Cellbound
Cellbound is a 1955 cartoon short featuring Spike and directed by Tex Avery and Michael Lah. The story was by Heck Allen, and Paul Frees voiced all the characters.
Background
This cartoon and Deputy Droopy were the last two directed by Tex Avery for MGM, before he left to return to Walter Lantz's studio, where his career in animation began.[1] It was the last 1950s MGM cartoon that was not filmed in CinemaScope.[2]
Plot
Spike plays a prisoner doing 500 years at Sing Song Prison. However, he has come up with an escape plan and starts digging a tunnel under his cell floor using a teaspoon. 20 years (and 6,500,004,395,632 teaspoons) later, Spike finally digs up through the outside of the prison wall. He returns to his cell to get his disguises but stops all escape activity when the warden comes walking by. When Spike mentions to the warden that it is his 20th anniversary in prison, the warden suddenly remembers it's his wedding anniversary and runs out to get his wife a gift. This prompts Spike to grab his disguises, run through and out of the tunnel, into a train boxcar and into a television set. Seconds later, the TV is hauled onto a truck and taken to Sing Sing Prison. As Spike talks about the many places he plans on visiting, he suddenly sees the warden on the phone and goes into a panic. Turns out that the TV is the anniversary gift for the warden's wife.
After the warden finishes his phone call, he goes over to the TV and checks it out. Spike realizes that he must play out everything that the warden wants to watch; first is a Western movie, followed by a boxing match. The warden wants to watch horse racing next, but Spike pours water from a can across the screen and posts a sign: RACES CALLED OFF: RAIN. So the warden decides on a musical program instead (with Spike playing a "one-man band"). The warden turns the TV off and is satisfied that his wife will enjoy it. An exhausted Spike, not wanting to go through any more, breaks through the bottom of the set and starts digging through the ground just as the warden picks the TV up and heads home. Shortly thereafter, Spike reaches the end of his path, only to end up back in the same TV set, now in the warden's living room. The warden proceeds to show his wife how well it works, but when he "turns it on", Spike pops up and goes into a mental breakdown.