General examples: A - B | C - D | E - G | H - L | M - R | S - Z
Examples in specific videos: A - F | G - Z
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H
- Hair-Trigger Temper:
- Parent characters absolutely explode with volcanic rage when they find out their children have misbehaved, often with a demonic, deepened voice. The screen sometimes shakes and/or turns red during their outbursts.
- Not that their kids are any better. Many videos have kids either talking in the "Kidaroo" voice, the screen turning red, inexplicably growing enormous, or going on a rampage (though usually all four at once) when they don't get their way. This is especially common in "(Character) Misbehaves at (Restaurant/Store)" videos when the kids flip out when their order can't be filled exactly how they want it or their parents say no to what they want.
- Heel–Face Turn: Some deconstruction videos involving the Caillou Gets Grounded videos have Doris finally having enough and siding with Caillou when either Boris finally goes off the deep end or Caillou finally calls his parents out on their actions. Very rarely, this happens to Boris as well, but most of the time he's far beyond saving.
- Held Back in School: Generally, this trope is supposed to be about being forced to repeat a grade. But in "X Gets Held Back" videos, a character (sometimes multiple) starts out in the 12th grade and proceed to knock themselves down all the way back to preschool by getting in trouble via injuring a classmate or teacher, being disruptive, making messes, merely making someone mad, etc. before being expelled and sent home (with predictable results). Here's one example
. - Hero Antagonist: The parent characters, as well as everyone else who isn't the current troublemaker. (How heroic they actually are, however,
is up for debate.) - High-Pressure Blood/Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: Some videos have blood go flying everywhere when characters even get slightly injured.
- Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Every character has or had childhoods with very severe punishments that would be abusive in real life but is played as a joke here.
- Hollywood Healing: Usually averted, sometimes to the point of exaggeration. Occasionally, characters will be told that they won't be completely healed up for anywhere between one year to the rest of their lifetime from just breaking their leg.
- Hostile Weather: Really Hostile Weather. Tornadoes are usually the order of the day, and they are, of course, almost always rank EF5 in the Enhanced Fujita scale.
- Hulking Out: A recurring element in Grounded videos is characters having foul-mouthed and excessively violent "Red/Teeth" counterparts that they turn into when sufficiently enraged. Caillou's Dad aka. Boris is one of the most notable characters to have one of these.
- Humiliation Conga: Some "Grounded" videos go beyond just the troublemaking kids/teens getting grounded and have all manner of punishments given to them. Videos centered around these are usually referred to as "Punishment Day" videos by the users.
I
- I Ate WHAT?!: Invoked by the troublemakers in the "X Makes a Lemonade Stand" videos, where they sell samples of their urine while advertising them as lemonade, resulting in an unfortunate customer getting disgusted or sick. The "X Sells Chocolate" videos are essentially the same thing, just with the troublemakers selling their excrement disguised as chocolate instead.
- Idiot Ball: At times, the troublemaker(s) may act like a Devil in Plain Sight in front of their parents or teachers, but the parents ignore them until the troublemaker(s) carry out whatever their planned dirty deed was.
- I Have No Son!: Many videos featuring Caillou and his family tend to have his parents favor Rosie heavily, to the point where Boris will be distraught over the idea of Rosie turning against him.
- I'm a Humanitarian:
- There's a series of grounded videos involving the troublemaker of the day standing out on the street and "eating" people who walk up to them.
- Likewise, troublemakers may be eaten by another person (usually their parents) as punishment.
- There's a series of grounded videos involving the troublemaker of the day standing out on the street and "
- Implausible Deniability: Many "(Character) Gets (X amount of) Jobs" involve the main character getting jobs at various workplaces seemingly solely only to tell potential or present patrons that the store/restaurant is out of the thing the patron is specifically asking for despite blatant proof that the item is available. Typically, the main character will either make up excuses for why the item is still there (such as the menus at a restaurant being outdated, the items at a grocery store being fake display items, or even resorting to flat-out Insane Troll Logic) or simply run the customer out of the store when proven wrong.
- I'm Your Biggest Fan:
- This is one of the common reasons why a troublemaker gets punished — they'll be badmouthing or attacking something or someone when the grounder arrives, who gets angered because they're either a fan of that person's work or they're their best friend.
- Inverted in some videos, wherein characters get grounded for hanging out with a character/celebrity they hates, or for watching a TV show/movie or playing a video game the grounder hates.
- Incendiary Exponent: How a Great Wolf Lodge gets burned down in most "(Character) Misbehaves at Great Wolf Lodge" videos; by way of the character inexplicably setting a skee-ball machine on fire just by punching it a single time.
- Inherently Funny Words: Almost certainly why "nappy/nappies", the common British term for diapers, sees universal use among grounded video makers, even American ones.
- Instant Emergency Response: In some videos such as this one where someone dials for emergency services, expect them to take at most 5 seconds to arrive. Apparently the emergency response time is just that good in the GoAnimate world.
- It Amused Me: One of the most typical answers given by the troublemaker when asked why they did such-and-such naughty thing.
J
- Jerkass: Almost everyone in the Grounded videos is this is some way, some moreso than others.
- On one end, you have the troublemakers, all of whom are intended to be this way. Most of the time, the trouble-makers who truly fall under this trope cause mass mayhem simply for the amusement factor or for very petty reasons. Most of them come with a Hair-Trigger Temper which often results in them going on a rampage, often while swearing like a sailor. However, a good number of them are arguably Jerkass Woobies who act out because of abuse from their peers.
- ...Which leads into the next point: Practically everyone who isn't the troublemaker. They (especially the parent characters) go to absurd lengths to teach troublemakers a lesson, to the point that they can become Designated Heroes. Even then, sometimes they don't even have to be punishing the kids in order to become this, as some videos will have the "good guys" being terrible to the troublemakers without any provocation from the troublemakers' end. Other times, they have parties or go on trips to Chuck E. Cheese's, Six Flags, or Disney World and exclude the troublemakers. In this case, though, it's usually because of previous wrong-doings, but there are numerous times where it's just out of spite. They also refuse to forgive the troublemakers even if the troublemaker of the day seems to be genuinely remorseful over what they did and if it was just a petty slight like hitting someone at school.
- The users themselves can become this if someone ticks them off sufficiently, if word gets around that someone's opinion is being disrespected, or if someone does something that they don't approve of (like making a fake VHS opening, as Warren Cook learned the hard way).
- On one end, you have the troublemakers, all of whom are intended to be this way. Most of the time, the trouble-makers who truly fall under this trope cause mass mayhem simply for the amusement factor or for very petty reasons. Most of them come with a Hair-Trigger Temper which often results in them going on a rampage, often while swearing like a sailor. However, a good number of them are arguably
- Jerkass Ball: Some videos show the trouble-maker of the day being for all intents and purposes a well-behaved kid, only to suddenly turn malicious and cause the misdemeanor that will get them grounded for seemingly no reason.
- Joker Jury: In most "(troublemaker) Gets Executed/Gets Sent to Jail" videos, the jury is made up of the parents, teachers, colleagues and friends of the troublemaker, most of whom are simply there to add salt to the troublemaker's wound, rather than using real evidence.
K
- Kafka Komedy: This trope is present in a lot of videos. Characters can act like angels throughout the whole video, do something heroic, and/or even not be the one who caused trouble in the first place, and still wind up grounded at the end because reasons.
- Kangaroo Court:
- Justice in the world of the grounded videos is usually rendered by very partial judges and a Joker Jury who shrug off the defendant's side of the story (consisting in most cases of the troublemaker's family, teachers and friends, who are biased against them anyway) and give them cruel and unusual punishments, even for small fine-earning offenses such as littering. Often though, GoAnimate justice never gets to the courtroom as the patrolman (usually rendered as ill-tempered with fire coming out of his head) will render a life prison sentence for the accused right on the scene. Trillion-dollar fines the size of the national debt of several G8 nations combined are also assessed to parents, and they will be executed if payment is not immediately given.
- It can also apply that in the world of grounded videos, the justice system doesn't even bother with doing anything with offenders. While most of the illegal activities troublemakers get into would assure them juvenile detention (this isn't even considering any murders in the videos), cops will just give the child back to the parents and merely demand they give the child a long grounding period and allow any corporal punishment without law enforcement action they desire. Also, because of the continuing loop nature of grounding videos, children can go back to school and rack up multiple expulsions (an usually permanent end to a child's education given once) because actually enforcing them would mean a user would have to change their character sets with each new video.
- Karma Houdini: Non-troublemaking characters seem to get a free pass on tormenting the troublemakers or using any means necessary to bust them. Especially in the case of Boris, who's often portrayed as an Ax-Crazy sociopath but never gets in trouble, even when he clearly deserves to be punished more than Caillou does.
- Karma Houdini Warranty:
- A common theme in the Deconstruction videos (and some standard grounded videos when a non-ironic member of the fanbase decides to give a troublemaker a break) is the bad habits of the parent characters and other characters (especially the aforementioned and widely disliked Boris) coming back to haunt them. The usual way of this occurring is the troublemaker deciding they've had enough and fighting back against their Abusive Parents, either by grounding them or giving them a Punishment Day and then getting them arrested. Boris is usually shown to not take this happening to him very well, and sometimes may undergo a Villainous Breakdown, such as seen here.
- A common theme in the Deconstruction videos (and some standard grounded videos when a non-ironic member of the fanbase decides to give a troublemaker a break) is the bad habits of the parent characters and other characters (especially the aforementioned and widely disliked Boris) coming back to haunt them. The usual way of this occurring is the troublemaker deciding they've had enough and fighting back against their Abusive Parents, either by grounding them or giving them a Punishment Day and then getting them arrested. Boris is usually shown to not take this happening to him very well, and sometimes may undergo a Villainous Breakdown, such as seen here
- Karmic Butt-Monkey: Whenever a troublemaker causes some kind of mischief, destruction, or chaos, they will always be punished for it. They'll either be grounded for a ridiculously long time and/or receive "Punishment Days" from their parents.
- Kick the Dog: As if the execution videos weren't cruel enough already, most of the time the condemned's parents will visit them just to insult them, ground them, and tell them that they hope they suffer when they die, then celebrate at their funeral. Even in conventional grounding videos, at times the punishments can come off as needlessly cruel.
- Kids Are Cruel: Certainly an aspect of many of the grounded videos, as the kid characters will pull dangerous or even deadly pranks (or sometimes, not even needing to be pranksters and just be malicious) For the Evulz.
- Kids Punishing Parents:
- Sometimes, a troublemaker will get back at their parent for grounding them for petty reasons by giving them a Punishment Day. However, the parent often won't let them get away with this and they'll punish them afterwards.
- There are many videos in which the troublemaker is a parent. In such videos, the one who grounds the parent is often the child or spouse.
- Kitschy Local Commercial:
- The cheap international calling outfit Reliance GlobalCall has aired very low-cost ads made in GoAnimate, main business theme character, voices and all, and aired them on the American cable network Willow, which airs Cricket 24/7. The "Mr. Patel" ad has since gained the Fan Nickname of "Mr. Patel finds hidden charges on his phone bill and gets grounded" among the GoAnimate community.
- The "HGTV stars" behind a house flipping Infomercial (these guys, from a BBB article advising against investing with them) rendered themselves into a cringe-heavy GoAnimate segment (starts at 0:55) that aired as part of the infomercial; unlike most people, they paid the extra money to keep the GoAnimate watermark off-screen.
- One ad for Mecko's Heating and Cooling had its founder Dave Mecklenburg rendered in GoAnimate.
- The cheap international calling outfit Reliance GlobalCall has aired very low-cost ads made in
L
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- This trope tends to go hand-in-hand with Karma Houdini, as a "Character A" may get in trouble for something they did, but if a "Character B" did something even worse, they usually get away scot-free. This is particularly shown in videos where someone gets arrested: the character who's imprisoned will easily break out and call out the real guilty party, but they won't get in trouble for escaping prison.
- In the "Pours Rat Poison on the School Lunch" videos, the troublemaker is forced to eat the leftover of the school lunch they tainted with rat poison, with the ultimatum of getting grounded even longer if they refuse to do so. For example, Dora's karma is being filmed eating the school lunch she tainted with rat poison.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- Someone may mention their voice changing to something when they're sick, or have their voice changed as a punishment.
- On a similar note to voices, this video announces at the beginning that the main character had to change their voice because of GoAnimate removing several voices from their system.
- Leave the Camera Running: Some grounded videos end with the troublemaker's parents staring directly into the camera with angry expressions.
- Lemonade Stand Plot: Subverted in the "X Makes a Lemonade Stand" videos, where a troublemaker sells their own urine advertised as lemonade, which results in a customer who goes by getting disgusted or sick. The "X Sells Chocolate" videos are a common variant in which the troublemaker sells their excrement disguised as chocolate.
- Life Embellished: Super Rica and Rashy was based on Dini himself, his wife (stage magician Misty Lee), and their sock monkeys.
- Limited Animation:
- Due to the limitations of the website, the animation in the videos generally comes off as Hanna-Barbera in flash.
- Specifically, the "Bodyguard" character body from the Comedy World theme (which the default "Bodyguard" character uses) has an animation that involves the character flexing their pecs, which tends to be used whenever they're angry or dancing.
- Losing Your Head: A lot of GoAnimate characters seem to be capable of going without their head without harm, whether it's going headless to school for cheap laughs, scaring people by walking around without a head, or even being punished by having their head removed. Often, they're even still capable of speaking.
