About

Straight To Jail or You Go To Jail is a memorable quote uttered by the character Raul (played by actor Fred Armisen) on the American situational comedy Parks and Recreation. People online use screenshots and GIFs of Raul saying the line in reaction and audio clips of the dialogue in TikToks.

Origin

On October 15th, 2009, the episode of Parks and Recreation entitled "Sister City" aired in the United States. In the episode, a delegate from Pawnee's sister city visits.^[1] After watching a dysfunctional town hall meeting, the delegate, Raul (portrayed by Fred Armisen), tells the camera:

This is outrageous. Where are the armed men who come in to take the protestors away? Where are they? This kind of behavior is never tolerated in Baraqua. You shout like that they put you in jail. Right away. No trial, no nothing. Journalists, we have a special jail for journalists. You are stealing: right to jail. You are playing music too loud: right to jail, right away. Driving too fast: jail. Slow: jail. You are charging too high prices for sweaters, glasses: you right to jail. You undercook fish? Believe it or not, jail. You overcook chicken, also jail. Undercook, overcook. You make an appointment with the dentist and you don't show up, believe it or not, jail, right away. We have the best patients in the world because of jail.

On April 22nd, 2011, YouTuber wilsontieu shared a clip of the scene. The post received more than 16,000 views in less than 10 years (shown below).

Spread

Over the next decade, the clip inspired several memes, including some reaction images and image macros. On September 15th, 2016, Redditor Lives4Glitter shared a three-panel image of the scene in the /r/PandR^[2] subreddit. The post received more than 5,300 points (92% upvoted) and 245 comments in less than five years (shown below, left).

In 2020, this format saw increased usage on Reddit, with people replacing the specifics of the dialogue for various situation and themes (examples below, center and right).

TikToks

On March 31st, 2020, TikToker stretch_pad shared the clip with the caption "What quarantine will be like." The post received more than 700,000 views, 119,000 reactions and 780 comments in less than one year (shown below, left).

Months later, on September 12, TikToker @@the.weasel.business shared a video of a weasel with the audio clip as the soundtrack. The post received more than 2.9 million views, 587,000 reactions and 2,200 comments in less than two months (shown below, center).

Following the post, others began sharing videos with pets set to the sound from Parks and Recreation.

Various Examples

Search Interset

External References