History Main / JailBake

* Subverted in ''Film/{{Ariel}}''. Kasurinen gets a cake and a book on his "birthday". The cake is thoroughly examined by the prison guard. The file is between the pages of the book.

* This trope is subverted in the Creator/HannaBarbera cartoon ''WesternAnimation/TheGoodTheBadAndHuckleberryHound'', when three of the Dalton Brothers are in jail and the fourth is in a PaperThinDisguise as their grandmother who comes to bring them a cake. Huck is smart enough to expect this trope and carefully inspects the cake, but can't find anything suspicious about it. As it turns out, the cake was just a distraction, and while Huck was busy trying to find a file that wasn't there, the disguised Dalton went over to the imprisoned one and just handed his brothers some shovels through the bars.

* This trope is subverted in the Creator/HannaBarbera cartoon ''The Good, the Bad and WesternAnimation/HuckleberryHound'', when one of the Dalton Brothers is in jail and another one of the Daltons in a PaperThinDisguise comes to bring him a cake. Huck is smart enough to expect this trope and carefully inspects the cake, but can't find anything suspicious about it. As it turns out, the cake was just a distraction, and while Huck was busy trying to find a file that wasn't there, the disguised Dalton went over to the imprisoned one and just handed him a file through the bars.

* This trope is subverted in the Creator/HannaBarbera cartoon ''The Good, the Bad and WesternAnimation/HuckleberryHound'', when one of the Dalton Brothers is in jail and another one of the Daltons in a PaperThinDisguise comes to bring him a cake. Huck is smart enough to expect this trope and carefully inspects the cake, but can't find anything suspicious about it. As it turns out, the cake was just a distraction, and while Huck was busy trying to find a file that wasn't there, the disguised Dalton went over to the imprisoned one and just handed him a file through the bars.

A common parody is for the nature of the cake to be plainly obvious, such as having the file (or something even larger, like a saw) visibly sticking out of the cake which [[TheGuardsMustBeCrazy the guards naturally fail to notice]]. Other variations include: the prisoner digging through a cake he received expecting to find a file inside, only to be disappointed when it turns out to just be a regular cake given in an attempt to cheer them up (by someone who is most likely extremely hurt after watching the prisoner destroy their nice gift right in front of them); as well as the complete opposite scenario, where the prisoner assumes it ''is'' a regular cake and eats the whole thing [[IAteWHAT only to be informed afterwards that there was a file inside]].

-->-- '''Dave Panpa''', ''[[VideoGame/HenryStickminSeries Stealing the Diamond]]''

* In ''Film/IronMan2'', Justin Hammer sends Ivan Vanko a meat-and-mashed-potatoes dinner...except the potatoes are actually plastic explosives, so Vanko can fake his death.

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* ''VideoGame/HenryStickminSeries'': In ''Escaping The Prison'', the game starts with Henry in prison receiving a cake with an item hidden in it that can be a file, but can be a phone, a drill, a teleporter, a NRG drink, or even a rocket launcher instead (note only three of those will actually help Henry escape, the rest are the just the start of TheManyDeathsOfYou). Also noteworthy is that one of the prison guards was ''supposed'' to check the cake beforehand [[FailedASpotCheck but clearly forgot to do so (and when it's briefly mentioned and he realizes he forgot, he tries to save face with bluster, not realizing there ''was'' something in the cake).]] [[spoiler:The OmegaEnding of ''Completing the Mission'' reveals that the package was sent by someone from the Center for Chaos Containment as part of a "multiverse defragmentation" operation.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'', Flint is locked up in prison at one point, so his son Claus sneaks him a nail file disguised in...an apple. Close enough.
* Spoofed in ''[[VideoGame/RatchetAndClank Secret Agent Clank]]'': Clank can send weapons he finds to Ratchet in jail, the "cake" being nothing but a gun with icing and a few candles on top. Since Clank keeps sending him weapons, the Warden wonders just how many birthdays Ratchet has.
* [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] in the name of the ''VideoGame/SaintsRow2'' mission "File in the Cake." The Boss breaks an inmate out of prison, but does so by sneaking into the prison and destroying its power generator with a bomb, then storming the facility during the blackout rather than attempting a Jail Bake.

** [[FridgeLogic His Aunt Tillie must not have actually wanted him to bust out of jail... Or wanted to avoid him breaking a tooth on the file.]]

* In Website/CollegeHumor's video "[[Creator/VinceOffer ShamWow Guy]] In Jail", Vince pitches various items to the other inmates. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMMxIAn_76g#t=57s/ One of them]] is a cake slightly smaller than a football with a hacksaw hidden inside.

* In the ''[[WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGalaxyRangers Galaxy Rangers]]'' episode "Changeling," Shane has to infiltrate a prison. Zach jokes that if he isn't out in the allotted time-frame, the rest of the team will send a hacksaw inside a cake.

* Subverted in an episode of ''[[ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}} The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show]]'', where Snoopy and Woodstock ends up in a "Jack and the Beanstalk" story. Woodstock gets captured by the giant and put in a cage, so Snoopy goes and bakes a cake, putting a file inside. However, when he hands the cake to the Giant, he simply slams the cake to the cage, causing the file to fall to the floor in the process.

* The ''[[WesternAnimation/HouseOfMouse Mickey MouseWorks]]'' short "Big House Mickey" has Mickey ask Goofy to bring him a cake with a file in it after Mickey is locked in jail. The guard notices; and he and Goofy end up having a long discussion on how this wouldn't really work and what tools should have been used, ending with the guard concluding that the easiest way to escape would be to knock him out and take his keys. The guard then demonstrates and proceeds to do so to himself. Goofy however says he still doesn't understand the whole "knock out the guard" thing, so the guard has to use EVERY OTHER guard in jail as examples. As the guard then uses his own head again as example, Goofy grins to the audience holding the baton indicating Goofy was [[ObfuscatingStupidity faking ignorance this whole time]].

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime", the boys visit an imprisoned Cartman with a cake with a file in it so he can bust out and participate in their sled race. Cartman is too dumb to understand Kyle explaining the plan to him in PigLatin but it's moot anyway because it turns out he's not allowed to bring food back to his cell, most likely because of situations like this.

* DoubleSubverted and lampshaded in ''Bewary, Ride'' by Glenn Murrell. TheHero is framed for murder and in jail. The LoveInterest wants to bring him a cake -- just a cake, nothing special. But then her friend, who also beleives in the hero's innocence, visits her with an idea to smuggle a gun in there, noting that [[TheOldestTricksInTheBook this trick is so old]] [[CrazyEnoughToWork it might just work]]. She points that a six-shot wouldn't fit into the cake, but he pulls out a Derringer he got earlier from the hero as a gift. It works and the hero gets out using this literal ChekhovsGun.

* In a ''Creator/DaveAllen'' sketch, some jail prisoners receive a package that contains a cake, and assume it must contain something to help them escape. Their exitement ends quickly when they discover the cake is so hard, they can't even cut it. In frustration, one of them throws the cake at the wall -- which collapses.

* In the ''WebAnimation/CyanideAndHappiness'' short [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7_c8T4zXeM Prison Pie]] combines this with FollowYourNose when a prisoner is snuck in a good smelling pie to excape.

Not to be confused with JailBait, which may facilitate the need for a Jail Bake if you're not careful.

Not to be confused with Jailbait, which may facilitate the need for a Jail Bake if you're not careful.

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}''. An EnemyCivilWar within the League of Assassins is started when Mesi Natifah brings a captive Nyssa al-Ghul a pepper from the garden, with a small knife hidden inside--all she needs to cut the guard's throat and take his sword.

* A very early example of this is found in Zosimus' ''[[https://www.livius.org/sources/content/zosimus/zosimus-new-history-2/zosimus-new-history-2.27/ Historia Nova]]'' (5th century), which includes an incident in c.323 in which the wife of the Persian prince Hormisdas helped him escape by giving him a large cooked fish with a file hidden in its belly. While the guards were [[DrinkingOnDuty drunk with wine supplied by the wife]], Hormisdas filed the shackles off his legs and made his getaway disguised as a eunuch.

* A very early example of this is found in Zosimus' *Historia Nova* (5th century), which in [[https://www.livius.org/sources/content/zosimus/zosimus-new-history-2/zosimus-new-history-2.27/ one chapter]] tells of an incident in c.323 in which the wife of the Persian prince Hormisdas helped him escape by giving him a large cooked fish with a file hidden in its belly. While the guards were drunk with wine supplied by the wife, Hormisdas filed the shackles off his legs and made his getaway disguised as a eunuch.

* A very early example of this is found in Zosimus' *Historia Nova* (5th century), which in [[https://www.livius.org/sources/content/zosimus/zosimus-new-history-2/zosimus-new-history-2.27/:one chapter]] tells of an incident in c.323 in which the wife of the Persian prince Hormisdas helped him escape by giving him a large cooked fish with a file hidden in its belly. While the guards were drunk with wine supplied by the wife, Hormisdas filed the shackles off his legs and made his getaway disguised as a eunuch.

* Spoofed in ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' when a very nervous Quark shows up with a ''hasperat'' soufflé to give to some prisoners; the guard digs around it as Quark squirms leading everyone to expect the discovery of a technobabble-esque file, [[KansasCityShuffle but it's a distraction while Ziyal]] [[InstantSedation uses the off-button hypospray on him]], causing him to pass out face-first in the soufflé.

* The Iranian documentary ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_Not_a_Film This Is Not A Film]]'' was smuggled ''out of'' the country via a flash drive hidden inside a cake.

* ''Series/LawAndOrderSVU'': ChekhovsGunman [[MeaningfulName Bronwyn Freed]] uses this method to assist [[spoiler:William Lewis to escape from jail, and then does the same for Dr. Yates and Dr. Rudnick (more specifically, she was helping Rudnick escape and Yates invited himself along for the ride)]]. Despite being BoundAndGagged and left in a car trunk, she [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys defends Rudnick]].

* ''Series/LawAndOrderSVU'': ChekhovsGunman [[MeaningfulName Bronwyn Freed]] uses this method to assist [[spoiler:William Lewis to escape from jail, and then does the same for Dr. Yates and Dr. Rudnick (more specifically, she was helping Rudnick escape and Yates invited himself along for the ride)]]. Despite being BoundAndGagged and left in a car trunk, she [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys defends them]].

* ''Series/LawAndOrderSVU'': ChekhovsGunman [[MeaningfulName Bronwyn Freed]] uses this method to assist [[spoiler: William Lewis and Dr. Yates and Dr. Rudnick to escape from jail]]. Despite being BoundAndGagged and left in a car trunk, she [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys defends them]].

Not to be confused with {{Jailbait}}, which may facilitate the need for a Jail Bake if you're not careful.