Doris Fairfeather is going to prison. Her scumbag boyfriend, Charlie, has framed her for stealing a string of valuable pearls and quickly split the scene.
A naive newcomer in prison, Doris does her best to survive her new world. Making friends with other inmates and trying to avoid the ire of others.
The pilot is most well known for being incredibly hard to find. It aired only once on Adult Swim, and vanished from sight soon after. It was declared lost media until it finally surfaced online in 2017, uploaded to several non-legit sites before Adult Swim themselves posted it on their site.
Provides examples of:
- Art-Style Dissonance: The pilot has a very kid-friendly simplistic art style/animation that clashes with the dark and depressing tone of prison life.
- Alpha Bitch: Babs qualifies, despite not being a high schooler. She exhibits a lot of qualities being the mean "popular" girl with a posse of her own (outright referred to as her "slave girls") that follow her around, has a hazing ritual to turn her fellow prisoners into slave girls, sucks up to one of the guards and bullies Doris for being a goody two-flippers.
- Asshole Victim: Babs dies after Flotsam stabs her with a swordfish head, but it’s almost impossible to feel bad for her given all the crap she put Doris through.
- Berserk Button: Flotsam is very possessive and loving of her "Shrimpy", when Babs goes a little too far and threatens to burn it on the stove. It proves to be her undoing as Flotsam grabs the head of a swordfish and proceeds to shank her with it.
- Bloodless Carnage: When Flotsam impales Babs with a swordfish head, there's no blood even as Babs does over the top death throes.
- Big Sister Instinct: The older and more experienced Millie quickly takes a protective role for Doris, looking out for her as much as she could throughout their stay in prison. In the end of the pilot, after Doris takes up several qualities similar to Millie. It's heavily implied Doris will be equally as protective of newcomer Pam.
- Bittersweet Ending: Despite getting even with her ex-boyfriend Charlie Abaloney, Doris had to be given another 10 years for being an accessory to the murder of Babs.
- Break the Cutie: Poor Doris is put through the wringer after being wrongfully incarcerated into a maximum-security prison. She goes from a naive yet kind-hearted woman but gets toughened up after spending several years in the slammer (alongside a few months inside the hole).
- Character Development: Doris goes from a meek and mild Naïve Newcomer to a harder and tougher penguin.
- Chekhov's Gun: The picture of Doris and Charlie, that the former keeps with them during their stay in prison becomes useful when Millie notices that the latter is wearing a stolen pearl necklace. Making it perfect evidence to get even with Charlie.
- Companion Cube: The rather unhinged Flotsam is very attached to her shrimp plush doll, "Shrimpy".
- Failed Pilot Episode: Was not greenlit for a full series.
- Gas Mask Mook: After Babs' is killed the Warden barges in with a couple of gas-masked penguin guards to break up the commotion.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: It's all but outright stated that Mad'm Millie is a prostitute, and she's very kind and protective towards Doris.
- Initiation Ceremony: Babs has one i
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Babs meets her demise when a manic Flotsam rams a swordfish head straight into her heart
- Karmic Death: After Babs takes the shrimp doll away from Doris, (which contained the photo of Charlie wearing the Pearl of Patagonia), Flotsam goes crazy and ends up stabbing her with a swordfish. Babs quickly ends up dying from her injuries afterwards.
- Lawman Baton: Matron Rruffwater, the Warden, the guards and her Gas Mask Mooks are armed with batons. While they don't use it they brandish them without much care.
- Meaningful Echo: Near the beginning of the pilot, Millie says that an experienced bird like her should keep an eye out for a newcomer like Doris, and responds to Doris's polite reply that she can look after herself by offering her gum. As Doris basically becomes Mad'm Millie 2.0 at the end of the pilot, she makes the same offer to Pam at the end, and offers Pam gum when she politely refuses.
- Meaningful Name: A few to go around, from Doris Fairweather, Matron Rruffwater and Charlie Abaloney. Doris is an naive yet kind person, Rruffwater is an unfair, almost sadistic prison guard and Charlie Abaloney is a slimy and horrible jerk.
- Naïve Newcomer: Doris starts off as an idealistic and innocent penguin (because she is), but her time in the slammer toughens her up.
