Prison reform has become a major issue, in large part because policymakers have refused to look for solutions to societal ills where they can most often be found: lowbrow '80s comedies. The 1989 Robert Carradine vehicle Buy & Cell demonstrated how computers manned by business-savvy convicts can turn prisons into gold mines, while 1985's Doin' Time illustrates how a healthy dose of Jeff Altman-led tomfoolery can turn around even the wackiest prison. The onetime star of Pink Lady And Jeff plays a madcap door-to-door salesman tossed in the slammer after an ill-fated tryst with the wrong governor's wife. After a sham trial, the human traveling-salesman joke hops a bus to the big house, where he meets fellow newbie Jimmie Walker. But the situation proves far from dyn-o-mite at John Dillinger Prison, where, even before the zany pair arrives, veteran character actor John Vernon and a portly mohawk enthusiast prone to yelling popular catchphrases instigate a riot/pie fight. Vernon rules over Dillinger and its popular casino-themed parties--attended by a motley mixture of cons, busty party girls, and the odd horn-heavy rock group--until the arrival of militaristic new warden Richard Mulligan. Though he gets off to a bad start after giving a comically misinterpreted order to a convict with the unfortunate surname of Cox, Mulligan eventually recovers and puts an end to the convicts' free-spirited monkeyshines. The cons retaliate by recruiting busty Judy Landers to lure Mulligan into a compromising position, but the discovery of their hidden video camera thwarts those plans at the last moment. The cons later succeed, however, broadcasting worldwide his tryst with a hot-to-trot prison secretary. Mulligan's antics eventually lead to his dismissal, Altman's release, and the reinstatement of the old warden, proving that no social problem is so monolithic it can't be solved by group of wacky misfits and a heaping helping of '80s-style zaniness.
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