Main Cast: Jim Varney, Jim Varney, Gailard Sartain, Bill Byrge, Barbara Bush, Barry Scott
Release Year: 1990
Country: US
Run Time: 81 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
In Ernest Goes to Jail, Jim Varney returns as leering idiot savant Ernest P. Worrall, star of scores of TV commercials and feature films. Varney also takes on a second role in the film: an unrepentant, cold-blooded murderer named Felix Nash. When Ernest serves on the jury for Nash's murder trial, Nash arranges for look-alike Ernest to go to jail, while he stays on the outside to plan a major bank heist. Fortuitously for the criminal, it's the same bank where Ernest works as a security guard. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Randall "Tex" Cobb - Lyle; Dan Leegant - Oscar Pendlesmythe; Charles Napier - Warden; Jim Conrad - Eddie; Jackie Welch - Judge; Bob Babbitt - Washing Con; Mac Bennett - Con; Buck Ford - Defense Attorney; Mike Hutchinson - Gate Guard; Charles Lamb - Con; Myke R. Mueller - Vinnie; Rick Shulman - Mean Guard; Andrew Stahl - Jerry; Melanie Wheeler - Prosecutor; Bruce Arntson - Juror; Daniel Butler - Waiter; Michael Montgomery - Warden's Assistant; John Davis - Other Guard
Credit
Mark Ragland - Art Director, Allen Gonzales - Animator, Phil Walden - Associate Producer, Coke Sams - Co-producer, Shawn Barry - Costume Designer, John Cherry - Director, Farrel Jane Levy - Editor, Sharyn Ross - Editor, Bruce Arntson - Composer (Music Score), Kirby Shelstad - Composer (Music Score), June Rudley Brickman - Makeup, Chris August - Production Designer, Peter Stein - Cinematographer, Martin Erlichman - Producer, Stacy Williams - Producer, Connie Gray - Set Designer, Tim McHugh - Special Effects, William H. Schirmer - Special Effects, Chuck Waters - Stunts, Charlie Cohen - Screenwriter
Ernest Goes to Jail is a 1990 Touchstone Pictures film directed by John R. Cherry III and starring Jim Varney. It is the fourth film to feature the character Ernest P. Worrell. The film received a PG rating from the MPAA. It was shot in Nashville, Tennessee and near Tennessee State Penitentiary. This is the second most successful of the Ernest films, behind Ernest Saves Christmas. It was in third place during its opening weekend, earning $6,143,372.[1] Total gross was $25,029,569.[2]
Ernest (Jim Varney) is spotted in a jury by a man on trial who notices that he is the spitting-image of death-row inmate Felix Nash, who is the prison "boss". He convinces the jury to tour the prison, where Ernest is kidnapped and forced to swap roles with Nash. He has various misadventures in prison (especially when trying to escape) until he is sent to the electric chair by the prison warden (Charles Napier). The electrocution fails, and he is transformed into a type of superhuman, with the ability to shoot lightning bolts from his hands, which shock various other jail members. Ernest escapes from the prison and makes his way home, only to discover that his Pee-Wee Herman-like décor has been replaced by a slick lounge lizard style of decorating. He exclaims, "I've been vandalized - by Elvis!" Ernest then goes to the bank, in his old clothes, where he works as a janitor, only to find that Nash has assumed his identity and is in the process of robbing the bank. He uses his super powers to fly through the skylight of the bank with a bomb that Nash had attached to the vault and two bank employees, which leads to a spectacular mid-air explosion. Everyone assumes that Ernest has been killed, until he falls through the skylight and lands on Nash. Ernest declares, "I came, I saw, I got blowed up."
