope. It is established late in the film that wanted gang leader Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) has already escaped from the prison train to Yuma at least twice before the events of the movie. After {{spoiler|Dan Evans and Wade's posse die}}, Wade willingly steps onto the train and sets off on his trip towards the prison -- but ''not'' before he calls his faithful horse to ride alongside the train, proving that as soon as the film ends, he'll simply [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|escape again, rendering the whole film pointless]].

* In ''[[Species (Film)|Species]]'', the alien/human monster is grown in a cage. Between her and freedom: a glass window, an unlocked door with a crash bar (no pesky knobs to turn), and a chain link fence.

* In ''[[The Flintstones (Film)|The Flintstones]]: Viva Rock Vegas'', while in prison, Barney realized he can slip through the bars to steal the guard's keys and get Fred out too.

* In ''[[X 2 X Men United (Film)|X 2 X Men United]]'', [[Magneto]] literally smashes his way out of prison the second he gets his hands on some metal. It's also worth noting that the method he and Mystique used to get the metal into his cell in the first place was one they could have used basically whenever they felt like it, so presumably they had already worked out the plan so that as soon as Mystique was able to find out where his prison was (and the name of a guard working there) they were ready to go.

* In ''[[The Smurfs (Film)|The Smurfs]]'', Gargamel accidentally [[Summon Magic|summons a swarm of flies]] to escape Rikers Island in New York City.

* Azkaban in ''[[Harry Potter (Literature)|Harry Potter]]'' is a [[Tailor-Made Prison]] in all but name, but escape seems to be a simple affair, with Sirius Black and Barty Crouch Jr. escaping relatively easily (though granted they had {{spoiler|unknown-to-most polymorph abilities and contacts and assistance from the outside}} respectively), and becomes really cardboard when the Dementors (who are supposed to be guarding the place) start helping the inmates escape.

* In the ''[[Discworld (Literature)|Discworld]]'' novel ''[[Discworld (Literature)/The Last Continent|The Last Continent]]'', Rincewind finds himself imprisoned in a jail cell on the continent of XXXX, awaiting execution. The guards inform him that the cell's previous inhabitant, "Tinhead Ned", used to escape with regularity. Rincewind dismisses this as an attempt to break his spirit by getting him to run around rattling bars and searching for hidden panels. Then he finds a message from Ned, telling him to "check the hinges". He discovers that the cell's door can be entirely removed with sufficient effort, and escapes. At the end of the novel, after becoming a national hero, he requests that the cell never be redecorated, thus assuring that it will retain its cardboard nature for the next person to wind up inside it.

** A couple of other 'prisons' prove to be equally or even less effective. The prison at the Patrician's Palace doesn't keep said Patrician in for any longer than he wants it to (although he designed it to be so), the room a pack of Werewolves lock Sybil in in ''[[Discworld (Literature)/The Fifth Elephant|The Fifth Elephant]]'' doesn't hold her any time at all, although its failing are due to the fact that non-dungeon rooms in a castle are generally not good at keeping people '''in'''. Mostly subverted otherwise though, most prisons are pretty effective, with escapes relying on outside intervention, like a zombie tearing the wall down.

* In David Weber's ''[[Honor Harrington (Literature)|Honor Harrington]]'' series, the government of Silesia is so corrupt that most of the authorities are, individually, in cahoots with one or another band of pirates in the area, and frequently find excuses to release them when they're caught by Manticoran patrol ships. This leads to the Royal Manticoran Navy's draconian policy: Anyone caught a ''second'' time engaging in piracy will be executed immediately.

* [[Subverted Trope]] in ''[[Alcatraz Series (Literature)|Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians]]'', which has many elements of an [[Affectionate Parody]] of fantasy-adventures. The cell Alcatraz and his team are locked in is quite immune to Smedry Talents. Fortunately for our heroes, the Evil Librarians didn't take nearly as great precautions when assigning [[The Guards Must Be Crazy|the guard]].

* The prison Faith is kept in on ''[[Angel (TV)|Angel]]'' is presumably sufficient to keep ordinary humans inside. However, after Faith breaks out of it in 30 seconds (including about 1 second of planning), there can be no question that her incarceration was completely voluntary.

* Anytime the good guys are imprisoned in any incarnation of ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]'', it's pretty much expected that they will escape by the end of the episode. For some reason, aliens think that exposed circuits and electronic doors that have control panels on the inside are strong security measures.

* Parodied in ''[[Lie to Me (TV)|Lie to Me]]''. Lightman manages to slip right out the door of an asylum in his typical audacious fashion. Five seconds later, he gets dragged back inside by two annoyed orderlies.

* ''[[Supernatural (TV)|Supernatural]]'' portrays Hell as rather ineffective at containing demons. Demons who are exorcised back to Hell pop back up to cause trouble again [[Traveling At the Speed of Plot|at the Speed of Plot]] (e.g. Meg, Ruby, Alastair, Lilith). Considering who is in charge down there, this is probably deliberate. Lucifer's cage also qualifies if you take his army of fanatically loyal minions into account. Combinatorial calculations yield at least 1.22 x 10⁸⁷ distinct methods by which he could be freed. (This figure assumes that there are exactly 600 seals, that the first and last seal are fixed, and that breaking the same seals in a different order doesn't count as different.) On top of that, the actual seals include things like a "righteous man" (read "Dean Winchester") shedding blood in Hell in a canon where [[Being Tortured Makes You Evil]] and one of the aforementioned fanatically loyal minions sacrificing herself for the cause. Accordingly, springing Lucifer is as easy as [[If You're So Evil Eat This Kitten|baby kitten pie]]. Again, given who is in charge of the imprisonment, this is deliberate.

* On ''[[The A-Team (TV)|The A-Team]]'', no mental institution could ever seem to hold Murdock if his teammates wanted to break him out.

* On ''[[Heroes (TV)|Heroes]]'', D.L.'s ability to phase through any surface means that he can escape through any facility; he even tells his son that no prison can contain him.

* In an episode of ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (TV)|Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]]'', Hercules is arrested, but he only stays of his own free will. When a villain starts attacking the city, Hercules punches a hole in his cell wall, gets out, stops him, and comes back.

* In a later episode of ''[[Arrested Development (TV)|Arrested Development]]'', GOB is imprisoned, but the guards keep poor protection of him. They leave the keys in the cell and even leave the cell door open. It is inverted because he does not even try to escape he throws the keys back and closes the cell door and he then mocks their stupidity. It is justified, however, because they wanted him to escape so they could follow him and see if he was up to something.

* Scorpius is kept in one during his time on Moya in season 4 of [[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]. When the others finally realize that he could have escaped any time he wanted, he uses his voluntary incarceration as evidence that they should trust him. {{spoiler|They really shouldn't.}}

* ''[[The Goon Show (Radio)|The Goon Show]]'' episode "Tales of Old Dartmoor" involves the inmates of Dartmoor Prison escaping ''but taking the prison with them'', leaving a literal cardboard replica in its place.

* This sometimes comes up as a reason why characters in ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (Tabletop Game)|Dungeons and Dragons]]'' end up killing the [[Big Bad]] of a story rather than capturing him (even if he surrenders). Locking the bad guys up in prison just gives the [[Game Master]] an excuse to have them break out to menace the party again at the least convenient time.

* ''[[Warhammer 40000 (Tabletop Game)|Warhammer 40000]]'', [[Crapsack World|being WH40K]], some stories play this painfully straight, while others subvert it so hard it isn't funny. In the story ''Dark Apostate'', the villain protagonist escapes with ridiculous ease from a Dark Eldar prison within six hours of arriving (while holding in his intestines with one hand), while another tale tells of a prison on a death world called Phyrr where everything is toxic, including the spores which infest the air. Should the prisoners ever riot, the orbiting control station just opens all of the doors, and lets everything inside.

* Very much the case in the ''[[Freedom City (Tabletop Game)|Freedom City]]'' setting for ''[[Mutants and Masterminds (Tabletop Game)|Mutants and Masterminds]]''; the character most focused on making it ''un''-cardboard is [[The Jailer|the Warden]], and he's a dangerously unstable [[Knight Templar]].

* In ''[[Batman: Arkham Asylum (Video Game)|Batman Arkham Asylum]]'', the intro takes pains to show off Arkham's new "improved" security system. It takes all of 10 minutes for the Joker to not only break his bonds, but take over the asylum and free all of the inmates. In fairness to the Arkham staff, a good bit of work had already been done for him. He arranged a fire at the Gotham prison to get his mooks on the island, and Harley already had control over the security system.

* The general majority of prisons in Rockstar games, prominently ''[[Bully (Video Game)|Bully]]'' and the ''[[Grand Theft Auto (Video Game)|Grand Theft Auto]]'' franchise, are this. You get caught for [INSERT HEINOUS CRIME HERE] and your punishment? They take away a bit of cash and some easily replaced weapons.

* Zigursky Prison, also known as "The Zig", in the MMORPG ''[[City of Heroes (Video Game)|City of Heroes]]''. Its walls are so permeable that bands of escaped prisoners freely roam the streets of Brickstown, the zone in which it is located -- not to mention all the bosses and archvillains who take advantage of its apparent revolving-door policies. The tutorial in the counterpart ''City of Villains'' has your character escaping the Zig as part of a massive prison break.

* Parodied in ''[[Toonstruck (Video Game)|Toonstruck]]''. The guard has a sensitive nose that can be irritated by dust from your cell's doormat, incapacitating him. If you're locked up again, he acquires a gas mask which you persuade him to take off. If you're locked up again, the guard has quit in disgust, leaving a note that the key is under the mat.

* You're thrown into a prison hut at one point in ''[[The Secret of Monkey Island (Video Game)|The Secret of Monkey Island]]''. The natives (who imprisoned you) go through more and more elaborate door security systems if you keep getting captured. Of course, they never notice the Guybrush-sized hole in the floor...

** Prisons in ''[[Monkey Island]]'' games are never renowned for their security, but the prize must go to the Flotsam Island Jail in Chapter 4 of ''[[Tales of Monkey Island (Video Game)|Tales of Monkey Island]]'': to get out, Guybrush simply says he wants to see his lawyer -- which happens to be [[A Fool for A Client|Guybrush himself]].

** The keys to the Phatt City Jail in ''[[Monkey Island 2 Le Chucks Revenge (Video Game)|Monkey Island 2 Le Chucks Revenge]]'' are just outside the cell, being guarded by a dog. If I remember correctly, you distract the dog with a bone to get him to drop the keys.

* Subverted slightly in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]''. Every time Link breaks out of his cell and the Gerudo guards see him, he's captured again and thrown back in. Of course, it doesn't occur to anyone that, since he keeps getting out of prison, they might want to ''put him in a different cell''.

* ''[[Chrono Trigger (Video Game)|Chrono Trigger]]''. You break out of the slammer ''twice''. And only the later [[Time Travel Tense Trouble|(earlier?)]] one has them bothering to take your weapons. Why this makes the characters incapable of casting magic, [[Fridge Logic|I'm not sure.]]

* Mildly averted in ''[[Mega Man 6 (Video Game)|Mega Man 6]]'', the only game where Wily doesn't [[Villain Exit Stage Left|escape]] or [[Heel Face Turn|"reform"]] has Wily go to prison and he stays in there for several months before escaping due to riot caused by his robots.

** ''[[Mega Man 7 (Video Game)|Mega Man 7]]'' reveals all of the robot masters defeated by Mega Man are put in a museum with minimal security. Of course Wily manages to break in, thankfully however he only manages to take [[Recurring Boss|Guts Man]].

* In ''[[Tales of Symphonia (Video Game)|Tales of Symphonia]]'', you break out of several prison cells. One early in the game by shooting the guard with the Sorcerer's Ring (which your captors didn't take for some reason). Again {{spoiler|after getting captured by Kratos. This time Regal breaks you out using a super-awesome kick ass mega powerful ability that he vowed never to use in battle}}

* ''[[Champions Online (Video Game)|Champions Online]]'' has the prison in the West Side in Millennium City. It's an ongoing "Open Mission", where the player can join at any time during the plot. Impressively, the building has a realistic scale.

* Late in ''[[Cave Story (Video Game)|Cave Story]]'', you get trapped in prison cell. Getting out is as easy as ''talking to an NPC who also sits there''.

* In the ''[[Dragon Age (Video Game)|Dragon Age]]'' expansion, ''Awakenings'', there is the new party member Anders, an apostate mage who has escaped from the Templars seven times.

* In ''[[Dragon Quest III (Video Game)|Dragon Quest III]]'', you get locked in a prison cell... in a castle which requires that you have the jail-opening key to even get inside.

* ''[[Breath of Fire (Video Game)|Breath of Fire]]'' has a prison in Auria that the main characters may get locked in any number of times. There's a man inside the cell, asleep, who will simply let you out the front door if you talk to him.

* The plot of ''[[Paper Mario (Video Game)|Paper Mario]]'' requires you to break out of a cell several times using a secret passage. That leads right into {{spoiler|Bowser's}} room.

* ''[[Dark Souls (Video Game)|Dark Souls]]'' starts out in one of these. There aren't any guards and only a few hollows, only some of which are hostile. The prison is also in complete disrepair. There is also the 20 foot tall Asylum Demon, who makes things somewhat challenging. It's pretty clear that undead are just dumped in there, starter equipment and all and left to rot.

* When you first turn up to talk to the King in ''[[Shining the Holy Ark (Video Game)|Shining the Holy Ark]]'' you're literally dropped into the dungeon. A good 2 minute conversation later and you're being let out by your ninja friend and then escaping via the secret underground passage...that is linked to the dungeons.

* ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|The Order of the Stick]]'': In [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0489.html this strip], Roy justifies working with a [[Chaotic Evil]] halfling on the grounds that all prisons are cardboard to him, and this way he can be put to some good use. Considering that as of [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0745.html #745] they are both held in prison, but Roy won't ''let'' Belkar break them out....

* ''[[Freefall (Webcomic)|Freefall]]''. All jails are made of cardboard [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1100/fv01019.htm if you're an alien squid].

* It's not so much that the jails in ''[[Schlock Mercenary (Webcomic)|Schlock Mercenary]]'' are made of cardboard as the characters are just brilliant at escaping, which isn't so hard when you wear low-profile power armour, which they generally get to keep since it looks like regular uniforms. In addition, the title character can basically become any shape he wants, and thus they have to use shields to contain him.

* ''[[Bob and George (Webcomic)|Bob and George]]''. [http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/031007c George can break the Author out with no trouble at all.]

* ''[[Everyday Heroes (Webcomic)|Everyday Heroes]]'' [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/eddurd/everydayheroes/series.php?view=single&ID=205904 has a typical revolving-door prison.]

* [http://eco-r1.livejournal.com/898.html Regularly breaking out of prison is considered a viable PR strategy] for the villains of ''[[Super Stories (Literature)|Super Stories]]''.

* Spoofed on ''[[Homestar Runner (Web Animation)|Homestar Runner]]'' in the aptly-named "[http://www.homestarrunner.com/jailcartoon.html Strong Bad Is In Jail Cartoon]". The "jail" Strong Bad is put in is literally a cardboard box with a hole cut into it, and Strong Mad frees him by lifting the box and throwing it away.

* In ''[[Super Friends|Challenge of the Superfriends]]'' [[Sinestro]], Black Manta, and Cheetah escape from a cell by Sinestro just walking into the anti-matter Universe of Qward and the others following him.

* An entire episode in ''[[Batman: The Animated Series (Animation)|Batman the Animated Series]]'' is dedicated to a former brutal Arkham security officer turned vigilante out of disgust with Arkham's poor track record. He actually said that as far as villains are concerned, Arkham has rotating doors.

* WOOHP's so-called high-security prison is a continual source of escaped baddies on ''[[Totally Spies (Animation)|Totally Spies]]''

* ''[[Kim Possible (Animation)|Kim Possible]]'' reuses some villains this way, the ones who don't [[Villain Exit Stage Left|conveniently get away]]. Partly played for laughs at the beginning of the fourth season, where two episodes feature another villain breaking Shego out of prison and leaving Drakken behind, including his own cousin. Drakken is eventually freed by an alien Amazon, which, to be fair, the prison can't really have been expected to foresee.

* The ''[[Teen Titans (Animation)|Teen Titans]]'' series starts off with the gang going to control a prison break. (Oddly enough, it was a bad guy breaking in instead of the prisoners trying to break out.)

* Sideshow Bob on ''[[The Simpsons (Animation)|The Simpsons]]'' is constantly getting out of prison by one way or another. One episode revealed that the Springfield Minimum Security Prison has an unlocked gate, and the only thing keeping prisoners inside is the honor system. Fellow prisoners yell at Snake for "ruining it" for the rest of them when he escapes to take revenge on Homer for filling his car up with cheap gasoline.

* On ''[[Duck Tales (Animation)|Duck Tales]]'', the ease with which the Beagle Boys get out of jail countless times (usually with the help of [[Jail Bake|cakes with poorly disguised tools inside sent by Ma Beagle]]) became a running gag.

* Lampshaded in ''[[Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (Animation)|Buzz Lightyear of Star Command]]'': XR and XL [[Freaky Friday Flip|switch heads]], and XR (with XL's body) is thrown in Star Command prison. While looking at the different buttons on XL's arm, he makes a startling discovery:

* The ghost containment unit in ''[[The Real Ghostbusters (Animation)|The Real Ghostbusters]]'' is particularly unreliable. The marshmallow man might as well have been meeting with a parole officer.

** In ''[[Where On Earth Is Carmen Sandiego]]'', the fact that the local authorities let Carmen escape just hours after Acme detective prodigy Lee Jordan made history by actually capturing her was the beginning of his [[Face Heel Turn]].

* Professor Norton Nimnul from ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (Animation)|Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers]]'' has been arrested countless times, yet he doesn't ever seem to stay in jail and always returns with new schemes.

* Parodied in the Christmas special for ''[[Invader Zim (Animation)|Invader Zim]]''. After convincing the worlds that he is actually Santa Claus, Zim orders that Dib be thrown in one of his jingle jails. Minutes after being locked up, Dib realizes the candy cane colored bars are made out of REAL candy canes. After breaking free, Zim finds him and orders that he be thrown in the "Actually strong Jingle Jail". When Dib asked why he didn't just put him in the strong one the first time, Zim replied with something along the lines of "Your puny brain can't grasp the genius of my evil mind."

* In one episode of ''[[The Powerpuff Girls (Animation)|The Powerpuff Girls]]'', some crooks manage to be let out of jail because there were some Powerpuff Girl costumes conveniently located in their cell.

* ''[[House of Mouse (Animation)|House of Mouse]]'' ran a [[Mickey Mouse]] short in which Mortimer gets him falsely arrested for theft. He manages to escape because the policeman guarding his cell is dumb enough to demonstrate the easiest way for a prisoner to escape -- knocking him out and taking the keys.

* Made fun of in ''[[Robot Chicken (Animation)|Robot Chicken]]'' in a G.I. Joe Parody.

* In ''[[Transformers Animated (Animation)|Transformers Animated]]'', [[The Starscream|Starscream]] is captured and placed in a holding cell on the Elite Guard's ship. Unfortunately they forgot to properly restrain him or take away his weapons, so he was easily able to blow up part of the hull and escape. In later episodes, it seems they actually learned their lesson from this incident.

* ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents (Animation)|The Fairly Odd Parents]]'': Though not a villain, Cosmo leads to an example of this when Wanda tricks him into a dog carrier when he needs to go to the D-O-C-T-O-R. Multiple times, it shows him easily having the ability to escape the trap, but he's too clueless to take any of the opportunities.

* In ''[[The Spectacular Spider Man (Animation)|The Spectacular Spider Man]]'', the Sinister Six are broken out of a prison by the Big Man, and another time are broken out of a mental institution. Another episode even has Spider-Man testing out the security of the Vault in a sealed cell. Guess the results.

* This happens in ''[[The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (Animation)|Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes]]'' in the very "first" episode. There's a massive jail break at the four supervillain prisons (The Vault, The Cube, The Big House, and The Raft) which creates the need to form The Avengers. We don't know the history of the prisons beforehand aside from the fact that they were tailor made based on the type of supervillian they held. (The Vault had tech chriminals, the cube radiation criminals, the big house genetic villains, and The Raft had the most dangerous criminals) Seeing how someone broke into the Vault in one of the backstory micro episodes, and two inmates had apparently broken out of the Cube in the past (Hulk and absorbing man), they don't sound too great.

* ''[[Family Guy (Animation)|Family Guy]]'' parodies this with "Canadian Alcatraz", where the guards routinely let prisoners out, as long as they're back by sundown.

* Subverted in the [[The Nineties|1990s]] ''[[X-Men (Animation)|X-Men]]'' cartoon: Magneto breaks Beast out of jail in episode 3, but Beast just stays where he is.

* In ''[[Adventure Time (Animation)|Adventure Time]]'', Finn is imprisoned in a cage made out of sticks. After his captors decide he's no longer worth holding captive, Finn asks them to let him out of the cage, but they tell him to take it apart himself since it's so flimsy.

* ''[[Gargoyles (Animation)|Gargoyles]]'' subverts this while playing it straight. While the Pack are in jail, a stranger in [[Powered Armor]] breaks in to help them escape. The Pack is more than happy to do so, but Fox refuses, stating he'll serve out his sentence. Of course, since this is ''Gargoyles'' we're talking about, it all turns out to have been a scheme by [[Xanatos Gambit]]. He sent the [[Powered Armor|Powered Armored]] man {{spoiler|who was actually a robot designed to look like Xanatos}}, and Fox was told to stay behind so that she could get out of jail early (and legally) for good behavior.

* Scott Adams, the creator of ''[[Dilbert (Comic Strip)|Dilbert]]'', wrote about such an occurrence in two of his blog posts (later published in book form). In the first he tells the then-current news story of a man who escaped prison by making a fake ID and a set of civilian clothes, and simply walked out. In the second post he reveals that the man had been caught outside a bar, intoxicated and making no attempt to hide his identity. Adams theorizes that the prisoner had simply forgotten something like a pack of cigarettes or a pair of sunglasses in his cell and got caught on purpose so he could retrieve them, certain that he could escape again. And that this time he wanted to try it ''drunk''.