Cardboard Prisons in Western Animation.
- Animaniacs: As a result of their antics, the Warner siblings were locked away in the water tower on the Warner Bros. Studios lot in 1934, and allegedly hadn't escaped until the series premiere. However, it's shown in later episodes that not only were Yakko, Wakko, and Dot able to get out whenever they wanted, but were even let out more than once while the tower was being fumigated. Furthermore, similar to The Joker's attitude towards Arkham, they view their so-called "prison" as their home, and always return to it willingly when they're done causing chaos. Pinky and the Brain have the same outlook regarding ACME Labs.
- The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes:
- This happens in the very first episode. There's a massive jailbreak at the four supervillain prisons (The Vault, The Cube, The Big House, and The Raft) that creates the need to form The Avengers. The viewers aren't told the history of the prisons beforehand aside from the fact that they were tailor made based on the type of supervillain they held. (The Vault had tech criminals, 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.
- Regardless, all these prisons are presumably abandoned for prison 42, the above mentioned "fantasy island" of comic fame. Unlike in the comics, this prison has functioned just as designed, and despite the less-than-friendly environment, is generally considered a good idea in universe. At least until it gets attacked from the outside by Annihilus and has to be abandoned.
- In the Axe Cop episode "Heads Will Roll", Axe Cop is incarcerated. He decides to stay because it makes killing bad guys very convenient. As soon as he learns that Flute Cop is in trouble, he easily escapes.
- Batman: The Animated Series takes this to utterly ludicrous degrees, even by Batman standards, but also has some fun lampshading how easy it apparently is to get out of that asylum.
- In Joker's first appearance, he escapes Arkham via a rocket-powered Christmas tree. Granted no one could have possibly seen that coming, even in a series like this, but the fact he was able to set up such an escape in the first place, right under the noses of everyone, pushes it firmly into this territory.
- Lampshaded in "Joker's Favor", twice no less. The first when Joker casually mentions he "arranged another early parole" as soon as he heard of an opportunity to ruin an event honoring Commissioner Gordon. Then later, when Charlie Collins threatens to blow up the Joker to end the threat to his family, he points out that if he lets Joker go to Arkham instead, the clown will just escape and come after him.
- In "Joker's Wild", the Joker manages to escape from Arkham in all of about 45 seconds, using mere cleaning products and a string of ribbons, after seeing a news broadcast about the new Joker-themed casino opening in Gotham. However, the tycoon who had built the casino was going bankrupt and was depending on the Joker to blow the place up so that he could collect the insurance money, and one of the guards acknowledges to himself that the Joker is being suckered: it's pretty evident one, if not multiple, of the guards were paid off to let him escape.
- "Lock-Up" 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.
- In "Deep Freeze", Robin wryly mentions that the recent breakout of Mr. Freeze was the "most elaborate escape from Arkham this year". Truthfully, Freeze does not actually escape in the episode; he's kidnapped from the jail by an outside intruder.
- In "Judgement Day", one of the city officials endorsing the Judge (who uses lethal force on criminals) says that Arkham is like a revolving door.
- The Plumbers' Headquarters in Ben 10: Omniverse is absolutely terrible at keeping its prisoners under lock, despite being an underground base with advanced technology and several super-powered, trained guards. Most villains who get arrested are back on the street usually one or two episodes later, and villain Khyber has been known to break in twice without even getting noticed.
- In the Birdman (1967) cartoon, a Gadgeteer Genius once broke out of prison by constructing a suit of Powered Armor complete with a jetpack in the prison metalshop. After Birdman kicked his ass and sent him back to prison the episode ended with the warden deciding to assign the guy to prison laundry duty instead of the metalshop, thinking the guy wouldn't be able to turn this to his advantage. The villain proved him wrong in a later episode when he escaped again by converting a dryer into an escape rocket. After Birdman caught him again, the warden finally wised up and sent the villain to work in the prison library, far away from any machinery.
- Lampshaded in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: XR and XL 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:XR: "Lasers"... "Acid"... "Escape From Prison"! So that's how he keeps coming back!
- Incarnations of Carmen Sandiego. The game shows are especially guilty of this. 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 has been arrested countless times, yet he doesn't ever seem to stay in jail and always returns with new schemes.
- In Courage the Cowardly Dog any prison is this for Le Quack. In one of his appearances he is thrown into an armored truck by a police officer and driven away. Literally seconds later, we cut to the same truck. It has been completely destroyed. Le Quack is wandering the road alone; He is clad in the uniform of the police officer who apprehended him. In his second appearance he actually makes it to prison but just as the episode fades to black we see the same prison with all of its barbed wire fences on fire and Le Quack standing outside of them. There is no humor, there is nothing to even take the edge off. It's pure Fridge Horror.
- Danny Phantom captures his ghostly enemies and then ... returns them to the Ghost Zone. Which is accessed by a completely uncontrolled portal that opens whenever it feels like it. As well as a basically unlimited number of other portals that randomly connect the Zone to various points in time and space. This isn't even to mention that some ghosts, like Johnny 13, can open portals whenever they feel like it! It's small wonder that "caught" ghosts often return in the very next episode. The setup to one episode even involves Danny's father repeatedly pressing the button that opens the portal, with ghosts flying out with each press. There's a queue forming on the other side.
- Of the lighter variety, the dog catcher in the early sound cartoon "Dinnertime" (produced by Van Beuren Studios) unwittingly lets all of his dogs loose while trying to catch the dogs raiding Farmer Al Falfa's meat shop.
- The royal prison the Little King visits in "Jolly Good Felons", which is Played for Laughs; one of the prisoners even removes one of the bars from his cell window, only to dust it off and put it back. Then the King unwittingly ticks off a prisoner by ruining his chess game, which makes him tear the bars off his cell, steal the keys from the prison guard, and then a lever that releases all of the prisoners!
- On DuckTales (1987), the ease with which the Beagle Boys get out of jail countless times (usually with the help of cakes with poorly disguised tools inside sent by Ma Beagle) became a running gag. In one episode, the prison staff decide to X-ray one of Ma's cakes to put a stop to this. Though there's no tools baked inside, whatever recipe Ma used makes Burger Beagle (who devours it in quickly) jitter so much his brothers use him as a jackhammer. Taken Up to Eleven in the episode "The Status Seeker", when the Beagle Boys are residing in a "prison" that more closely resembles a tropical resort hotel, complete with butler. When the episodes' antagonist approaches them with a job as hired muscle, Big Time asks the butler to tell the warden that they'll be "escaping for a week or so". The butler's response? A cheerful "very good, sir."
- Challenge of the Superfriends:
- In "Wanted: The Superfriends", Lex Luthor uses a dream machine to force the heroes to commit crimes. When they turn themselves in, the police chief (actually Bizarro) points out that he knows the Superfriends could easily escape, so he is going to simply rely on their integrity to stay.
- 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.
- WOOHP's so-called high-security prison is a continual source of escaped baddies on Totally Spies!.
- Lampshaded when Smalls was captured again, Jerry commented that because he was so small they didn't even notice that he had escaped.
- And another when a villain was able to escape simply by making a guard uniform in arts and crafts. Jerry is obviously embarrassed by this predicament.
- Kim Possible reuses some villains this way, the ones who don't 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 the prison can't really have been expected to foresee.
- Teen Titans (2003):
- The first episode has Plasmus being broken out of jail, and the HIVE trio's first appearance made mention of their headmaster retrieving them after they were defeated. Otherwise, every arrested villain will just show up again without explanation, and we don't even see any in prison. Literally the only villain who stayed in jail was Brother Blood, the third season's Arc Villain.
- The isn't even limited to Earth prisons, either. When questioned on her reappearance, as she was supposed to be locked up in some galactic prison, Blackfire nonchalantly commented, "I got bored, so I broke out." (What really makes this odd is that the Space Police who arrested her in the first place had no trouble overpowering her.)
- The Simpsons:
- Sideshow Bob is constantly getting out of prison by one way or another. However, Bob has only really escaped twice: once by sneaking away while working at the Air Force base and once by disguising himself as his cellmate. More often than not he was released legally, albeit for highly questionable reasons: "No one who speaks German could be an evil man! Parole granted!" And he knows it too. Once, being dragged off to prison he yells "You can't keep me in jail. Sooner or later there'll be a Democrat in the White House again and I'll be free! And all my criminal pals as well."
- In "Lisa on Ice", Chief Wiggum agrees to let out a bunch of prisoners so they can watch the little league hockey finals, but only if they promise to come back afterwards. When the prisoners refuse to even pretend that they'll agree to do this, Wiggum lets them out anyway.
- "The Springfield Connection":Wiggum: Cuff him, boys. We're putting this dirtbag away.
Snake: Ha! I'll be back on the street in 24 hours.
Wiggum: We'll try to make it twelve. - In "Realty Bites", Snake simply walks out through the jail's unlocked door, ignoring the "no escaping, please" sign posted nearby. Fellow inmate Kearney is not pleased.Snake: Screw the honor system. My car needs me!
Kearney: Hey, you're ruining it for the rest of us! - In "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo", Homer takes this literally when he goes to Japan. His jail cell is made out of paper. So he just walks through it, despite the cell now being open.
- Though it's not actually pointed out, apparently the jails in TaleSpin's Cape Suzette are far from secure. Several minor villains reappear later, notably Buffy and Muffy Vanderschmere, who, despite being caught as con artists and hijackers, show up separately in the background some episodes later apparently up to their old tricks again.
- The Real Ghostbusters:
- The ghost containment unit is particularly unreliable. The marshmallow man might as well have been meeting with a parole officer. (Although in fairness, two of the episodes with him involved the team letting him out.) And yet it's actually very secure from the inside. Most of the break outs are some idiot (like Slimer) shutting it down. Some powerful ghosts escape after a minion from the outside springs them, or a crisis with multiple ghosts endangers machinery.
- Egon tried several times to beef up the security. He placed a backup generator that would kick in in case of a blackout, but the first time it was needed, said blackout was caused by ghosts that could possess machinery. Another time, the Containment Unit itself was possessed. Egon once installed a fingerprint ID system to prevent an intruder from shutting it down, but that was abandoned after a demon possessed Peter in order to do it.
- One story featured a ghost who kept breaking out of the ghost traps no matter what the Ghostbusters tried. Ultimately he turned out to be the ghost of Harry Houdini and fortunately was actually a good guy, negating the need to try putting him in the containment unit.
- In the Invader Zim Christmas Episode, Zim poses as Santa and throws Dib in "Jingle Jail." He breaks out easily, because the bars that look like candy canes actually are made of candy cane. Subverted when he's captured again:Zim: This time throw him in the actually strong Jingle Jail!
Dib: (being dragged away) Why didn't you throw me in the strong one in the first place?
Zim: You can never understand my amazing brain! - The Powerpuff Girls (1998):
- Not only do villains inexplicably get out of jail between episodes, they don't even go into hiding—they can live publicly and the Girls won't bother them until they commit more crimes.
- In one episode, some crooks manage to be let out of jail because there were some Powerpuff Girl costumes conveniently located in their cell.
- House of Mouse ran a Mickey Mouse short in which Mortimer gets him falsely arrested for theft. Mickey 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.
- Played for Laughs in Rick and Morty when Jerry is dumped off at "Jerryboree", a day care for all the Ricks of The Multiverse to dump off their Jerrys to keep him out of their adventures. Our Jerry suggests to the others that they bust out and escape, and is matter-of-factly told by the others that they're free to leave whenever they want as keeping them there against their will would be illegal. None of them bother simply because "they're Jerrys", and when our Jerry does leave he's back within the hour after having to deal with the utter insanity of the planet the place is on.
- Made fun of in Robot Chicken in a G.I. Joe Parody.Duke: (concerning Cobra Commander) We flew in, beat 'em like mixed-race stepchildren and Cobra Commander went to prison... and he promptly escaped. Whoo boy, the other countries of the world were pissed, they wanted him put to death immediately, but we kinda dragged our heels and by that time Zartan had busted him out with a wicker basket thing and a remote control snake or something... ahhhh good times.
- Transformers: Animated:
- 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 tie-in comics reveal that Starscream got his chance to escape while they were studying his flight tech. This trope is also used inconsistently with the human supervillains: the police don't even seem aware of Meltdown's first escape, but after that they stick him in a special cell not even his acid can melt through (he escapes, but thanks to the Dinobots following Blackarachnia's orders). On the whole, the comic-relief villains seem to have an easier time breaking out than the actual threats. This gets lampshaded in the Allspark Almanac, in which Captain Fanzone complains about how Blackwater Prison (the supermax all these villains are sent to) can't seem to keep its prisoners contained properly.
- The Fairly OddParents!: 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. Worse then it sounds; he does escape it a few times, just to show how "inescapable" it is... only to go right back in.
- In El Tigre, the Miracle City prison sees mass breakouts virtually every day; in one episode, El Oso is blase about being sent back to jail because he plans on breaking out before dinner anyway. In a later episode, he's taken away in a police van and is immediately seen walking free seconds after.
- In Sushi Pack, though most villains are shown going to jail at the end of each episode, only one villain has been consistently shown in jail. Lampshaded in one episode, as Ikura comments, "They need to start building better jails in this town!"
- The Spectacular Spider-Man:
- The Sinister Six are broken out of a prison by Doc Ock, 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. Actually, pretty good — though the Green Goblin manages to remotely take control of the prison, he manages to eventually take control again with some help from Black Cat and her father.
- It's a little hard to catch, due to Spidey's tongue being burnt, but in the episode "Reinforcement", he says something along the lines of "Beaky!? Is there a revolving door at that prison!?"
- During an imagination episode of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh that portrayed a Wild West train robbery, Pooh and Tigger are put in one of these. Not only were the bars wide enough for the characters to walk through (and they do), but also there was no back wall. When Tigger comes to break Pooh out of jail, he unlocks the cell door but then they leave through the missing wall, and when they get caught again later they somehow don't think of just walking out the same way again.
- Family Guy parodies this with "Canadian Alcatraz", where the guards routinely let prisoners out, as long as they're back by sundown.
- Young Justice. After Hugo Strange takes over Belle Reve, the prisoners are to leave to do jobs for The Light and return before any inspections can take place. Even after Strange is exposed at the end of Season One, this trope is in effect as all the villains that were captured in Season One are free after the Time Skip at the start of Season Two.
- In the Batman: The Brave and the Bold adaption of the "Emperor Joker" story, Batman says he designed Joker's new cell himself and that he won't be getting out. Bat-Mite uses his Reality Warper abilities and Joker is loose again. This may explain the trope itself.
- In King, during the first episode Bob Wire puts Russell and the others in a prison that once you enter you can't leave. Because the door is "ONLY" on the outside. in turn the outside door has no reason to be locked. Russell then pulls out a few loose bricks, putting them back in backwards so the outside door is on the inside, escaping within minutes.
- In the Steven Universe episode "Jailbreak", Steven easily breaks out of his cell within a minute of waking up in it. Justified since the cells are only meant to contain Gems, and so have Force Field Doors designed to disrupt a Gem's Hard Light body. Since Steven's a Half-Human Hybrid with an organic body, he only feels minor shock akin to a joy buzzer when passing through the barrier.
- The Loud House: In "Get the Message", Lola and Lana play "hall monitor" and put Luan in a literal cardboard prison.
- In The Raccoons episode "The Prism of Zenda", Cyril and the pigs get arrested for breaking into Mr. Knox's mansion and attempting to steal the eponymous prism, although the whole incident was actually one big misunderstanding (long story). After Cyril and the pigs get jailed, Cedric states that once Mr. Knox clears things up, Cyril and the pigs should be out within a few days.
