Ernest Goes to Jail is a 1990 American comedy film directed by John Cherry and written by Charlie Cohen.

It stars Jim Varney, Gailard Sartain, Barbara Bush, Charles Napier, Randall "Tex" Cobb, Bill Byrge, Barry Scott and Dan Leegant.

Ernest P. Worrell is employed as a night janitor at the Howard Country Bank & Trust where his friends and neighbors, Chuck and Bobby, work as security guards.

His body becomes magnetized and while trying to escape the various objects attracted to him, he goes into the vault but a pair of safety deposit boxes knock him out just as the effect wears off.

In league with Bartlett and Nash, the defense makes a successful motion for the jury to see the scene of the crime so the switch can be made.

Upon realizing his predicament, Ernest makes a series of unsuccessful attempts to escape the prison while also trying to keep up the ruse that he is Nash out of fear of reprisal.

At the same time, Nash is planning to rob the bank but gets distracted trying to keep a suspicious Bobby and his smooth, un-Ernest like demeanor from exposing him.

With seconds left on the explosive timer, Ernest heroically grabs it and flies up and out of the bank to a safe distance, but it explodes in the night sky.

This is where the sets were built for, Howard County Bank & Trust, two three-story jail cell tiers, an electrocution room, and Ernest's house.

[6] Caryn James of The New York Times commented that "Ernest Goes to Jail so resembles a high-spirited cartoon that it is likely to be more amusing to children and less painfully obnoxious for parents than its predecessors."

He elaborated that "Undeniably, Varney is an adroit physical comedian with a flair for making faces, contorting his lean body and evoking a sensation of the heebie-jeebies at appropriate moments.