Going Somewhere? Besides Jail?

A white suit and a relaxed flight

The frame shows a man with neatly combed dark hair flying horizontally, as if lying on an air cushion. One hand props up his head, the other is stretched along his body, and his smile is contented. He wears a form-fitting white suit with gold trim and a big letter “M” on the chest, with light boots and gloves. Behind him are blurred houses with windows and a dark sky.

This is computer animation, not a photograph. The pose matters: he is not flying tensely, as in a battle scene, but in a deliberately lounging way, and the whole joke rests on that self-satisfaction.

The film and the hero in the frame

Megamind is an animated film from DreamWorks, directed by Tom McGrath, released in November 2010. The superhero, Metro Man (Machoman in the Russian dub), is voiced in the original by Brad Pitt. Titan (Tighten in the original) is Hal Stewart, voiced by Jonah Hill: he gains his powers by a ridiculous accident and becomes a villain.

The line itself, in the original, is “Going somewhere? Besides jail?”. Quote catalogs place it at around 1 hour 19 minutes into the film, in the final part, when the villain is being stopped. Which character says the line in this specific scene is not clearly established, so what follows deals with the content of the joke itself rather than the exact moment of dialogue.

Why the phrase became a reaction

The line is built as a friendly question with a catch. The first part, “Going somewhere?”, sounds almost caring. The second, “Besides jail?”, abruptly changes the tone: the listener is reminded that escape is pointless and that the only place they are heading, in the speaker’s view, is punishment.

The format fits when someone is trying to dodge an unpleasant task. The smile and pose of the hero add to the effect: he does not chase or shout, he just cheerfully announces the outcome. A polite form plus a harsh meaning is a classic meme pairing.

Caption examples

“A coworker I spot in the hallway five minutes before the meeting: ‘Going somewhere? Besides jail?’” Here jail becomes a metaphor for the unavoidable meeting, and the hero’s cheerful tone turns him into a boss.

“Me to a friend who is heading home before we agree on who pays for the pizza.” An everyday situation in which jail is deliberately too severe a punishment for the occasion. The contrast is where the laugh comes from.

“My cat when I pick up the carrier.” The caption speaks from the owner’s point of view, but the image is a confident interceptor who already knows where the escapee is going.

“The deadline, to me, after I open a video tab.” The object becomes the hero of the frame and delivers a line everyone recognizes.

How to use it

It suits stories about trying to escape, postpone, or pretend that nothing is happening. The caption works best written from the point of view of the one doing the intercepting, since his self-assured smile is what the frame shows.

Use jail as a playful exaggeration, and keep the reason small. If the situation is real and serious, the line loses its lightness and stops being a joke.