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♪ Well, it's a drag and I know
But there's only one place to go
Baby, back where I come from,
I'm comin' home!♪
"When my father, the prison mogul, left me his legacy, I swore to protect the art of incarceration, but the world is not ready for my methods. So I went outside the system, and I created Superjail!"
The Warden

Part of the [adult swim] lineup, Superjail! is a surreal and very gory comedy series about a magical jail and its deranged staff. The show takes place in the eponymous prison, built inside an extinct volcano inside an active volcano, and home to endless numbers of ultra-violent Red Shirt prisoners. The series started in 2008 and lasted for four seasons.

The series's trademark is that by the end of each episode, there will be a long sequence of nothing but surreal carnage from corner to corner of the screen. The series' visual effects, of detailed and highly expressive animation often running at twice the usual framerate of normal animation.

Controlling the jail is the Warden (David Wain), an eccentric and twisted Willy Wonka lookalike with a flair for the dramatic and a face like Josef Mengele. Joining him are:

  • Jared: The Warden's vertically challenged and neurotic assistant, trying (and mostly failing) to recover from virtually every addiction imaginable. Often the Butt-Monkey of both the prison and his co-workers. He harbors a crush on the Warden that he sublimates into sycophantic behavior.
  • Alice: The muscular, transgender prison guard. The Warden has a crush on her (though is initially unaware of her trans status), but regulations prevent them from dating... not that Alice would want to, anyway.
  • Jailbot: The jail's Do-Anything Robot. He usually starts the episode off by capturing Jacknife.
  • Jacknife: A random, knife-wielding psychopath who gets captured at the start of every episode, only to conveniently escape by the end.
  • The Twins: Creepy Twins from another planet with a Eurobeat theme song, whose sole purpose appears to be to cause as much havoc as possible inside the jail for their own amusement, sabotaging everything the Warden cooks up. Though they do occasionally bite off more than they can chew.
  • Jean and Paul: Those Two Guys in the show, Jean and Paul are two gay prison inmates who, despite playing almost no importance to the plot or episodes at all, are still popular and important just enough to avoid being killed off.
  • Gary and Bird: The unofficial head of the prisoners. Gary is a surprisingly clean-looking man devoid of tattoos or facial hair and seems to be mute, only communicating with Bird, a small canary that constantly accompanies him. Although he hasn't shown it in the show, the Superjail database logs him as highly dangerous. He's also an obvious Shout-Out to Robert Franklin Stroud.
  • The Doctor: A Mad Scientist with a German accent, he is in charge of Superjail's scientific and technological advancements (mostly horrifying hybrids). He gets a much more prominent role in Season 2.
  • The Mistress of Ultraprison and her crew: Superjail's Distaff Counterpart.
  • Lord Stingray: A supervillain who once tried to take over Superjail but is now one of the prison inmates.

The first season was animated by Augenblick Studios in Brooklyn, New York. A second season began airing on April 4, 2011 at midnight, with animation this time being handled by Titmouse, Inc, in California, and the new Titmouse, Inc. branch opening in Manhattan, New York. It had episodes devoted to fleshing out the characters and their backstories, and shifted its focus to creative close-up gore rather than mass bloodbath sequences. A third season aired on September 30, 2012, and brought back the bloodbaths, furthered the Character Development, as well as changing the animation back to a style that was a little more reminiscent of Augenblick's episodes.

The fourth season aired June 15th, 2014. Unlike the previous three seasons, there were six episodes and not a full order of ten. After a year of no indication of the show's fate, it was revealed in the 2015 Adult Swim announcements that the show was not renewed for a fifth season.


This show provides examples of:

    open/close all folders 

    A-F 
  • All Girls Like Ponies: Parodied in "Burn Stoolie Burn", when both the Warden and Ash (both male characters) express their liking towards ponies.
  • All Love Is Unrequited:
    • Alice's profile states that she wants the inmates to love her and see her as gorgeous, but that she terrifies them and so she brutalizes them for not returning her feelings. The Warden has a crush on Alice, who won't give him the time of day as she has no interest in him (and that dating coworkers is against the regulations anyway). Alice has her eye more on "Sweet Cheeks", who is terrified of her and is regularly assaulted by her.
    • The Warden and the Mistress are self-proclaimed archenemies (although it's lampshaded that they rarely get to see each other) who once slept together (to Mistress' disgust), and who Jared and Charise wanted to pair together in order for THEM to be closer to each other. The Mistress had previously slept with Lord Stingray (aka: Warden's other archenemy) but broke up with him, and later slept with Alice, who only really bothered to have sex with her because Jared and Charise's plan failed.
    • Jared may or may not have repressed feelings for the Warden ("Dream Machine"), although it's made clear that Warden is disgusted by the idea when he sees Jared's fantasy.
    • In one episode ("Hot Chick"), the Warden temporarily gives up his crush on Alice in favor of Hunter, but Hunter's clearly uninterested in him and only wants to know the whereabouts of the Twins.
    • Alice's backstory also involves this: She started undergoing her sex change because she had feelings for the warden she worked for, but was fired when he discovered she was doing so, and she in turn discovered that he was a gay man.
  • All There in the Script:
    • Some characters, specifically Ash, only had their names listed in the scripts. Although this is averted in some cases if the character becomes more recurring, or in other cases, didn't start with a name but actually received one with their increased role (such as Jean and Paul).
    • The Amazon-esque warriors in "Vacation" are called the "Zamzazons" in the season 2 commentaries.
  • Animation Bump: The final season got a consideral bump in animation quality.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Jared, reading off D.L. Diamond's rap sheet to the Warden: "...impersonated the handicapped, [sexually] assaulted a donkey, graffiti'd the elderly, swallowed gum..."
  • Art Evolution: The art and animation in season 2 became more fluid, but this was also subverted to a degree as Titmouse used Adobe Flash CS3, which made it a little more difficult to replicate the hand-drawn look (while Augenblick had used Flash MX). The new, more rubbery style was met with mixed reception. The scene transitions and camera angles were mostly absent, but were brought back in full force for season 3 (in an attempt to bring back the Augenblick style).
    • The color palette in the series is generally more saturated when compared to the pilot, where Warden's suit was slightly duller in shade.
    • The Twins' teleportation effect changed considerably by season 3, with the animation for it being tweaked (a different noise effect) and the color brightened.
    • Artists around season 2 began drawing Jared with much larger eyes, although his general appearance (with other characters) is up to whoever is drawing him for a shot.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Combaticus, who after his death becomes a constellation hanging around in the sky at the jail.
  • Ascetic Aesthetic: What happens to Superjail when Jailbot 2.0 starts rebuilding it.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: "Terrorarium" with insects, and "Nightshift" with vegetables.
  • Barbie Doll Anatomy: Hunter, the hunter of the twins in "Hotchick". Only in the end a Censor Box covers her breasts when she's finally trapped (although the DVD shows that there's still nothing under it).
    • Alice suspects this of the twins in the same episode. A throwaway line in "The Budding of the Warbuxx" suggests that something (or perhaps nothing at all) might be down there, when Alice is confused on what orifice the twin will birth from.
  • Beleaguered Assistant: Jared. Poor, poor Jared.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Do NOT mess with Gary and Bird.
  • Big Brother Bully: The Triplets.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Alice almost single-handedly saves Superjail in "Lord Stingray Crash Party".
  • Bizarre Alien Biology: One of the twins unexpectedly buds a life-form, which they feed with bleach and other household cleaners. Once it grows large enough, if falls off his stomach then hatches like an egg. The two then proceed to eat it as a delicacy.
  • Black Comedy Rape: Quite often. Alice regularly forces prisoners to have sex with her, including her favorite "Sweet Cheeks". Early on in the series, the Mistress rapes the Warden due to the bite of a Spanish fly (although he doesn't mind and she winds up being the one disgusted and horrified). As for what happened in the first season finale, the Twins don't want to talk about it.
    • One of Jean and Paul's arguments involves the latter accusing the former of "mind-cheating" on him, after he catches him staring at two inmates involved in a shower rape.
    • There's a quick bit in Jared's flashbacks in "Hot Chick" where it suggests that he was dared on by fellow fraternity members to sodomize a sheep.
  • Bland-Name Product: Season 1 has Chubsteaks, with its logo being a clear stand-in for Burger King. There's also an Orange Julius knockoff called Lemon Jeff. The episode "Superfail" features a parody of Livestream, called Jailstream.
  • Blood Sport: In "Combaticus".
    • Picking a new prison guard in "Hot Chick"
  • Bloody Hilarious: Happens a lot in the show, mostly to the inmates unlucky enough to be involved in the latest chaos.
  • Body Horror: The Season 4 episode "Jean, Paul, Beefy and Alice" has this happen to everyone in Superjail when the Twins hook Jailbot up with a bizarre creature that infects everyone and mutates them into horrific abominations.
  • Book Ends: "Time Police" has one.
    • The first season end with the Warden leaving Superjail causing it to shut down, leaving Alice and Jared miserable for years as they look for new jobs. The fourth season ends with the Warden leaving Superjail, leaving Alice and Jared to run it just fine on their own.
  • Brain Bleach: Lord Stingray and some of the inmates walk in on Alice having sex with the Mistress. The rest of the session is a Disney Acid Sequence of all of them trying to forget what they're seeing.
  • Breast Attack: Alice does this to Lord Stingray's wife by sticking her hands into her chest, grabbing her implants, then ripping her entire body in half.
  • Bury Your Gays: Inverted, as the gay couple are two of the few inmates that survive episode to episode. The few exceptions include "Dream Machine" (where they're crushed to death by the Warden) and the end of "Planet Radio" (where they're slaughtered by Jailbot).
  • Butt-Monkey: Jared, most often. Ridiculed, humiliated, left to be beat up by inmates, horribly mutilated...the guy can't get much a break. Ash is this to other inmates who like mistreating him, especially Nicky.
  • Call-Back: True to form, Season 3 starts off with one of the male prisoners thinking back to when all the inmates were taken by The Mistress. She joined forces with Lord Stingray, and integrated both male and female prisoners together.
  • Camp Straight: The Warden, despite his flamboyant personality he has only ever shown an attraction to women. With Alice he never seems to understand her trans status, although he does get a glimpse of her genitalia in the season 2 finale and either completely forgets or doesn't mind that at all (with him referring to her as his "Chef Aphrodite" in "Nightshift").
  • Cast Herd: Subverted at times if the writers want to integrate the different groups of characters together more for specific events and interactions: There's the Warden and the rest of the staff (Jailbot, Jared, Alice, and the Doctor note ) for a good portion of scenes, followed by a specific group of recurring inmates (Jean and Paul, Ash, Nicky, Fatty, Turban, Gary and Bird) who are sometimes partnered off with Lord Stingray. There tend to be other inmate herds as well, for either the general population or specific divisions seen in certain episodes. And then there are the Twins, who the writers tend to keep isolated from the rest of the cast save for a moment or two.
  • Cardboard Prison: Jacknife gets out sometime between each episode, usually during an episode's final moments.
  • Censor Box: A GIGANTIC one that covers almost half the screen when Alice has sex with the Mistress. note 
    • Season 1 had these placed in "Ladies' Night", although it's not known if anything was actually drawn beneath. Season 2 had a few cases of censor boxes used to cover up scenes that the censors found objectionable for broadcast, but were removed in the uncut DVD release (save for the one in "Vacation" that was always meant as a gag). In the case of season 3, there were censor boxes added last minute (except for the aforementioned giant one) when the censors got cold feet, although the DVD release used the broadcast edits and not the uncensored versions of the episodes that lacked these.
  • Chekhov's Boomerang: In the season 2 finale, many references to Ultraprison result in getting all the characters and inmates captured by the Ultraprison characters.
    • Season 3 had a lot of rats placed in episodes at different points. This is given significance when Gary's vocal cords are eaten by a rat, causing it to gain the ability to speak. The resolution would fully pan out towards the end of the season, when the rat tries to take over Superjail with his pirate radio station.
    • The Mistress is seemingly forgotten after the third season premiere, aside from a cameo in "Oedipus Mess". Then suddenly comes the finale and Alice and Lord Stingray are headed on an unwilling trip towards Ultraprison.
  • Child Hater: The Warden, big time. His first reaction to seeing the Littlest Cancer Patient? Ordering Jailbot to burn her alive.
    • Subverted in season 3, where he seems all too happy about Jacknife's illegitimate son. He's still clueless about children however, and doesn't really bother to respond to the baby's needs.
  • Church of Happyology: D.L. Diamond's cult/motivational program from "Don't Be A Negaton".
  • Circling Birdies: After taking a blow to the head, Jackknife has stars as well as knives, pills, and booze circling his head.
  • Color-Coded Characters: Aside from the inmates' typical coveralls, the characters have had specific colors assigned to them for stock artwork, or in their usual wardrobe or overall theme.
    • The Warden: Purple
    • Jared: Brown
    • Alice: Blue, sometimes pink
    • The Doctor: Green
    • Lord Stingray: Gold
    • The Twins: Green or Cyan, though their clothing itself is usually a deep blue
  • Comedic Sociopathy: Exhibited in many characters, considering the show. The Warden most of all, but Alice and the Twins qualify for some moments, as well as a ton of the inmates. Jared seems like he's comparatively innocent with how he's bullied and put-upon, but even he's not so above it all.
  • Continuity Nod: The last two-and-a-half minutes of the season finale, as shown here.
    • "Mayhem Donor" includes a Freeze-Frame Bonus when the drill robot is digging underground. It's the burned inmate chatting with the ghost of Cancer, who's reading a book.
    • The talking vegetables from the pilot return briefly in "Best Friends Forever" and "Superjail! Grand Prix", and play a part in "Nightshift" when the Twins transform them into giant monsters.
    • "Best Friends Forever" has a scene where if you watch the TV monitors closely in the surveillance room, you can make out the Time Police on one of the screens, as well as the cave painting of Alice from the legend of "Su'Jael".
    • The constellation of Combaticus is briefly shown in "Hot Chick", where it disintegrates a flock of birds by firing stars at them.
    • In "Ghosts", The lost society of Pummelonia becomes a plot point along with Jacknife's father, Gerald (Prison Mogul's accountant) and Cancer.
    • The jail that Alice used to work at in "Jailbot 2.0" appears to be the same one that Jacknife was released from in the pilot. The giant gingerbread men from "Superbar" are also visible in Jared's flashback sequence.
    • The Doctor's human experimentation subject from "Combaticus" is shown briefly in a scene-panning detail in "Ladies' Night". Somewhat identical men also appear in "Gay Wedding" and "Ghosts".
    • The Grand Prix episode has cameos of many bit characters, including dead ones such as the serial killer from "Cold-Blooded". It even includes the dinosaurs with firearms for heads which appeared in one of the earlier season 2 intros.
    • The Asian inmate with half a face in "Special Needs" is the same man who had half his face transplanted on to Jared's in "Mayhem Donor". Unfortunately for him, he proceeds to lose the rest of his face.
    • From "Oedipus Mess": The "Cancer Memorial Park" statue. The Time Police also later reappear in an outer space shopping mall, along with several of the aliens that were seen in the Time Court. The guard aliens seen in "The Trouble with Triples" even appear.
      • The Mistress is also shown to still be a hippie in that episode. Although by the time of season 4, it appears she's gone through another change.
    • "Planet Radio" has several, including D. L. Diamond on TV, Bobo from "Terrorarium", the discarded robots from "Jailbot 2.0" and Peedee the evil puppet coming again to life.
    • While Ash's love of ponies in "Burn Stoolie Burn" may seem sudden to some, look back to the ending of "Gay Wedding" and you can see him cheerfully riding a unicorn as Jean and Paul are married off.
    • Season four almost becomes a Continuity Cavalcade of sorts, referencing characters from every season such as Hunter, the rats, the Warden's eyeball-headed assistants and his troops from the future, the Triplets and even things like "Jailpup". It also has a more consistent internal continuity despite the usual Negative Continuity taking place.
  • Continuity Creep: After season one, the show started to have much more continuity and even story arcs!
  • Couch Gag: Every time Jailbot takes Jacknife back to Superjail, various different scenery and locations are shown on the way there. Unfortunately season 4 does not feature them, with the beginning of the episode directly cutting to the title card.
  • Country Matters: In "Stingstress", Lord Stingray at one point says "Why, that see you next—".
  • Creation Myth: The tale of "Su'Jael" in "Time Police", part 2.
  • Creator Cameo: Aside from Christy Karacas voicing Alice and Jacknife and Stephen Warbrick voicing various inmates and bit parts, there are moments in the show where several of the production crew members have been drawn and slipped into scenes, either as inmates or other characters.
  • Creepy Monotone: As if the Twins weren't creepy enough!
    • The same creepy monotone is shown to extend to their family members, such as the Triplets and their father.
  • Creepy Twins: The Twins.
  • Crossover Cosmology: The episode "Ghosts" features some kind of ancient Mayan civilization, a witch doctor, Hindu deities and the concept of reincarnation.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Jared is actually a pretty decent sniper.
    • Some of the inmates qualify. When things start going to hell, many of them show all manner of skills, from lassoing bugs with giant shoelaces and discus-throwing that would make Captain America jealous to improvising weapons to deal with whatever mayhem is coming their way.
  • Cute Monster Girl: The alligator girl the Warden gets in love with, in the season 4 finale "The Superjail Six". Well, cute until she gets pregnant.
  • Dark Reprise: The theme song, "Comin' Home", gets one in the season one finale "Time-Police, Part Two".
  • A Day in the Limelight: Jean and Paul, the gay inmates, get an entire episode dedicated to them in the second season. Happens again in season 3.
    • This happened as early as season 1, where "Mr. Grumpy-Pants" was in part focused on Ash. He also gets plots in "The Budding of the Warbuxx" and "Burn Stoolie Burn".
    • Every episode in season 3 gave a different character a day in the limelight. Rather than focusing on just the Warden, each episode centered around a different supporting character. Warden fans fear not, however, as he was still the focus of a few episodes.
    • Turban (the Middle-Eastern inmate) was given a spotlight episode in season 4.
  • Depending on the Artist: Pretty much the entire cast is subjected to this, as the art team and animators are encouraged to go off-model. Sometimes the only thing consistent in a character will be their general color scheme, and even that can vary. Seen most often with Alice, Jared, The Twins, and some of the inmates, although the Warden (though usually more subtly) can also display artistic differences.
    • Newly-designed characters also tend to be up to the layout artists to decide their final look (unless the creators have a better idea), and so they have no references given beforehand. However, the main and recurring characters do have model packs used for the animators to reference or outright paste in to a scene, or to play around with the colors of to see how lighting would affect them.
    • In particular, Alice's stubble and body hair can come and go between shots, she may or may not have sideburns, and her mole will sometimes switch places (or not even be there at all). Jared's hands vary from having just four fingers to the usual five digits on each hand. The length and width of his head also shift about. The Twins are either significantly short (but obviously not as much as Jared), around the height of the Warden, or even Alice's heightnote .
    • Lord Stingray's mask sometimes acts more like a mask, with his eyes being depicted behind the lenses, or sometimes the lenses are his eyes and his mask is a lot more expressive. The colorists in "Stingstress" also had him depicted with a fair skin tone commonly used for the white inmates, although the colorists for the season 4 premiere appear to have made him yellow.
    • In a color example, Gary and Nicky usually have plain black hair, but some colorists on the show will occasionally make their hair a brown-highlighted black, or even a flat-out brown (seen in some season 2 episodes).
      • Gary's bird is either small and about the size of a canary, or much larger and looking about the size of a parrot.
  • Deranged Animation: That's putting it mildly.
    • It pretty much looks like they took what an 8th grader doodled in his notebook and animated it.
      • Provided that said 8th grader watched far too many slasher films and was a huge fan of the imagery of death metal...so it would be your typical 13- to 14-year-old if he was in 8th grade between 1979 and 1983.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
    "I am Ghor, the war god of Pummelonia."
    Jailbot shoots him in the chest before he can finish talking*
    "Yep, I'm a goner... I'm just.. I'm just gonna lay down here..." note 
  • Distaff Counterpart: Ultraprison is a women's prison staffed by female counterparts to the characters, including a transmasculine counterpart for Alice.
    • It's kind of "blink and you'll miss it", but one of the Ultraprison inmates is a Distaff Counterpart to Gary (complete with her own Bird!)
    • Season 3 opens up with a female version of Jackknife causing havoc in a male strip joint, eventually getting carried off to Ultraprison by the female version of Jailbot.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: Played for Laughs when Paul catches Jean staring at another inmate.
    Paul: Hey! No staring at other men. You know I forbid mind-cheating!
    Jean: How do you not stare at a shower rape?
    • Jared's idea of implementing a computer lab for the inmate's enjoyment results in all of them looking at porn, not even noticing their impending doom from the ensuing chaos that's taking over Superjail. Even Jailbot is distracted, as he's busy looking at photos of copy machines.
  • Do-Anything Robot: Jailbot, Nova.
  • The Dog Bites Back: Jared, in "Terrorarium".
  • A Dog Named "Dog": Gary's bird, Bird.
  • Doom Magnet: Superjail itself, and possibly the Warden.
  • Don't Explain the Joke: "Hey, Gary! I've got a worm for you right here! I'm talking about my penis!"
  • Double Entendre: "Sticky Discharge" is about, you guessed it, Paul getting his parole.
  • Dream Land: The centerpiece for an entire episode, during which the Warden peeks into everyone's dreams on suspicion that someone is planning a riot. The dream world also happens to be the site of the once-an-episode brawl (in this case, the entire population of Superjail confronting the Warden), made supernatural by the fact that everyone knows they're dreaming and can do just about anything, including transforming into things like a human tank, a motorcycle, and Bill Rizer.
  • Eldritch Location: Time Court and Time Jail in "Time Police", and Superjail itself, which lays host to a number of out-of-place locales.
    • Much of the setting borders on Acid-Trip Dimension. The worlds shown in each of Jackknife's capture sequences, called the Outer Zones, are this especially.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Warden, the Doctor and the Twins.
  • Everything Is an iPod in the Future: Jailbot 2.0 looks a lot like an ipod touch.
  • Evil Overlord: Lord Stingray. The Warden has potential to become this too, as seen in the dark future timeline in "Time-Police part 1".
    • In an alien case, there's the Twins' father.
  • Expy: Lord Stingray is an obvious parody of Cobra Commander.
  • Eyepatch of Power: Jared gets one in the dystopian future.
  • Family-Friendly Firearms: Of course, they're not family friendly, just like everything else in Superjail!, but it should be noted that Lord Stingray's soldiers use laser rifles as weapons. Justified in that Stingray and his army are a send-up of typical "evil overlords" in Merchandise-Driven cartoons.
  • Fantastic Racism: In Bunny Love, Jared tries to order bunny suits for everyone, but the Twins end up messing with the order so that half the prison population gets bunny suits and the other half gets wolf suits.
  • Foreshadowing: The opening Jacknife segment usually hint to what the episode is about. For example, in "Superfail!", a knocked out Jacknife ends up causing mayhem throughout the city by pure accident, the main plot of the episode involves the Warden being knocked out for the most of it and Jared trying to run the jail his way.
    • "Vacation" has a photo of Charise displayed in Jared's bedroom at the start, as well as a cameo of Ultraprison on the videophone when he calls for help. It all leads up to that sudden twist cliffhanger with the UP crew bridging seasons 2 and 3.
    • A rat wearing Gary's glasses and hairstyle is seen among Warden's menagerie of vermin inmates in "Stingstress". In "Uh-Oh, It's Magic", the end twist is that Gary's vocal cords have possessed a rat, which begins identifying as him with his own Fly in the place of Bird.. By the time of "Planet Radio", Rat has ditched his Gary guise, and upon his death, the vocal cords wind up finding their way back into Prison Peedee's marionette shell. In the season 4 premiere, Peedee has risen once more.
  • For Want Of A Nail: The in-universe equivalent of a fast food hamburger results in the Warden conquering Earth simply because he discovered the concept of franchises. Thankfully, the Time Police show up before it happens.
  • Formula-Breaking Episode: The episode "The Budding of the Warbuxx" has no opening sequence, no Jacknife, almost no violence and is almost entirely focused on the Twins and Alice (aside from a B-plot about Ash overcoming his fear). This is due to the fact they had to cut the opening sequence for time purposes. An incomplete storyboarded version can be seen on the season 2 DVD, though the opening idea was later reused for "Oedipus Mess".
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: Many examples, mostly in the insanely detailed backgrounds seen in the intro sequence.
    • Some of these are also combined with various odd events going on in the background during certain scenes. Sometimes, there will even be injokes about crew members or the characters themselves placed in a scene.
  • Fun with Acronyms: The Amphibious Secretly Constructed Rapid Ascape Craft in "Superbar".
    • "I ain't climbin' inside no ASCRAC!"
    • And in "Ladies Night":
    Warden: Women are nothing but a pack of hormonally insane vixens!
    Jailbot: (flashes HIV on his screen)
  • Funny Background Event: Well, often it is more like Creepy Background Event.

    G-L 
  • Genius Ditz: The Warden, as he built Jailbot waaay back when he was youngernote 
  • Genius Loci: It's speculated that the jail has a mind of its own. Maybe more than one.
  • Gainax Ending: One per episode, often bordering on Nightmare Fuel.
    • "Often bordering"? It's totally blown out. "Terrorarium" is one of the weirdest, at least.
      • To say nothing of "Dream Machine".
    • The first season finale's ending is the greatest example for the show.
  • Gender Is No Object: Both male and female prisoners are temporarily integrated together at the start of season 3. You'd think the males would be more than eager to just have sex with the women, but no... Both genders just want to beat the crap out of each other.
    • Although we do see that at least one Ultraprison inmate got pregnant... only for her to be instantly incinerated to a charred skeleton and a pile of organs that the Doctor collects.
  • Generation Xerox: Jackknife's briefly seen father looks exactly like grown up Jackknife, with no hair.
  • Geographic Flexibility: Aside from the events of episodes usually being reset, the outside surroundings of the jail and its very size are also subject to change depending on the need for the plot or the artist's rendition. Sometimes there seems to be just a plain desert outside the jail gates note , some grassy plains note , buildings and a town note , or a beach and pathway leading to the gates note . There's also the matter of how the jail can be entered through the smaller volcano. The inside of the jail and its scale also varies about.
  • Gorn: [adult swim] has gone on record that Superjail has more deaths in one season than Metalocalypse did in its first two. In other words, it's pretty gory. Although after the switch to Titmouse (the studio behind Metalocalypse) for season 2, one of the criticisms was that it looked less gory.
    • Lampshaded in the episode "Ghosts", where it's said that the jail newspaper has 50 pages of obituary!
  • Grossout Show: Blood, guts, bodily fluids, and crude sex jokes all have their place in the episodes. Seasons 2 and 3 have a bit of increase in the toilet humor department.
  • Grotesque Cute: Jailbot and the bugs in Terrorarium, when not tearing you to shreds.
  • Handicapped Badass: The crippled inmates from "Special Needs".
  • Heroic Comedic Sociopath: A possible case in the Warden. While dedicated to his job and perfecting the art of incarceration, he is AT LEAST a psychopathic sadist. Most of the people he ends up killing - generally indirectly - are dangerous inmates who pose a clear threat to society.
  • Hive Mind: The monstrosity from "Mayhem Donor" is this. The Doctor becomes the hive king, and wants to unite the populace of Superjail to end world suffering. He gives a speech about abolishing class, race, etc.
  • Horsemen of the Apocalypse: In The Superjail Inquisitor, the Triplets make it so that the newspaper tabloids become real. One of them includes the horsemen. Incidentally, Conquest is among the four, but Pestilence is part of the Apocalypse.
  • How Dare You Die on Me!: Jared to The Warden in Ghosts. Also, the Warden to Jailbot.
  • Human Notepad: "Salty", the old captain seen in the "Vacation" episode, has the map of the floating islands tattooed on his back. Of course when he dies Lord Stingray rips the skin off of his back to keep the map.
  • Humongous Mecha: Superjail is revealed to have one in "Mayhem Donor" (made to look like the Warden, of course). It has two huge drills but it's almost completely ineffective against the Doctor's experiment.
    • In 'Lord Stingray Crash Party', there's a Jenner-type spherical mech that looks like the Warden's head with legs, with guns sticking out of the pupils that walks across the background shooting at things multiple times.
    • In "Uh-Oh, It's Magic", there's an example of Meta Mecha: a giant robotic version of PeeDee, piloted by the ventriloquist puppet itself and itself piloted by Bird.
  • Hypocritical Humor: This too can often pop up in episodes.
  • I Like My X Like I Like My Y: Lord Stingray likes his coffee the way he likes his minions: strong and simple.
  • Idiot Ball: In an early example, Alice and all of the inmates basically get hit by it in "Mr. Grumpy-Pants". When Ash finds the little girl with cancer, he reads her bracelet and assumes that the word "Cancer" is her name (pronounced San-Ser) and that her estimated date of death is her birthday. Alice gets it even worse when the girl coughs up blood, with her assuming that the young girl had her first period.
    • The Mistress gets hit with it big-time when she easily believes that the shady Lord Stingray is the seafaring "Captain Stingray", and immediately falls head over heels in love with him afterwards. She still believes him to be a captain when she kicks him out of their room and doesn't bother demoting him to captivity and inmate coveralls (as she had with the Warden, Jared, and the Doctor).
  • Incredible Shrinking Man: The Warden used a special serum to shrink five of the inmates in "Terrorarium" and placed them in an insect-infested snow globe in a race to find a serum that would bring the victor to normal size.
    • The Twins display shrinking as part of their power set, most notably in "Terrorarium", "Cold-Blooded", as well as in at least five of their season 3 appearances.
  • If It's You, It's Okay: The Warden eventually gets a full view of Alice's genitalia. After the initial surprise, he absolutely doesn't mind, partly since he's more concerned about getting back to the jail. It's left up for debate if he completely forgot about that detail afterwards (owing to the negative continuity in the show, or with being kept in captivity by the Mistress for so long), or if he just doesn't care what Alice might have.
    • Played with earlier in "Jailbot 2.0", when the titular replacement attempts to out her bulge to the Warden. The Warden becomes appalled, but only because it "curves and droops".
  • Improbable Infant Survival: Weaponized in "Oedipus Mess" by Jacknife, who throws newborn babies to Jailbot, knowing that he'll stop pursuing him to save them. Jailbot then rescues them and still kicks Jacknife's ass.
  • Ink-Suit Actor: Put David Wain in a Willy Wonka costume and you've got the Warden.
    • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Replace the Warden's top hat with a military cap and you've got Josef Mengele. Cane, gloves, haircut, gap between his teeth, sadistic streak, and occasionally whistling a merry tune.
  • Inexplicably Awesome: Initially, we never really hear who the twins are or why they have Reality Warper powers. In an old interview for season 1, however (before it was removed from Adult Swim's site), it is said that they were originally supposed to be outright inmates, "super criminals", and some kind of experiment Gone Horribly Wrong.
    • Answered in the season 2 episode "Hotchick": they're aliens.
    • The next question is how the Warden has Reality Warper powers.
  • Innocent Fanservice Girl: Hunter of "Hot Chick". Subverted as she's a lethal woman that takes no prisoners.
    • Then completely and utterly subverted when we find out what she REALLY is: the Twins' alien childhood pet..
  • Institutional Apparel: Of the orange variety, but like everything else in Superjail subject to change according to the Warden's whims (the pilot episode centered on the Warden putting all the prisoners in bunny and wolf costumes).
  • It Amused Me: The main reason behind almost everything The Twins do.
  • Jerkass The Warden and Alice, to some different extents. A lot of characters basically fall under this trope, since they're either hardened criminals or have other repugnant actions and behavior. Even Jared can have a moment of this.
  • Kaiju: The huge vegetables in season 3 episode "Nightshift".
  • Karma Houdini: The false health guru DL Diamond, after robbing Superjail blind and doping everyone up with hallucinogens, gets kidnapped by the aliens he claims to have been contacted with... who invite him to their awesome intergalactic party.
    • The Twins usually manage to evade consequences of the chaos they cause, but this is somewhat averted in "The Trouble with Triples" when they lied to their brothers about conquering Superjail, in an attempt to stay there. Instead, through a series of events, they wind up inadvertantly impressing their father and whisked away home to become REAL overlords, despite their protest. Until the Snap Back.
    • Lord Stingray manages to evade any punishment at the end of "Planet Radio", as well as in "Burn Stoolie Burn".
    • Jackknife might count since almost every episode has him somehow escape Superjail only in the next episode to get his ass kicked in by Jailbot and sent back there and then escape again, this is a constant repeating cycle.
  • Kick the Dog: Oh dear God yes. From Jackknife stealing the crucifix from a little girl in the hospital, to everyone's treatment of Jared in "Terrorarium," to the casual brutality of the prisoners, to Jailbot's ever increasing proclivity for collateral damage.
  • Killer Robot: Jailbot. His counterpart Nova can also be this, if the season 3 premiere is any indication.
  • Kung-Fu Jesus: At the beginning of "Special Needs", Jacknife is robbing a church, when suddenly the Jesus figure detaches himself from the Cross, jumps down and begins beating the snot out of the thug. It's actually Jailbot in one of his many disguises.
  • Lady Land: The airborne, space-themed "Ultraprison" (save for Bruce, technically the only man around). There's also the society of the snake-riding "Zamzazons" from "Vacation".
  • Last of His Kind: The Twins. They're actually the last of their own race from another planet.
    • Or not, as that was a lie to get the residents of Superjail to help them escape Hunter. They're just aliens who went on a year abroad, and apparently don't want to go back. They're later revealed to even have older brothers (Triplets).
  • Leitmotif: The Twins have a eurodance-esque beat every time they're onscreen.
  • Let the Past Burn: In the third season finale, the Warden manages to burn down his entire prison to the ground with Jared, Ash, and others inside. And due to the jail burning and the chaos within, another aspect of the past winds up being let loose: The highly-dangerous demons stored in "Superhell".
  • Limited Wardrobe: The main cast and inmates usually just wear the same clothing throughout (though justified with the inmates). When they do wear different outfits, the staff will still sometimes have the same basic color schemes (Warden wearing purple clothing, Alice wearing blue, etc.)
  • Littlest Cancer Patient: Cancer (San-ser). The fact that she's also the little girl whose father Jacknife killed in the first episode doesn't help — the creators confirmed this. She was only 4, too...what a life.
  • Lighter and Softer: Season two
  • Love Triangle: Jared has a closeted crush on The Warden, The Warden lusts after Alice, and Alice is too good for them. (Really, Alice is only interested in rough and tumble vicious killers, i.e. the inmates.)
  • Lyrical Dissonance: The pilot uses the song "Rubber Bullets" by 10cc, which is very upbeat for a song about shooting people during a Prison Riot (although the guard it's sung from the perspective of is certainly enjoying himself).

    M-R 
  • Making a Spectacle of Yourself: The Warden's large, yellow, John Lennon glasses. The Mistress wears similar glasses in pink, while her assistant Charise wears hers in lavender.
  • Made of Iron: Alice and Jailbot (though he gets a bit weaker in seasons 2 and 3). Also Jacknife, as shown by the intros.
  • Made of Plasticine: Everyone.
  • Magic Skirt: Cancer in "Littlest Cancer Patient." At the episode's start, Jailbot dangles her upside down by one foot en route to the jail and her hospital gown stays in proper position.
  • Manchild: The Warden. He's even been called this in the show.
  • Mauve Shirt: Jacknife and the gay couple avoid death for pretty much every episode. In fact, the gay couple made up two of the 7 controls (Along with the Warden, Alice, Jailbot, Gary and Bird, and some unknown bearded inmate) of a Superjail Voltron-esque giant mecha in "Mayhem Donor".
    • A group of six or so inmates in season 2, including an Arab guy in a turban and sunglasses, an Asian-looking fellow and a goateed guy named Nicky.
    • The horribly burned inmate from "Mr. Grumpy-Pants" gets some minor character development and a few lines over the course of season 2, which escalates further by the end of season 3.
  • Mayincatec: In "Combaticus", they unearth the ancient city of Pummel-onia, a shrine to war and bloodsport, complete with typical Mesoamerican structures and a war god in traditional regalia trapped in animal form.
  • Meaningful Name: The names of the gay couple are revealed in "Gay Wedding" as being "Jean-Baptiste Le Ghei" and "Paul Guaye".
    • The burned inmate's name was first revealed as Ash in the season 1 scripts, and spoken in the later episodes. His surname? "Firin".
    • To further add to the puns, a temporary cellmate for Jean in "Sticky Discharge" is shown to be named "Charlie Streyt".
  • Medium Blending:
    • Live action hobo Warden at the end of "The Dream Machine".
    • Also in "The Dream Machine", the Warden discovers that Jailbot dreams about being his son, and that sequence is animated in very creepy CGI.
  • Mega-Microbes: One of the various course obstacles in "Superjail Grand Prix".
  • Me's a Crowd: Jacknife is cloned 10,000 times in "Oedipus Mess", as a part of the Warden's Zany Scheme to determine the paternity of his son.
  • Mind Screw: The ending of "Ghosts". So Jared destroyed the root of the problem and...wait, why are all the souls in a spiral around the temple of some seven-headed deity? And why are they getting reincarnated as plants? And WHY THEY ARE STILL ABLE TO TALK?
    • That's probably the mildest possible example from the show. Any of the rampant, rapid-fire surrealism or the Gainax Endings of "Time Police (Part 2)" or "The Dream Machine" screw the mind much more powerfully.
  • Mister Seahorse: The rage the Warden gets at seeing Cancer causes him to spontaneously give birth to his "Inner Child", a demonic fetal version of himself.
    • The Twin's budding situation in season 2 also counts, although the resulting lifeform (resembling a fetal version of them with crystals in its back) is not treated as a child.
    • Bird is stated to be male, though he winds up laying an egg containing the first human/bird hybrid in "Time-Police part 2".
  • Mirror Scare: The spirits of the deceased pull this trick on the Warden in "Ghosts". He doesn't even notice.
  • Monster Is a Mommy: Seen in "Vacation". That little creature Lord Stingray found came in handy...
  • Mood-Swinger: The Warden, the Warden, THE WARDEN.
  • Mood Whiplash: The episode "Mr. Grumpy Pants" for many fans.
  • Mushroom Samba: The ending of "Don't Be a Negaton" and Warden's hallucinogenic trip in "Nightshift".
  • Nausea Dissonance: This happens a lot, as disgusting and violent deaths are commonplace.
  • Never My Fault: The Warden's general attitude towards Jared.
    • He eventually realizes that he's done something wrong after ruining Jean and Paul's wedding, thus causing the gang wars within Superjail to start again.
  • Never the Selves Shall Meet: In the first season finale.
  • Negative Continuity: Partly explained by the supernatural nature of the jail, otherwise the creators just say to consider the show like a M-rated version of Looney Tunes or like The Simpsons. Of course, there sometimes is some minor extent of continuity, seen in season 3, the season 2 cliffhanger that preceded it, and the season 4 premiere building off of season 3's own cliffhanger.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: DL Diamond, who greatly resembled a glamrock David Lee Roth, including his voice, appearance, and his tendency to scat while he talks in a similar fashion to Roth's scatting in his cover of "Just a Gigolo".
    • His scam involving aliens affecting human emotions is obviously based on L. Ron Hubbard.
    • There's also the random Slipknot-looking inmates shown in one episode.
      • Insane Clown Posse makes an appearance in the same episode. The Violent J expy actually has several lines and a semi-important role in saving Jared from a malfunctioning Jailbot. "Yo boss! We got a way for you to beat that overgrown toaster!"
  • Non-Standard Character Design: The Warden compared to the other characters. Obviously intentional, to show how weird he is.
  • No Ontological Inertia: Parodied in "Paul, Jean, Beefy and Alice". The Doctor explains that, to end the mutagenic plague that is turning the inmate into weird blob monsters, the source of the plague must be eradicated, and to demonstrate that he kills a vampire in his laboratory, instantly stopping any instance of vampirism. However this does not work even after having destroyed said source, and the episode ends with everyone but the Doctor infected. Thanks to Negative Continuity, all is fine in the next episode.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: The mastermind of the breakout in "Uh-oh, Its Magic" is Gary and his bird. Whether the punishment of Gary's vocal chords being removed for orchestrating the breakout by controlling the Warden's ventriloquist dummy is too harsh or justified is up to the viewer.
  • Off the Wagon: Jared, on occasion. Played for Laughs
    • And he's got a lot of wagons to fall off of. Alcohol, junk food, gambling, sex, drugs, you name it.
  • Offscreen Rebuilding: Strongly averted. After the events of the "Superhell!" two-parter, the entirety of season 4 shows the jail slowly being rebuilt. "The Last Pack" shows the inmates along with the workers rebuilding their torched structures, "The Superjail Inquisitor" has them fixing their gigantic water wheel, and "The Superjail Six" shows the inmates fixing their sewage system.
  • Once an Episode: Jacknife is captured at the beginning and escapes at the end of every episode, with some exceptions:
    • Jailbot accidentally brings in a serial killer wearing Jacknife's face as a mask in "Cold-Blooded".
    • Jacknife is taken to regular jail in the season 1 finale when Superjail is out of commission.
    • Jailbot is shot down in the season 2 premiere while transporting Jacknife and later lets him escape.
    • Jacknife gets killed by the ghost of his own father and reincarnated as a flower in "Ghosts", averting the "escapes later" part of the episode formula.
    • Inverted in "Jailbot 2.0" where Jailbot malfunctions and winds up taking Jacknife OUT of prison and to the streets, after which he proceeds to kill INNOCENT people.
    • He doesn't appear at all in "Stingstress", with his female counterpart being the one to be captured instead (although we don't get to see her escape).
    • Neither he nor his counterpart appear at all in "Last Pack", strangely since it's an episode about cigarettes and he's a heavy smoker.
  • One-Word Title
  • Only Sane Employee: Jared, and even he is a bit nutters.
  • Out of Focus: The Twins became a case of this in season 2 aside from their two focus episodes, only receiving brief cameos or being completely missing from the plots. Part of this was due to the crew having trouble with trying to develop the charactersnote  . This was also the case at the start of season 3, but was subverted in the second half.
    • Jailbot, to a lesser extent.
  • Pac Man Fever: All of the "video games" the twins play in Cold-Blooded have 8 bit graphics or worse, and are single-screen games with minimal interaction. Clearly gameplay has not evolved much in this universe.
    • Or the twins are retro gaming enthusiasts. They seem to be able to "achieve the kill screen " with little effort.
    • Probably the first one, since in "The Trouble With Triples" all the games shown are of the 8-bit variety, including references to Centipede, Donkey Kong and Space Invaders.
  • Pet the Dog:
    • In the first few minutes of the Pilot, Jacknife is released from (normal) prison, and immediately hijacks a car, killing the driver... before noticing a little girl in the back seat. Seeing a bunny on her shirt, he drives up to a pet store and tries to steal one for her. Aww...(?) Somewhat ironically, Jailbot apprehends Jacknife for the first time as he commits what is probably the only good, unselfish act he's ever done.
      • Although considering how Jacknife crashed the car and shoved the rabbit down his pants.... it's more than likely he just wanted to fuck it.
    • Jailbot's attempts to cheer up children.
    • When the prisoners find a little girl who has been mistakenly brought to Superjail, they immediately begin taking care of her, playing games, reading stories and even planning a birthday party. Alice also gets in on the act, giving her a “birthday makeover”.
  • Pietà Plagiarism: Done in Mr. Grumpy-Pants when the prisoners and Alice discover that the Littlest Cancer Patient is dead.
  • Prison Riot: Recurring source for carnage.
  • Psychopathic Man Child: The Warden.
  • Quarter Hour Short: 11 minutes of pure madness per episode.
  • Refugee from TV Land: In one episode the Warden wakes up as a bum in the real world.
  • Reincarnation: Many of the inmates who were killed off by ghosts ended up being reincarnated as blades of grass. They ask themselves "Is this Heaven?" just moments before the Warden mows over the with a lawnmower.
  • Rodents of Unusual Size: Giant rats with cybernetic implants that Alice fights in "Jailbot 2.0". A pair of giant rats are also shown in the Grand Prix episode, and kill some inmates.
  • Rule of Funny: It pretty much runs on this for its stories and twists. What matters most to the writers is how effectively funny a story can be.
  • Running Gag: Jailbot catching Jacknife at the start of every episode.
    • Season 3 had the gag of having rats randomly placed into scenes in various episodes, setting up for "Planet Radio"'s plot. Even so, a rat appears in the episode after it (the season finale), as it was originally scripted to fall much earlier in the season.
    • While most inmates tend to die in a given episode, Fatty's deaths and mutilations are a constant gag in themselves (see "They Killed Kenny Again").

    S-Y 
  • Sadist Show: Very much so. A lot of endings are bleak or very mind-screw (even if things get reset anyway), the characters are all failures in some way or have severe issues, and spilled blood and guts abound. There are even points where recurring characters aren't spared the misfortune that the inmates usually suffer from.
  • Series Continuity Error: As the show is mostly episodic and gag-oriented, with continuity only used for certain situations, many episodes' differences would not fall under this. However, it is played straight with the ending of "Vacation" and the flashback of the same scene in "Stingstress": At the end of the first, the Doctor is shown with the other staff members being confronted by Ultraprison. However, in the "Stingstress" flashback, the Doctor is shown lying among the inmates and wearing a sailor coverall (as opposed to his work uniform), also sporting a bit of a different appearance.
  • Sequel Hook: Season 2 finale: After the cruise, the Warden and the inmates come back to Superjail at the end of "Vacation", only to discover that the Mistress took possession of the place with her robot army.
    • Season 3 finale: As Superjail gets burned down by the Warden and Ash at the end of "Burn Stoolie Burn", Alice and Jared make their escape using Jared's escape pod, only for Alice to discover that Jared was pushed away at the last second by Lord Stingray, and the two discovering that Jared had programmed his escape pod to take him to Ultraprison. Meanwhile, a place beneath the jail called "Superhell" has also erupted, releasing its demonic creatures to attack everyone within the burning jail.
  • Serial Escalation: The sheer insanity and high-scale mayhem increase with every episode in the first season. The pilot starts off with a simple brawl in a kitchen that ends with a gigantic meat monster massacring everyone. The first real episode has a massacre taking place in a flooded bar. But things gradually get more grander. In the fourth episode, the inmates get into a fight with christmas-like creatures in a winter wonderland freezer, the sixth episode has a battle between the inmates and gigantic bugs in an overgrown battlefield, while the season finale is a mish mash of all the threats in the show crammed inside a giant time-controlled coliseum that ends with the entirety of existence itself being rebooted.
  • Serial Killer: In the episode "Cold Blooded"
  • Sinister Stingrays: Lord Stingray has them as a motif, and is both egotistical and bad-tempered.
  • Ship Sinking: "Stingstress" did this to the titular pairing of Lord Stingray and the Mistress, as well as throwing some cold water on the idea of the Warden and the Mistress being a romantic couple. "Superhell!" proceeded to (temporarily) torpedo another ship when Charise gave up on trying to find Jared and believed him to be dead, accepting his death and deciding to make out with the Doctor and hook up with him. The two got back together in "Superstorm!", but with the relationship hinted to be unsatisfying due to Charise not wanting to have sex with Jared and only "talk".
  • Shout-Out: Has its own page.
  • Sigil Spam: Imagery of the Warden is everywhere in Superjail.
    • This also appears to be the case for the Mistress and Ultraprison, with her different machines and spaceships (and soldiers) being modeled after her. When she briefly converted Superjail to "Ultrajail", she replaced the Warden's tower with her own.
  • Single-Minded Twins: The Twins
  • Sliding Scale of Continuity: Very generally set at Level 1 (Negative Continuity), owing to its gag nature. However, it sometimes can be anywhere from a Level 2 (with some episodes actually employing Status Quo Is God or an in-story reset) to Level 3 (changes that stick through a season or longer, such as "Hippie Mistress" and the introductions of Lord Stingray and Peedee).
  • Smoking Hot Sex: Nova is seen smoking a cigar in "Ladies' Night" after having sex with Jailbot.
  • The Smurfette Principle: Alice. Although, there are some lunch ladies, but they're much more minor characters and not given as much personality or importance.
  • Softer and Slower Cover: The opening song is given a slower, softer acoustic treatment when Jacknife is being sent to real jail in the season finale.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: While the opening song is suitably rocking, it's about going back to prison on purpose because "life on the outside ain't what it used to be" over Jacknife being forcefully brought back into jail. Funnily enough, the full version has three more verses that have the singer saying that it's not even as good as he remembers it inside jail, so he tries to break out, but that doesn't work out and he's going to be executed soon.
  • Special Edition Title: Happens once or twice every season. Mainly used for significant episodes.
    • "Time Police Part 2" has Jacknife attempting to rob a bank only to get stopped, not by Jailbot, but by regular police forces. Jacknife then goes through the channels of becoming a regular inmate in a regular jail, as a somber version of the show's opening plays in the background. Fitting, given that this was originally planned as the final episode of the show.
    • "Best Friends Forever" has Jailbot and Jacknife being knocked out of their usual flight path to the jail. The show's title comes up inside the Mission Control room rather than the usual exterior shot of the jail. This is the first episode to establish that Jacknife and Jailbot are not entirely heartless.
    • "Jailbot 2.0" has Jailbot malfunctioning and accidentally takes Jacknife out of Superjail. This was an Origins Episode, detailing the creation of Jailbot as well as the employments of Alice and Jared.
    • "Singstress" has a female Jacknife being whisked away to the newly renamed Ultrajail by Nova, due to Jailbot being missing. This episode held major shifts in character for The Mistress.
    • "Superhell!" has Jacknife not being captured by Jailbot due to Superjail being taken over by hell demons while the show's title itself was changed to Superhell!
  • Spell My Name With An S: The show's had a few cases of this trope over time.
    • Jared's Distaff Counterpart had a lot of confusion over the spelling of her name at first, and the official sources weren't very clear for a while themselves: Adult Swim's website spelled her name "Sharice", while the season 1 DVD subtitles spelled it "Charise". The later spelling was confirmed by season 3's "Stingstress" (and the subtitles for both later DVD releases). Of course, some fans just Take a Third Option and use "Charice", and IMDB had the name misspelled as "Chareese".
    • The Prison Mogul's assistant has had his name spelled by fans as "Jarrell", "Jarum", or "Gerald". The season 1 DVD goes with "Gerald", but as the DVD also had some grammatical errors and his name is rarely brought up otherwise, it remains up in the air (unlike Charise above).
    • The name of the lost ancient society is given as "Pummelonia" on Adult Swim's site (and reinforces the pun in the name), while the season 1 DVD spells it "Pamelonia".
    • The giant fish monster in "Vacation" has had its name spelled as both the "Krynok" and "Crynoc".
    • Before the Twins' father's name was confirmed as "Ozzal" on the season 2 DVD subtitles and later media, fanworks usually used "Ozoe" or "Ozal".
    • "Jacknife"'s name is spelled as one word, although some fans (and even a moment in "Oedipus Mess") will occasionally use "Jack Knife".
    • The name given to the Littlest Cancer Patient by the ignorant inmates is "Cancer", although some fans will spell it "Sanser" after the inmates' pronunciation and to lessen the awkwardness of having to list a disease as her name.
    • The head lunch lady's name is either spelled as "Janice" or "Janis" in fan sites. The official spelling given by the writers would appear to be "Janice".
    • The Twins' bud is either the "Warbuxx" or "Wurbuxx", with both spellings seeming to be used for the season 2 DVD release (Adult Swim's site uses the former).
  • Spies In a Van: The Warden in "Cold-Blooded".
  • Spiritual Predecessor: Karacas and Warbick's own Barfight.
  • Squirrels in My Pants: Twice. The first time, a rat did this to deliver an invitation to the gays wedding, the second time was when evil rats did this to make a prisoner open his mouth so that rats can climb in and make his eyes pop out of his head
  • Stable Time Loop: One possible explanation for the ending of "Time Police, Part 2." After the space-time continuum shatters, the camera pans back to reveal a shot of a deep-fat fryer, which is identical to the first shot of part 1.
  • The Stinger: Jailbot repairing itself and racing to the Warden's rescue after the credits of season 2's finale.
  • Stock Footage: Although they attempt to avert this trope, the production crew does wind up re-using backgrounds and special effects (and even entire character models/stock art) if there's a need to recycle them, or if they're in a pinch.
    • The promotional posters and murals for season 3 made extensive use of stock footage, recycling clip art of character models and poses from the various episodes that were set to air, along with general stock art for other characters.
    • The last bit of the opening, with the Warden-shaped cloud and Jacknife being taken through it, is pretty much always stock footage (while everything before is different).
  • Stylistic Suck: Those weird, gory cartoons the Warden is always watching in "Jailbot 2.0".
  • Surreal Horror: Present in many episodes, "Dream Machine" and "Don't Be A Negaton" being two to note in particular for the first season.
  • Swarm of Rats: Planet Radio.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Several inmates' deaths can be this, as well as the death of Cancer, who was already dying of her disease but wound up nearly strangled and then crushed by falling gift boxes.
  • They Killed Kenny Again: The fat, balding, lecherous inmate gets killed many times but always comes back the next episode.
    • The inmate who committed suicide to avoid going on a date with Alice in the first season is shown being abused by Alice in the second season episode "Hot Chick". Though he hasn't experienced death again, he does continue to fear Alice's advances.
    • Jacknife is killed and reincarnated as a flower. Gary is reincarnated as a blade of grass and then mowed down in "Ghosts".
    • The second season is especially guilty of this, with Negative Continuity taken to the extremes and many characters always coming back from the dead.
    • Nicky (the prisoner that masterminded the escape attempt in "Superbar") has become a recurring character in the later seasons despite dying like everyone else on the ASCRAC. He usually manages to survive most later bloodbaths, except for being impaled by Jailbot 2.0 (in the episode of the same title), as well as Jailbot killing him at the end of "Planet Radio".
    • Guns (an inmate with shrunken legs) died at the end of "Special Needs", but is seen alive again in "The Trouble With Triples".
    • Janice, the head lunch lady, has been killed or maimed many a time.
    • Ash has been killed on a few occasions, most notably in "Superjail! Grand Prix", "Sticky Discharge", and "Planet Radio".
    • Jean and Paul haven't even been immune to the trope, as they both died in "Dream Machine", as well as Jean briefly implied to be dismembered and slaughtered in "Cold-Blooded" (He got better later in the episode anyway), the two being pulled through a shower drain and dismembered in a brief gag in "Mayhem Donor" (They got better in the next scene), and the two being ripped apart by Jailbot at the very end of "Planet Radio".
    • A new record is set in season 4's "Jean, Paul, Beefy and Alice" where the muscular convict "Sweet Cheeks" dies by head removal and then is suddenly alive and well in the second half of the episode.
  • Those Two Guys: The gay couple.
    • In a more minor example, there were two bored inmates in "Combaticus" and two similar (but differently designed) inmates in "Dream Machine". The ones from the former episode can be seen occasionally as background characters in later episodes, sometimes still paired alongside each other or shown separately.
  • Time Police: the most catchy-sounding one ever.
  • Tongue on the Flagpole: The Warden gets his tongue stuck on Alice's frozen body, while trying to lick her breasts...
  • Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Cancer.
    She was so innocent.
    A little angel.
    And now she's gone forever.
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • The Warden, Jared, and Jailbot's Future Badass selves in "The Time Police".
    • The Doctor, the Warden and Jared in the second season finale, "Vacation". Definitely Jared and the Doctor in season three.
  • The Unintelligible: Bird.
  • Unreliable Narrator: Anytime Alice talks about her past, she makes it sound like she had always realized she was a woman.
    • The Twins in "Hot Chick".
    • The Warden acts if he always had Jailbot with him in Superjail, but "Jailbot 2.0" suggests this isn't the case, revealing him to have had several prototype robots that he abandoned for their failure and seemed to forget all about.
  • Vanity License Plate: At the beginning of the pilot Jacknife hijacks a car and kills its driver (Sanser's dad) with it. The plate reads DOUCHE.
  • Vocal Evolution: Jared had more of a lisp at first, and his voice wasn't as shrill.
    • Alice's voice in the pilot and some earlier season 1 episodes was somewhat quieter and less rough.
    • Jacknife's grunting was initially deeper and didn't sound as wacky.
    • Jean had a raspier voice, while Paul's voice was less flamboyant and a bit lower.
    • The Twins started out with even more of a monotone type of voice, but were slightly more nasal in the pilot. Any vocal evolution or changes are more apparent with the higher-voiced of the two.
    • Sally Donovan started voicing the Mistress a little more youthful in season 3, compared to her earlier appearances.
    • Fatty's voice in the pilot was more snide and nasal, but as the creators emphasized his creepy childish behavior, Stephen Warbrick has performed the voice in a much higher pitch.
  • The Voiceless: Jacknife, Gary, Jailbot.
  • Wacky Racing: The Super Jail Grand Prix, held every year, promises the freedom of whoever crosses the finish line first. They just have to survive through a whole myriad of different deathtraps at literally every turn. To maintain status quo, Jackknife ends up crossing the finish line first when he wasn't even participating in the race. Jailbot immediately threw him out.
  • Walking Disaster Area: The main cast to the inmates.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Jackknife, if his flashback to his childhood is any indication.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Warden. He believes in "perfecting the art of incarceration", but uses less-than-legal methods of capture. As for what he actually does to the prisoners once he has them...
  • Weirdness Magnet: The Superjail, and every one and thing associated with it.
  • Wham Line: "Don't you mean my Ultraprison?"
  • What the Hell, Hero?: In Gay Wedding, Jared rightfully calls the Warden out for running away with planning the Gay Couple's wedding when they wanted a simple affair after Jared warned him not to, leading to their break-up and going back to their old gangs, leading Superjail into chaos.
  • What the Hell Is That Accent?: Aside from their monotone, the Twins speak in rather vague European-sounding accents. However, according to their voice actor Richard Mather, it's not so much European as it was him doing an impression of gay men and merging it with a robot voice.
  • Wonder Twin Powers: The Twins do everything together and do not like being separated, as shown when Alice and Jared try to force them apart in "Hot Chick".
  • Xanatos Gambit: A plan by the Warden to have the inmates kill each other in the Pilot. Turning inmates into werewolves is bound to kill at least a few of them, and so remove a few threats to society regardless of whatever else happens.
  • Year Inside, Hour Outside: A couple of hours of being held by the Time Police is equivalent to many years in the real world.
    • Likewise, when the Warden is abducted by the Time Police in the season finale the inmates somehow manage to interbreed with a single bird (A single male bird) and create a race of humanoid bird-people while at most only five years has passed outside Super Jail.
  • Yes-Man: Jared could give Smithers a run for his money.
    • Aside from being a sycophantic lackey, his dream sequence had him and The Warden kissing passionately.
      • In the same dream, Jared was tall and the boss, while The Warden was his short assistant who he verbally abused.

 
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Jared Hulks Out

Jared is pushed by the Twins (who appear as an angel and devil) into drinking a serum that causes him to transform into a hulking green creature.

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