Prison Episodes in Western Animation.
- The 101 Dalmatians: The Series episode "Cadpig Behind Bars", where Cadpig is sent to the pound, which is run like a prison.
- In the Aaahh!!! Real Monsters episode "The Great Escape", Ickis gets put in jail because he was mistaken for an escaped fugitive by the name of Shorty McGinty, due to the fact that Shorty is a master of disguise. Ickis tries several attempts to escape, but most of them fail. When he finally succeeds and returns to the dump, Shorty is soon recaptured.
- The Addams Family (1992) used this plot in the episode "Itt's Over", where Uncle Fester appeared to have killed Cousin Itt after handing him a hair remover formula intended to remove Fester's hair and Fester went to prison because Norman Normanmeyer reported the alleged murder to the police. In the end, Uncle Fester's name is cleared when Cousin Itt returns to prove he's not dead and Normanmeyer ends up behind bars for falsely accusing Uncle Fester of committing murder.
- Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog has "Sonic Breakout", which is about in-universe cartoonist Sketch Lampoon going to prison for making fun of Dr. Robotnik... and Sonic deliberately letting Robotnik's minions catch him so as to get behind bars to escape from prison and take Sketch with him.
- American Dad! has episodes like these. Noticeable when Stan was sent to prison where he enjoys staying and doesn't want to leave.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender has two prison episodes (technically three, since the second one is a two-parter):
- Season 1 has "Imprisoned", where Katara deliberately gets herself imprisoned by the Fire Nation in an attempt to free a friend from said prison.
- Season 3 has "The Boiling Rock", where Zuko and Sokka infiltrate a Fire Nation prison in the hopes of locating Sokka's father, who had been captured in the war a few weeks earlier.
- In the episode "Birdbrain of Alcatraz", Beetlejuice is convicted of a crime (which, unusually for the character, he actually didn't commit) and is sent to prison. He has to survive a lot of weird, overly strict rules and share a cell with a literal stool pigeon while his friend Lydia works to prove his innocence.
- In the Bojack Horseman episode "Our A-Story is a "D" Story", the subplot has Todd go to prison due to a botched scam involving a celebrity from the previous episode. Two rival gangs, the Aryan Nation and Latin Kings, both try to recruit Todd. When he tries (and fails) to court both of them, Todd winds up accidentally igniting a deadly prison gang war.
- This is the premise of The Boondocks episode "A Date with the Booty Warrior", in which Tom and Ruckus take Huey, Riley, Butch, and four other schoolboys (who had all been suspended for fighting) on a precautionary field trip to the local prison, which is infested with depraved rapists who commit sodomy just to satisfy their boredom. Things soon go very wrong when the inmates start a riot, and they take the protagonists as hostages.
- Camp Lakebottom: In "Camp Lockbottom", Rosebud turns Camp Lakebottom into a prison after her favourite ladle goes missing. Prison tropes immediately set in with McGee planning a Great Escape and Armand getting prison tattoos cut into his fur.
- Captain Planet and the Planeteers: The episode "Jail House Flock", combined with being a Courtroom Episode, has Captain Planet in jail when Hoggish Greedly has him arrested for damaging his equipment and trespassing on his property by lying about intending to replace the wetlands his construction project will destroy. The Planeteers manage to get away and do what they can to clear Captain Planet's name.
- CatDog:
- In "Escape from the Deep End", Rancid Rabbit plays the role of a tyrannical lifeguard at the city pool, making and enforcing an extremely strict set of rules and imprisoning his patrons for even the smallest one broken. He didn't really care about making and enforcing rules that were fair to everyone and only wanted to use his authority to have fun ordering around and torturing people. When CatDog (mostly Dog) tries cannonballing into his pool, it seems as though they're in for an indefinite sentence like all the other patrons (consisting of Eddie the Squirrel, Dunglap, Mr. Sunshine and two other incidental characters). Cat takes Rancid's side as far as his rules went, at first, while Dog and the other patrons declare they're only for fools. It is after the brothers do time in the "Hot Box", Cat eventually realizes that Dog and the other prisoners were right and comes up with a plan to escape from the pool, through its drain. However, the brothers' escape leads them into a school and it's not long before they meet another Rancid there and get detention for talking back.
- "Let the Games Begin!" has CatDog and the Greasers being sent to the pound (the latter group for an unknown reason and the former due to Dog mistaking the Dog Catcher's leg for a fire hydrant). Rancid needed a team to compete against a rival dog pound in Farburg run by his Russian-accented cousin, Rotten Rabbit, and as long as CatDog and the Greasers work together and win the competition, they will be set free.
- In "CatDog Catcher", Rancid Rabbit is at it again, playing the role of the town's mayor and needing enough gold coins to bathe in. This time, he fleeces the masses by arresting them for not having "licenses"; those arrested have to pay a fee to take tests in order to obtain them, and those fees contribute to his bath. Cat, however, is prepared and narrowly avoids being arrested, but Dog does not, as does the rest of the townspeople, who all have revenge on their minds for Rancid's scheme. It's not long after the Greasers, Mervis, Dunglap, Mr. Sunshine and Dog carry out their prison break, Rancid himself is sent to his own prison.
- The ChalkZone episode "The Label Police" had Snap being sent to Label Prison for removing a tag from his pillow. He spends the episode attempting to break out with the other prisoners, who include the polar bear for putting a "dry clean only" shirt into a washing machine and a 7-year-old girl for solving a jigsaw puzzle that is only for people 8 or older.
- The Cow and Chicken episode "Field Trip to Folsom Prison" had Chicken mistakenly switch places with an inmate named Rhode Island Red while his class was on a field trip to a prison. Cow doesn't notice the switch until she realizes that Rhode Island Red enjoys playing the games she asks her brother to play with her.
- The Danny Phantom episode "Prisoners of Love" has Danny get arrested by Walker and locked up in the Ghost Zone Prison while trying to retrieve an apology present his father Jack got for his mother Maddie, which he had mistakenly sent through the Ghost Zone portal while using his powers to clean up the lab.
- Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids: The 1984 episode "Busted," although the prison serves as a backdrop to the episode's Scare 'Em Straight purpose. In essence: The gang is given a terrifying tour of a prison after they are caught in a car a friend — who had run afoul of the law many times before — had stolen. Needless to say, the tour makes the right impression on the kids.
- Garfield and Friends
- The US Acres/Orson's Farm segment "Wanted: Wade", where Wade Duck rips the tag off Orson Pig's sofa. About 2 minutes of the episode is a fantasy sequence where Wade dreams about what would happen if the police caught him for what he did.
- "Well-Fed Feline" had Jon being sent to jail after Harriet Underburger, a pet protection activist, accuses him of animal cruelty, which ranges from refusing to feed his pets until Arbor Day to trying to mail Nermal to Abu Dhabi (Garfield did the latter, as usual, and that, along with eating Jon's lasagna cake, warranted his punishment of not being fed until Arbor Day). Harriet expected to see Jon's pets well-fed when she returned, but Jon's effort to avoid a stint in the slammer is in vain because he forgot to feed Nermal. Garfield, Nermal and Odie are soon able to get Jon's case dismissed and free him from jail (after all, Jon has to be the one to do the shopping). After the fact, Garfield locks Nermal in the cell.
- Another US Acres/Orson's Farm segment, "The Legal Eagle", had Roy jailing everyone because he took his job as deputy too seriously, only to find out that the rules in the book he used were outdated.
- "Speed Trap" has Jon getting ticketed for speeding by what he thinks was a police officer, but it turns out he was ticketed, and later falsely imprisoned, by P. Dempsey Weevil, a wanted Con Man who impersonates police officers to extort peoples' money, and if they don't pay him, he will also impersonate the judge, the bailiff and the defense attorney in a Kangaroo Court, and then he imprisons his marks until they agree to pay up, especially since the "sign" displaying the posted speed limit of 8 MPH is so tiny, that one has to use a magnifying glass to read it. When Garfield and Odie show Jon's ticket to real police officers, it gives them the break they need to finally arrest and convict Weevil and exonerate and reimburse his victims, including Jon.
- In the season two premiere of Gargoyles, "Leader of the Pack", Coyote, at the behest of Xanatos, breaks out the rest of the Pack.
- In the Green Eggs and Ham (2019) episode, "Mouse", Sam-I-Am gets arrested and thrown in jail. Guy-Am-I ends up believing that Sam has a plan to get him out that requires Guy to be in prison as well, so Guy turns himself in and also gets arrested, only to find out that Sam didn't actually have a plan, but is still glad to have Guy with him. They end up having to follow a mouse who has been working on an escape plan for many years.
- Heckle and Jeckle end up in prison after they try to sell escape tools to the prisoners in "Super Salesmen." They escape in "Out Again, In Again" and hide out on a train, only to wind back in prison again at the end.
- In the Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi episode "Cell Block Rock", Ami and Yumi try on disguises to avoid running into rabid fans, but accidentally glue the fake facial hair they use for their disguises to their faces. As a result, Kaz mistakes them for trespassers and has them thrown into jail, where Yumi pleads to be set free while Ami initially gets accustomed to prison life.
- The Huckleberry Hound Show: Huck is a prison warden in the cartoon "Bars and Stripes." His prison establishes the "honor system"; none of the prisoners want to escape because it features amusement rides, a baseball field, a movie theater, etc. But when one prisoner is set to be paroled and released, Huck has to go through white heat to get him out.
- In an episode of the second season of Jackie Chan Adventures, "Rumble in the Big House", both the Dark Hand and Jackie get themselves sent to prison. The former to release Xiao Fung, the Wind Demon, and the latter to try stop them.
- Jimmy Two-Shoes has "Jimmy in the Big House", where Jimmy and Beezy try to bust Cerbee out of an animals-only prison by disguising themselves as pandas. Unfortunately, Cerbee had already escaped by himself, so the duo now have to get themselves out.
- Done twice in Johnny Bravo:
- In "Jailbird Johnny", a mistake in the judicial system has Johnny sent to a women's prison for 86 life sentences for littering, and seeing as how it was filled with women, he didn't want to leave. Bunny and Little Suzy, meanwhile, manage to prove he is innocent by reviewing what was going on via an ATM Camera.
- "Chain Gang Johnny" serves as a Shout-Out to Cool Hand Luke. Johnny and Carl are booted out of a movie theater because of the former being a total nuisance, causing the two to get into an argument, which attracts the attention of two incompetent police officers who were looking for two criminals. Johnny and Carl are mistaken for those criminals and sent to prison, but escape while posing as a married couple, only to get locked up again by the same two incompetent cops.
- Johnny Test has "Cool Hand Johnny", where the evil toymaker Wacko creates a video game called No Escape, which sends robot guards to capture all the kids in Porkbelly, including Johnny and Dukey.
- The Littlest Pet Shop (2012) episode "Gailbreak!" is about retrieving a dog held in the Largest Ever Pet Shop's pet storage area, which is portrayed much like a prison.
- Looney Tunes:
- "Bars And Stripes Forever" (1939) is set in a prison where a prisoner plans an escape past a rather daffy warden. Features a little Butt-Monkey of an inmate.
- "Big House Bunny" (1950) has Bugs Bunny digging into a prison and being mistaken for a prisoner. He gives Yosemite Sam (here as prison guard Sam Schultz) the usual onceover.
- The Looney Tunes Show episode "Jailbird and Jailbunny" had Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck end up in prison.
- "Cellbound", a 1955 Tex Avery-Michael Lah cartoon at M-G-M starred a squat version of Tex Avery's Spike character as a prison inmate. He escapes after spending 20 years digging himself out of his cell and hides out in the console of a TV set on a train, entertaining ideas of his new found life of freedom, until the TV set he's in is loaded onto a truck and delivered to the prison warden's office.
- The majority of the Mumfie's Quest arc of Magic Adventures of Mumfie is this, which is rather shocking for a show meant for preschoolers.
- The Mickey Mouse Works short "Big House Mickey" has Mickey ending up in jail because Mortimer framed him for breaking into his house and stealing his property. Mickey then has to try and get Goofy's help to bust out of prison before Mortimer takes his place at his dinner date with Minnie.
- Ninjago has four examples of this.
- "Enkrypted"
- "Ninjago City vs. Ninja"
- "Kryptarium Prison Blues"
- "Hounddog McBrag"
- The Patrick Star Show: In "Patrick's Prison Pals", Patrick goes to Bring Your Kid To Work Day with his mom, who admits new prisoners to their cells. A prisoner switches places with Patrick, and the episode's subplot revolves around Patrick in jail, slowly winning over all the criminals with his antics.
- Rugrats (1991) has "The Big House" wherein Tommy is inside a daycare center that looks and feels like a prison.
- In "Opening Night" of The Spectacular Spider-Man, Spidey volunteers to test the security system of The Vault, a prison designed to house super villains. Unfortunately the prison's computers are hacked by the Green Goblin, locking all the guards up as the prisoners are let out of their cells.
- SpongeBob SquarePants has actually had a few prison episodes:
- In "Doing Time", Mrs. Puff gets arrested after yet another one of SpongeBob's failed driving tests, and SpongeBob and Patrick try to break her out after they agree it was SpongeBob's fault.
- In "The Inmates of Summer", SpongeBob and Patrick accidentally board a prison ship instead of the summer camp boat they meant to get on.
- In "Jailbreak!", Plankton, who is imprisoned after yet another failed attempt at stealing the Krabby Patty Formula, concocts a plan with a few other inmates to break out.
- In "The Getaway", SpongeBob crashes his boat into the Bikini Bottom Jail after yet another failed driving test. There, he mistakes an escaped convict for his new driving instructor. SpongeBob's crazy driving results in the convict begging to be taken back to jail. Mrs. Puff also tries to get in jail, knowing she'll be subjected to teaching SpongeBob again otherwise.
- "The Krusty Slammer" centers on Mr. Krabs turning the Krusty Krab into a prison when the regular prison is full. Plankton later does the same with the Chum Bucket when Mr. Krabs releases all the inmates after being driven crazy by them.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In "Deception", Obi-Wan fakes his death and goes undercover as his supposed killer to infiltrate a plot against the Supreme Chancellor. The first step? Getting arrested and taken to prison to get close to the mastermind of the plot.
- The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! episode "Escape from Koopatraz", where Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and Toad get sent to the titular prison, a blatantly obvious parody of... well, you know. While there, Toad reunites with his grandfather, and the four heroes escape the prison with him.
- In the Tiny Toon Adventures episode, "Gang Busters", Montana Max and his gang steal a slushie machine and Buster gets framed for slushie theft. When Buster is put on trial, Plucky acts as his lawyer, but is so obnoxious, that he ends up getting them both arrested and thrown in juvenile hall. Buster and Plucky later dig their way out of juvenile hall, and meet up with Rocky and Mugsy. After Buster leads them to the Warden, the Warden thanks Buster by giving him a chance to find and arrest the real criminals who framed him.
- Wacky Races: In "Fast Track to Hackensack", Dick Dastardly sets a trap for the other racers in Hackensack, New Jersey by vandalizing a speed limit sign from 35 miles per hour to 85. This results in the Anthill Mob being arrested by the Sheriff and thrown in his jail. After Ring-A-Ding tries many unsuccessful attempts to bust him and the rest of the Anthill Mob out, Clyde explains to the Sheriff that they're competitors in the Wacky Race. As the Wacky Race is the Sheriff's favorite sport, this convinces him to give them an escort to the finish line, where they win first place. Dastardly is about to win, but the Sheriff arrests him for shooting at him and resisting arrest.
- The Wacky Races (2017) episode "Smokey and the Racers" had all the racers end up in prison when Dick Dastardly attempted to cheat by having his cousin Sheriff Longarm D. Law arrest the other racers for speeding. Unfortunately for Dastardly, his cousin arrests him as well, forcing him to work with Peter Perfect, Penelope Pitstop, I.Q. Ickley, and the Gruesome Twosome in finding a way to bust out of jail.
- In "Terrors" of Young Justice (2010), Superboy and Miss Martian go undercover into Belle Reve to ascertain and foil a break out attempt.
