Go Animate / Tropes General M To R

GoAnimate Trope Examples
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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M

• Made of Iron: Many times, characters will survive injuries that by all means should have crippled them or even killed them, such as getting knocked off a very tall building, getting pulled in by a strong tornado, or getting hit by a flying school desk. Even if a character does wind up getting killed, their body almost always remains intact, even if there was a fire or explosion that contributed to their death.
• Made of Plasticine: On the other hand, sometimes characters will wind up severely injured, crippled, or killed from normally non-life-threatening injuries, even from innocuous ones like getting punched in the face or getting gassed by a stink bomb.
• Magic Plastic Surgery: A recurring element of the Grounded videos. Some videos have characters going to the hospital to get plastic surgery, or characters being punished by being forced to have plastic surgery. The changes can range anywhere from getting a different face and/or hairstyle, changing genders, changing character themes, changing from a kid to an adult (or vice versa), or just outright being turned into a completely different character altogether. Sometimes, these videos are used to explain sudden changes in character designs.
• Major Injury Underreaction: When characters get injured severely, they often speak in a completely deadpan voice, even when expressing pain.
• Makes Just as Much Sense in Context: Doesn't even begin to describe the various goings-on that occur in the grounded videos.
• Malaproper: Quite often. Many of the "Dora Gets Grounded" videos have her parents claiming that she's grounded for "tranquility".
• Malicious Misnaming:
  • The rants made with GoAnimate usually start with the user calling the subject of the rant a derogatory name, mostly in the form of: "(Subject)? More like (Derogatory name)!".
  • Within the "Grounded" videos, this is one method of getting grounded in some videos. The troublemaker either calls someone or changes the name of something to a derogatory name, which leads them to a grounding.
  • The text-to-speech voices' infamous way of pronouncing Caillou's name becomes a form of this in some videos, where Boris knows how to pronounce Caillou's name, but will often switch when he realizes he's "on camera" and call him "Kaylew" or "K-I-U" on purpose, knowing how terrible it makes his son feel.
• Manchild: Sometimes, adult characters like celebrities are seen causing trouble and getting grounded by their parents.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": Tends to occur in many videos when a large amount of people are on the receiving end of a trouble-maker's wrath.
• Medium Blending:
  • The premium Full Energy theme on the website from 2009-2012 was this, featuring characters with both Flash-drawn assets for some body parts and real photos for others, as well as entirely photorealistic props and backdrops.
  • Some videos use Google photos for their backgrounds and props in place of items that don't have such in GoAnimate, most commonly guns and other weapons after many users migrated to GoAnimate4Schools, which removed all inappropriate props from the original GoAnimate, including the weapons.
• Microtransactions: GoAnimate formerly had a currency known as GoBucks, which allowed you to create new characters, and purchase props. It was retired on September 16, 2013, allowing users to create unlimited characters from that date onwards (the same date the former VoiceForge voices were updated, leading to some users issuing "Old Voice Alerts" for voices that sounded similar to those before the update).
• Mind Screw: Barely any videos made under GoAnimate make sense. Some are more nonsensical than others, but almost all of them involve at least some surreal aspects, especially due to the cheapness and limitations of the software. This is especially parodied in many satirical videos, such as those of NotSmirks; if Uolliac or a similar character is present in them, things are certainly going to get weird with a capital W.
• Mischievous Body Language: The "scheming" expression from the Comedy World theme has a character lifting one eyebrow, and then the other, before laughing maliciously.
• Misplaced Retribution:
  • Been known to happen to some trouble-making characters when they are treated as a scapegoat for bad things that either happen around them or were the fault of others.
  • Several "(Character) Misbehaves on the Way To (Movie)" have the characters somehow being unable to watch the movie for any sort of reason. The sole blame for this always placed on the naughty character of the day rather than the theater, which decided to take some sort of action to ensure that a single family wouldn't be able to watch the movie.
  • In several "(Character) Causes a Car Crash" videos, the parent of the troublemaker takes their attention off the road so they can yell at them only to end up getting into a car crash. The troublemaker is blamed for the car crash even though it's the parents' fault for taking their attention off the road.
  • Sometimes all characters involved in a "Gets Held Back" video are given the blame for something only one of the trouble characters caused, even if they sat there and did nothing as the one character did it or even tried to stop them.
  • Some "(Character) Gets A Job at (Place)" videos have the character dealing with one or more rowdy or unreasonable customers, who get mad at or confused by the lead character and cause a scene for any number of petty or ridiculous reasons (most typically because the customer does not have enough money for something on the menu they want, asks for something not offered at the restaurant (i.e. asking for a Big Mac at a Burger King), or attempts to place impossible orders like asking for two million cheeseburgers) before blowing their stack and leaving, declaring that they are going to a competitor's establishment. Without fail, the manager will come over and blame the main character for the incidents, accuse them of driving away business and fire them rather than placing their retribution on the customer(s) for wasting the lead character's time and/or causing a scene. (This trope is averted in other videos of this type when it's clear that the lead character truly is at fault for the customers leaving.)
• Mood Dissonance: Many of the Grounded videos tend to end with "Pomp and Circumstance" playing in the background as the character gets grounded.
• Moral Myopia: Most videos tend to treat the morality of a character's actions by whether they are a troublemaker or not. A character considered a troublemaker may do one certain action and get grounded for it, only for a non-troublemaker to do the same exact thing and without the action portrayed as wrong, if they aren't outright rewarded for it.
• Morton's Fork: Many Grounded videos will have the parents demand to know about what trouble they've caused or get punished, yet when they do fess up, they're still punished. Basically, they're damned if they do fess up and they're damned if they don't.
• Motor Mouth:
  • Evil Boris/Red Boris/Boris the Teeth Guy. Usually, his speech is full of expletives, extreme yelling and Cluster F-Bombs as well.

    Boris the Teeth Guy: "WHAT THE FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCK DO YOU THINK I'LL FUCKING SHITTY ASS FUCKING CUNT BITCH DO NEXT? CONTINUED ON WA-AY-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-AH."

• The Movie:
  • GoAnimate: The Movie, created by Cayby J. Although it's an almost shot-for-shot ripoff of Greeny Phatom: The Movie, it has gained a slightly better reception than that film (though still mostly negative) due to actually being animated and because the art style of GoAnimate is easier to look at than that of Greeny Phatom. There was also a planned, albeit canceled, sequel, which was a rip-off of The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water.
  • Along with that one, many users have made numerous extended movies. Many of them are centered around grounding, and the groundee's quest for revenge against their parents.

N

• Nearly Normal Animal: Gilbert in some of the Caillou videos seems to be along the lines of this. Sometimes the cat is shown bringing things like credit cards or toys over to Caillou (or blowing the whistle on him when he gets in trouble), and occasionally, he is capable of outright talking to Caillou (albeit only communicating in meowing that Caillou somehow understands.)
• Negative Continuity:
  • Unless you're willing to believe they can survive the abnormally long grounding periods, the troublemakers will usually not be grounded the next video after that. It's sometimes even lampshaded.
  • Characters who get killed, turned into something or someone, badly injured, or otherwise as punishment also tend to quickly return looking none the worse for wear as well, though some users do provide explanations for some returns. Blowing up a building can contribute here, as it is repaired in the next video.
• Never My Fault:
  • In general, the troublemakers are often blamed for any misfortune that befalls their peers when it was their peers' own fault. Especially the parent characters.
  • In the "(Character) Gets a Job At (Store/Restaurant)" videos, the central character gets a job, only to insult, confuse, or otherwise piss off or drive away every customer they meet while on the clock. When they get fired by the manager, typically the main character will see no fault in their behavior if if they don't outright blame the supposed "stupid idiots" they drove away in the first place.
• Never Say "Die": Averted big time. Death is a much common thing to the Grounded videos, and can be used as a punishment to the character.
• New Baby Episode: This site has "X calls the baby stupid" videos. Most of these videos have a plot focusing on the birth of a baby, before the troublemaker calls the baby stupid, and gets grounded.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Often, various characters are shown to suddenly exhibit or have access to various superpowers, magic, or gadgets (such as a Transformation Ray to transform a character, the ability to grow or shrink, the ability to shoot lasers from their hands or eyes, items from video games, or cloning machines) if the plot of the video requires them to, usually to never be seen or referred to again unless the plot of a later video requires it.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Some of the characters offered look... familiar.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Don't be surprised if a character is grounded, jailed or worse because they fessed up or they stopped something or performed some sort of kind action - they're still "baby show" characters and apparently deserving of punishments.
• No Sympathy: Sometimes the parent characters will act incredibly callous toward their kids even when they are scared ("Kay-lew, stop crying like a baby.") or if the trouble the kid(s) caused resulted in them getting severely injured or left them in a My God, What Have I Done? state.
• Not So Above It All: The punishment-happy parents are far from immune to getting themselves in trouble and grounded.
• Nude-Colored Clothes: The site obviously has no way to render their characters nude for contexts like having sex, but some users haven't let these intentional limitations stop them. They color the clothes characters wear in their skin tones, and sometimes you'll suddenly see stuff like Caillou walking in on his parents, who have dinner roll breasts and band-aid genitalia. The most logical extreme is that a typical GoAnimate "sex scene" would consist of a man in a skin-colored t-shirt and shorts wearing sandals wooing a woman wearing a skin-colored Wonder Woman-like outfit. Others use mosaics for the breasts/genitalia, and do their best with the speech-to-text software to render what they think is closest to lovemaking noises.

O

• Obligatory Swearing: Considering that many users in the community are (or were at the time) kids who love adult cartoons, it almost really goes without saying. Many videos feature scenes where "baby show" characters curse like soldiers. It's especially funny if they're told to stop swearing by another person who is also swearing. And that's just the kids; anyone can have a potty mouth in these videos. Even news anchors and reporters are fairly regularly shown peppering their live reports with f-bombs and s-bombs seemingly because they can, without consequence (which is amusing, considering that news reporters can and have been fired for doing so in real life).
• Off the Table: In "(Character) Misbehaves at (Store)" videos, a character will go on a destructive rampage when they are unable to get an item they want and are offered an inferior replacement. When they're dragged away and punished, they try to get the offered item instead, but are told that it's too late now. Usually, this is because they just destroyed the place the item was at.
• One-Hour Work Week: Some videomakers forget to scale time, so you can have a 'Good morning, class!' greeting from the teacher somehow lead into a 'let's go to lunch!' call ten seconds later.
• Only Sane Man: Deconstructed. There are many videos where the grounder will try to justify their abuse of the kids because it keeps them in line, believing that they're always evil for any reason and they must be kept in line. Their reasonings are usually thrown back in their faces and they're usually given punishments themselves.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Moments where a parent character realizes that they are going too far in their groundings/retribution of their kids tend to be examples of this trope.
• Out-of-Character Moment: If you're coming into the grounded videos expecting all the existing characters (i.e. Caillou, Arthur, etc.) to be in character, then you've come to the wrong place. Even a character who wouldn't hurt a fly will invariably be a violent Jerkass in a typical grounded video.
• Operating System: A specific genre of videos involve a non troublemaker getting a virus which changes their operating system to one named after a troublemaker. Said OS is pretty much always crummy, with all the features being made to annoy the user, who later uses a "kill" option to remove the OS or annoys the troublemaker controlling the OS to the point of them letting the user have their original OS back.
• Overly Long Gag:
  • "You are grounded grounded grounded grounded grounded for [ridiculously large number] years". Sometimes, characters can spend up to over a minute just saying numbers, and can also follow that with a ridiculously long list of oddly specific things the grounded character is not allowed to do. Other times, they'll rattle off a massive list of things that the grounded character will be forced to do or watch.
  • There are also grounded videos which have multiple troublemakers, sometimes up to a dozen. Some of them decide to show each individual character screaming "NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO" when an authority figure calls their parents, and then having each and every character getting a near-identical lecture from their parents about how they're "GROUNDED GROUNDED GROUNDED GROUNDED GROUNDED GROUNDED GROUNDED GROUNDED GROUNDED FOR 875405420958209930248 YEARS".
  • Warren Cook videos seem to consist of Slippy V, his classmates, Warren's teachers, random people from the street and fictional characters delivering 30-50 repetitive The Reason You Suck speeches and punishments to Warren, to the point where Warren just tells them to wrap it up and just let him get to the punishments already... only to get told he'll get more punishments for "backtalking".
  • The average "Behavior Card Day" video will involve the teacher explaining the meaning of every behavior card, followed by numerous students receiving said cards, and then telling the teacher one by one what card they got and receiving their corresponding reward/punishment. These videos can sometimes stretch into hours.

P

• Parent ex Machina: Most parents in the Grounded videos are this, often only showing up out of nowhere to punish and ground the troublemaker of the video once they step out of line if they weren't already present.
• Parental Favoritism: It's not uncommon for the troublesome kid's siblings to be favored over them by their parents, whether for being more well-behaved or just because. It's especially noticeable in the Caillou videos, where Rosie is often treated like a queen by Boris and Doris, while they only acknowledge Caillou's existence when he gets in trouble, (if they don't just outright hate him for existing).
• Parrot Exposition: Some "(Character) Misbehaves at (Place)" videos can become tedious to watch as the characters will recap the naughty character's actions at least once or twice as they drive home from the damaged establishment, and more times if the video includes a news report on the troublemaker throwing a fit, engaging their parent, and wrecking the place.
• Perpetual Frowner: It's possible to make the characters this if you set them to always be crying. Uolliac is almost always crying in videos starring him, and NotSmirks's Author Avatar is often (but not always) crying in his videos.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: You could make a case for the troublemakers who are children, as they are able to put up a fight with people twice their size and single-handedly destroy large buildings during their tantrums.
• Playing Sick: The plots of "Character Fakes Sick" videos have the main character doing this to prevent going to school. They don't get away with it though.
• Police Are Useless: The police in the Grounded videos seem to have something of a Hair-Trigger Temper, as they will instantly peg a character with jail time for littering if they so much as walk up to a piece of paper on the ground. Other times, they just outright arrest people for little to no reason or show a bias towards the trouble-making kids' parents (or anyone but the trouble-makers for that matter), sometimes even arresting the kids just for talking to them. Outside of that, the police will instantly come to arrest someone if they are simply asked to without complaint, even if they are being called to arrest a kid for smashing their sibling's iPod.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: In various videos, the main troublemaker is shown to be bigoted against even their closest friends.
• Potty Emergency:
  • In "Characters Poops His/Her Nappy" videos has this happen to the main character of the video, only to poop themselves because of somebody else in the restroom.
  • "Character Poops On The Teacher" videos have the troublemaker of the day having to go whilst in class, but their teacher won't let them go. The troublemaker solves the problem by defecating on the aforementioned teacher. However, in many cases the student even does it when he's allowed to go.
  • Certain videos have this happen to a character while they are hanging at somebody's house. They rush to the bathroom, but another person is in there^note Sometimes they are not even doing anything in the bathroom but just standing there, and the character poops/pees himself.
• Potty Failure:
  • The point of "(Character) Poops His/Her Nappy and Gets Grounded" is having the main troublemaker soil their pants, usually when somebody else in the bathroom at the time.
  • One plot used in some videos is a character being invited over to someone's house, only to suddenly have to use the bathroom. The character runs to the bathroom but find someone else inside (who is sometimes not even doing anything but stand there), and winds up making a huge mess on the floor before they can be given privacy.
  • The plot of "Character Poops In The Cinema" videos has the protagonist defecating themselves while in a movie theater.
• The Prankster: The troublemaking characters often misbehave as a prank. Common pranks for them include tricking the other students into thinking the school is on lockdown and selling poop advertised as chocolate.
• Prison Episode: Characters are often sent to prison...
  • When a bad user false flags an innocent user on YouTube.
  • When they kill a cartoon character that person hated (Such as killing a Disney character like Winnie the Pooh)
  • For littering things on the road.
  • For destroying property.
• Prone to Tears: The troublemakers sob in gibberish and run away after they are grounded.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: This trope runs so rampant in the grounded videos it would probably be easier to list grounded videos where this trope isn't in effect in some way. Generally speaking, though, if a designated troublemaker does something horrible or stupid like, say, defecate on a teacher at school or beat up a classmate, this is portrayed as wrong and the character will get grounded. However, if someone who isn't a troublemaker does the same exact thing to an actual troublemaker (even for no reason at all), this is portrayed as justified or a Moment of Awesome, and the character will be rewarded for stooping down to the troublemaker's level.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Sometimes a character will successfully get out of having to do something they don't like ever again... but that's because they are now grounded and are not allowed to do it (or anything else) anyway. Cases of this are seldom acknowledged in the video itself outside of the occasional Lampshade Hanging.

Q

• Quirky Work: Many videos involve this trope due to the limited movement range that the program offers. See Mind Screw above for cases that can lead to confusion (though it's probably almost all of them).

R

• Random Events Plot: Several longer videos don't make much sense, and are mostly just montages of characters repeatedly getting grounded. Special mention goes to GoAnimate: The Movie, which has a completely incomprehensible plot (though this is mostly because it's a Whole-Plot Reference to Greeny Phatom: The Movie, whose parent series is known for being FILLED with these).
• Rapid-Fire "No!": Most frequently yelled by someone right before a trouble-maker does something terrible to them. It's also been known to be yelled by a grounded character as they run to their room.
• Read the Fine Print: In the joining conditions if you are going to use the site to make your own projects.
• Recursive Reality:
  • GoAnimate/Vyond is often shown to exist within the grounded videos and the kid characters are often shown to enjoy making grounded videos with it.
  • The existing TV show characters are sometimes shown watching their own shows on TV or talking about wanting to watch them. This is often given the explanation that they film the show in-universe and like watching themselves work, but other times their TV shows just seem to exist in-universe with no explanation for it.
• Rejected Apology: No matter how much they beg, the troublemakers will never be forgiven for any misdemeanor or accident they cause even if they seem genuinely remorseful over their actions. Justified when they caused mass hysteria or property damage or the trouble was caused out of genuine malice. Somewhat less so when the trouble they caused was an accident or was something as simple as breaking a lamp. Cases of the latter often result in the parent/friend characters coming off as needlessly callous and/or unreasonable.
• Revenge Fic:
  • The more vitriolic "Grounded" videos aimed at Caillou, Dora, and other such characters can be described as this. Often the only reason given for targeting them is just because "they suck" and they're "baby show" characters. The only reason the videos don't go straight into Hate Fic territory is because the other characters from the targeted character's show rarely are targeted along with them. (In fact, Caillou's Dad/Boris seems to be something of an Ensemble Dark Horse among the non-ironic fanbase.)
  • Speaking of Boris, folks who dislike the GoAnimator's common interpretation of the character (a character who is apparently intended to be a Memetic Badass who heroically puts Caillou in his place, but comes off more like an Ax-Crazy psychopath who torments Caillou if the latter so much as moves) often vent their frustrations with videos of Boris either getting called out for his actions, grounded, or otherwise punished. The reasons here tend to be far-and-away more justified than a simple "he sucks". Other parent characters (particularly Caillou's Mom/Doris and Warren Cook's dad) often get subjected to this for similar reasons as well.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: Again, many of the users are little kids, so grammatical errors can be expected.
• Rule of Three: If "grounded" doesn't become an Overly Long Gag for a parent, chances are that it'll be just "grounded, grounded, grounded" instead.
• Rummage Sale Reject: Many self-insert characters often wear bright, clashing colors and several accessories, regardless of whether or not they suit the character. It's so commonplace that it's regularly parodied in Deconstruction videos.

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