History Main / WidelySpacedJailBars

* In the ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'' TV special ''[[WesternAnimation/GarfieldSpecials Here Comes Garfield]]'', Garfield and Odie are [[PoundsAreAnimalPrisons taken to the pound]]. Odie is thrown into the back of an animal control truck where the bars are more than wide enough for him to slip through. Later, when Garfield and Odie are in the pound, all the cage bars are wide enough for [[FatCat even Garfield]] to walk out, but nobody seems to notice.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTheMovie2017'', though it's kind of hard to tell, it does appear with the cage that Tempest puts Twilight Sparkle in that she could just walk out if maybe she was good at contortions. Not that it would necessarily matter, anyway, since she was without magic while in the cage and surrounded by Tempest and the Pirate King's minions.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]

* In ''The Flying Beaver Brothers: Birds vs. Bunnies'', the titular beavers are imprisoned by rabbits in a cage with bars wide apart for them to walk through, but they don't leave until they are broken out by a bird. Turns into a comical type later on when one of the beavers ends up in the cage again and simply escapes through the bars once the rabbits leave, while [[LampshadeHanging asking to himself why he and his brother didn't think of this before]].

* In ''The Flying Beaver Brothers: Birds vs. Bunnies'', the titular beavers are imprisoned by rabbits in a cage with bars far apart, but they don't leave until they are broken out by a bird. Turns into a comical type later on when one of the beavers ends up in the cage again and simply escapes through the bars once the rabbits leave, while [[LampshadeHanging asking to himself why he and his brother didn't think of this before]].

* In ''The Flying Beaver Brothers: Birds vs. Bunnies'', the titular beavers are imprisoned by rabbits in a cage with bars far apart, but they don't leave until they are broken out by a bird. Turns into a comical example later on when one of the beavers ends up in the cage again and simply escapes through the bars once the rabbits leave, while [[LampshadeHanging asking to himself why he and his brother didn't do this before]].

* ''[[WesternAnimation/ThreeTwoOnePenguins 3-2-1 Penguins!]]'':

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'': The wooden cage where Ganondorf keeps his kidnapped children has this problem. The relevant cutscenes make it pretty obvious that both Link and his captive sister could easily fit between the bars. This is far from the only think keeping them there, and the cage itself may be intended to protect the prisoners from the giant bird guarding the area; but it's still pretty silly when Link ineffectually and unnecessarily tries to force the door open.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThreeTwoOnePenguins'':

* WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh had an ImagineSpot episode that portrayed the wild west and shows a jail cell that had bars wide enough to walk though and the characters actually do, but still don't think to escape this way. Of course, that's nothing compared to the fact that [[CardboardPrison the jail cell didn't have a back wall.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': Seen in "Twilight's Kingdom Part 2" when [[spoiler:Discord]] [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jailbars_66.png traps the other Mane 5 and Spike in a cage]]. Even Pinkie Pie doesn't notice, putting it in the serious category.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/ThreeTwoOnePenguins'' episode "Give and Let Give", the cage Jason and Michelle are in has bars far apart for them to just escape if they tried.
** Zig-zagged in "Do Unto Brothers". The bars are narrow enough to prevent the penguins from escaping, but not the kids. As Michelle puts it.
-->'''Michelle:''' This cell was built to hold penguins, not kids.

[[quoteright:324:[[WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ducksbehindbars_4472.png]]]]

This is primarily a cartoon trope. Live-action prison bars are rarely made this way, unless the gag is specifically sending up the cartoon trope. Drawn or rendered bars are spaced that way so that they don't interfere with the view of the character's face and body language. They're visual shorthand for imprisonment, and are not drawn functionally even if we're supposed to believe they work.

Serious Type: the characters and the audience are meant to take the bars seriously even though they're clearly spaced far enough apart to allow escape. In this type the bars are purely visual shorthand. Very, very rarely, a character might be put in such a prison by a jailor who is [[LawfulStupid too dumb to realize]] that the prisoner is small enough to escape the prison.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheBosBaby'', the cage that Francis E. Francis places Tim and the Boss Baby in looks like both of them could just climb a little and get right out of it. It doesn't really matter because they're both dropped through a trapdoor before they can even really consider it.

Comical Type: the character in the cell {{lampshade|Hanging}}s the spacing of the bars by sticking his/her head or torso through. Someone might even ''accidentally'' escape through the bars, having been too stupid to figure it out on purpose. A particularly GenreSavvy character might even wait for the jailor to leave before slipping between the bars and making his/her escape.

* In an episode of ''Anime/OnePiece'', some characters are caught in a net. In closeup shots the net has a very fine mesh, but in distance shots the mesh is drawn wide enough that the characters could potentially fall right through. This demonstrates that it's done for the visual necessity of drawing the trap in a way that doesn't obscure the characters.

* ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'': At one point Papyrus tries to block your progress by putting up a set of bars. Papyrus being Papyrus, the bars are so widely spaced you can simply walk through them. Sans even [[LampshadeHanging points this out]]. Later on, if Papyrus defeats you in battle, he locks you a cell, which again, you can literally just walk out of.