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Roseanne: That is not funny! You're grounded until menopause!
Darlene: Yours or mine?
Roseanne: Your father's!
Roseanne, "Toto, We're Not in Kansas Anymore"

Grounding is a standard parental discipline technique. But a frustrated parent may blurt out that their child will be detained for a ridiculous amount of time, often past the point they would reach the age of adulthood, for something very minor. Occasionally, the punishment may be for something quite serious, but the parent cannot think up a different punishment. Considering the fact that grounding someone for the rest of their life is a little excessive, they'll usually bring it down to a more reasonable amount of time (though this usually happens off-screen).

Alternately, a teacher (usually a Sadist Teacher) will give a student severely extended detention, usually long enough to extend well after the kid has graduated.

A subtrope of You Are Grounded!, often falling under Disproportionate Retribution. Almost always undone via Snap Back or Negative Continuity. An inversion would be grounding the child for a ridiculously short amount of time for a very serious offense.

Not to be mistaken with the show Grounded for Life.

Compare Longer-Than-Life Sentence, where prisoners are sentenced to serve an amount of time that's way longer than anyone can be expected to live.

Contrast Corrective Lecture, which is at the milder end of the punishment scale.


Examples:

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    Comic Books 
  • Loop: Father Time puts the twins in time out for infinity years.
  • Variation in one issue of The Simpsons comic book, where Bart says that if he doesn't find the school puma by the next day, he'd be doing detention till he's 80.
  • In Ms. Marvel (2014), Kamala is grounded forever after her parents find out that she sneaked out to the party in the first issue. She is grounded even more forever in issue 5 when her midnight snack convinces her parents that she sneaked out again. Grounding her is pointless anyway since the world's about to end.
  • In Ultimate Fantastic Four, Dr. Storm threatens Sue with this.
    Dr. Storm: You're grounded 'till you're thirty!
  • Robin: Jack decides to ground Tim indefinitely after hearing from Ari's uncle that Tim and Ari had sex (which they didn't) and furiously cut off Tim's attempt to explain what happened. Luckily Dana goes to get Tim's side of the story, which includes Ari's uncle trying to kill Tim over a misunderstanding.
  • In one Superman comic, Dick Grayson recalls his first encounter with Superman back when he was still Robin. A major crime operation was supposed to occur at the harbor in Gotham that evening, but Bruce Wayne's presence was required at a social event, and Dick was under strict instructions by both Bruce and Alfred to stay and home and finish his geography homework. Dick sneaked out and tried to stop it anyway - only to have to be rescued by Superman, who had also heard about the operation and decided to stop it himself. When Bruce returned home, he heard that the operation had been stopped by a caped hero, and figured that Dick had disobeyed his orders. He went up to his room to see if he was still there, ready to "ground him until he's 30" if he wasn't.

    Comic Strips 
  • Crabgrass: In this comic, when Donna and Gene discuss Miles' current grounding, Gene admits he got grounded once at age 14 and his mom never ungrounded him, so technically he is still grounded.
    Gene: Why do you think I never play outside?
  • An episode of Dennis and Gnasher has Dennis's parents ask themselves how much trouble he could have gotten into in the ten minutes since the school holidays started, only for a long string of neighbors to come to the door to complain. With each one, Dennis's grounding is increased by a year, until finally he's grounded forever.
  • In FoxTrot Peter has been grounded for intervals of decades, centuries, or life. It never seems to stick of course.
  • In the book Garfield's Big Book Of Super School Excuses, one excuse for "Why I Can't Go Out With You" is "I'm grounded until college".
  • In Bloom County, Oliver's dad grounded him until his 45th birthday for having launched a shuttle chair to Washington D.C. and almost killing Cutter John and a tuba player.

    Fan Works 
  • Dares With Newton When Newton orders a lot of pizzas, his mom was so angry that she gets him in trouble for the day.
  • Stars from Home, Ruth and Charles have threatened Scott with this on separate occasions, both in Fear Leads To Anger situations.
    Charles: If you ever do anything like that again...
    Scott: Grounded for the rest of my natural life?
    Charles: No, no. I'll have you resurrected and re-ground you.
    Scott: Won't you be dead by then?
    Charles: My brain will be put into a supercomputer.
  • Syngenesophobia features a Played for Drama example; the first punishment the Loud Sisters receive for what they did to Lincoln is being grounded indefinitely.
  • Quizzical: In "The Big Finish", as Princess Luna says:
    “SWEETIE BELLE!!! IF YOU EVER TELEPORT THROUGH SOLID ROCK AGAIN YOU SHALL BE GROUNDED FOR LIFE!!!”
  • The Boy Who Cried Idiot: The second alternate ending involves Lynn Sr. grounding Lincoln forever.

    Films — Animation 
  • In Meet the Robinsons, Franny does this to Wilbur:
    Franny: Mister, you are grounded... 'til you die.
  • After a father/daughter argument near the beginning of The Croods, Grug threatens to keep Eep in the family cave "Until you're older than... y'know... [gestures to Gran] her!"
  • Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin King ends with the Goblin King grounding the evil magician Willow for 1,000 years and taking the latter with him to serve her punishment. Of course, they're immortal, so it is most likely a normal length of time for said punishment. As a result, the magic show is discontinued by the employees who operate the amusement park

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In the film adaptation of New Moon:
    Charlie Swan: Bella, do not ever do that to me again. Ever. And you're grounded for the rest of your life.
  • Basket Case 3: The Progeny:
    Sheriff: 'Cause you are grounded, little miss! You are grounded for the next ten years! And no more car, and no more allowance, and you can forget about that pony I promised you!
  • Descendants: Maleficent threatens Mal if she does not accept the mission to infiltrate Auradon and bring her the Fairy Godmother's wand, she will ground her for the rest of her life.
  • The Parent Trap (1998) has one of the twins saying, "We've been grounded 'til the end of the century." To be fair, the film was released in 1998, but still, two to three years is a long time to be grounded. Then again, "end of the century" was most likely an exaggeration.
  • In Ever After, as punishment for his disobedience, the king tells Prince Henry that he'll "deny [him] the crown and... live forever!" Doesn't work as well as the king hoped, though even his tone implies he realizes he should have said something more convincing.
    Prince Henry: Good. Agreed. I. Don't. Want it.
  • In The Breakfast Club, Bender keeps goading Vernon to give him more Saturday detentions. By the end of it, Vernon states that he has Bender for "the rest of [his] natural born life" (it comes out to two months' worth).
  • In Camp Nowhere, the father of the twelve-year-old protagonist cheerfully informs him, "By the way, you're grounded until you're thirty" after the phony summer camp cover is blown.
  • In My Girl 2, when Nick and Vada return late to Nick's place, his mom Rose says "you're grounded till you're fifty" to Nick, before then increasing it to "sixty" when he objects that she's overreacting and docking his allowance for two weeks.
  • In Alvin and the Chipmunks: Road Chip, Dave and Samantha ground the boys until they will be older.
    Dave: You guys are grounded in Miami and also when we get back to LA.
    Alvin: When are we not grounded?
    Dave: You'll be so old, your fur will be gray.
    Samantha: That goes for your fur too, Miles.
    Miles: I don't have fur.
    Samantha: Well, whatever you have's grounded for a long time, let's go.

    Literature 
  • In The Berenstain Bears Get the Gimmies, Papa finally gets so fed up with Brother and Sister's greed that he sends them to their room and declares that they'll have no TV or treats for a year. He backtracks after a talk with his parents, though, and realizes that a better solution is to allow them just one treat whenever they go shopping.
  • Good Omens: Adam gets grounded.
    "When do you think they'll let you out, then?" asked Pepper.
    "Not for years and years. Years and years and years. I'll be an old man by the time they let me out," said Adam.
    "How about tomorrow?" asked Wensleydale.
    Adam brightened. "Oh, tomorrow will be all right," he pronounced. "They'll have forgotten about it by then."
  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: After Harry accidentally sets a boa constrictor on Dudley, he is locked in his cupboard for several months straight as punishment. By the time he’s allowed out again, the school year has ended. (It does raise the question of how no one noticed his absence.)
  • In Book Two of Heralds Of Rhimn, Meparik’s siblings assume that this will be Courtfather Snow’s reaction to him turning up after vanishing again.
  • In the young adult novel The Presidents Daughter, the protagonist Meg's mother is elected the first female President of the United States. The teenage Meg, frustrated at one point with the constant surveillance, dodges her Secret Service bodyguards and sneaks off for a bit, accidentally creating a massive panic. When she's recovered after a short while, her younger brothers ask if she's grounded, and their parents (rather cheerfully) assure them that "Meggie is grounded until she's fifty."
  • In Pride and Prejudice, after Lydia's unsupervised trip to Brighton results in her near-calamitous elopement with Wickham, Mr. Bennet declares that Kitty won't be allowed to go out or attend any balls unless she only dances with her sisters for at least ten years. He's joking, but poor Kitty doesn't realize and bursts into tears. (She is forbidden from visiting the new Mrs. Wickham pretty much indefinitely, though.)
  • In a more serious example, The Silmarillion includes a king, Thingol, locking his daughter in a tower lest she elopes with the man she loves.
  • In another non-comedic example, Boo Radley of To Kill a Mockingbird as well as his real-life counterpart had this done to him by his abusive father, and ended up with an (undeserved) reputation as an Ax-Crazy recluse.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The Adventures of Pete & Pete has the episode "Grounded for Life" in which Little Pete is grounded for a month after his experiment (placing a humidifier next to a dehumidifier) produced an explosion that ruined the lawn. Inspired by Artie's gift, an ant farm, Little Pete literally digs his way out of the house using a Statue of Liberty paperweight.
  • Picket Fences In the episode "High Tidings", Jimmy grounds Kimberly forever, alongside canceling Christmas, after catching her having sex with her much older boyfriend.
    Jimmy: And you are grounded forever, and Christmas is cancelled, FOREVER!!!
  • Happened to Carmen a lot in The George Lopez Show. One notable occasion:
    Angie: Grounded. You are never leaving this house.
    Carmen: Dad!
    George: Carmen, you are so grounded, coffee will look at you and say, "Damn!"
  • Diff'rent Strokes: Played straight in the seventh-season episode "Cheers to Arnold." A friend of Arnold's steals from Mr. Drummond's liquor cabinet. When Arnold tries to explain, Mr. Drummond will have nothing of it and tells Arnold he's permanently grounded; of course, by episode's end, things are cleared up and Arnold is pardoned.
  • 7th Heaven:
    Mary: So I guess I'm grounded for life?
    Annie: That's a given.
  • The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air:
    Phillip Banks: You're grounded for 10 years.
    Ashley Banks: What? But that's not fair.
    Phillip Banks: Tell it to the judge... Oh yeah. That's me.
  • Roseanne episode "Toto, We're Not in Kansas Anymore" has this where Roseanne grounds Darlene. Darlene asks whether she will be un-grounded at her menopause or her Roseanne's, at which point Roseanne reveals that Darlene is grounded until her father's menopause.
    Roseanne: That is not funny! You're grounded until menopause!
    Darlene: Yours or mine?
    Roseanne: Your father's!
  • Similarly (maybe inspired by the Roseanne episode), on Now and Again, Heather's mother says that if Heather ever again has a boy over without telling her, Heather will be grounded till menopause.
  • Boy Meets World.
    • Played for Laughs: there was a significant gap in between the two actresses playing Morgan, resulting in the character being absent for about half a season. The new actress is introduced by coming downstairs and remarking, "That was the longest time-out I've ever had."
    • When the gang is in college, this is inverted by Dean Bolander, who suspends Cory for one day (and puts him on probation) for striking a teacher instead of immediate expulsion like would normally happen. The justification for this is that it is obvious that the professor he struck is very sleazy, and made a pass at Topanga and admitting to Cory he wasn't going to stop, which led to Cory striking him in the first place.
  • From the iCarly two-parter "iDate a Bad Boy", after seeing Carly making out with Griffin, a shocked Spencer acts on his duty as guardian by telling her...
    Spencer: You... are grounded for... (thinks about it) ...till college.
    Carly: For till college?!
    Spencer: FOR TILL COLLEGE!
  • The titular character of Jessie grounds the Ross kids from TV and the internet for “the rest of their lives” in “Caught Purple Handed” after learning they lied about the charity muffin sale and had a party on the rooftop to raise the money they were supposed to make.
  • In My Wife and Kids, Michael punishes Claire by grounding her (and forcing her to do all the chores in the house) until she gets him an apple from the apple tree in the backyard. Then he gives her a few apple seeds.
  • There was a series called Grounded for Life.
  • One episode of Happy Days has an exchange along the following lines:
    Howard: ... I shall now determine a punishment that is judicious, reasonable and fair.
    [Gilligan Cut]
    Richie: "Grounded for life"?!
  • Malcolm in the Middle: Lois grounds the boys regularly in addition to all the other punishments she gives them when they misbehave. The one that takes the cake, however, is in the episode "Health Scare" when she grounds Malcolm and Reese for an entire week for tracking mud on the floor they had every intention of cleaning up. When they sneak out anyway, Lois then decides to ground them for the rest of the school year!'' The only justification for any of this is that Lois and Hal were both distracted due to Hal potentially having a terminal illness, which turns out to not be the case by the episode's end. On one other occasion, when he's nearly killed after broken glass from their broken TV just barely misses him, he goes on a tirade of how even their children will grow up in their house grounded. The reason Malcolm and Dewey didn't help was that they were both deaf due to incidents they both caused each other . Malcolm is still deaf so he does not hear his tirade either but judges by how red his father's face it, he probably should not ask to borrow his car.
  • The Suite Life of Zack & Cody: "Doin' Time in 2330." After Zack and Cody deliberately skip out on their punishment to take part in London's web show (along with The Cheetah Girls, Chris Brown, and Maddie), Carey snaps, to some degree.
    Carey: I am so sick of this constant cycle of breaking the rules! Getting grounded, sneaking out, getting grounded, breaking the rules-!
    Zack: Well, maybe you could break the cycle this time by not grounding us!
    Cody: Aw, dude!
    Carey: (getting angrier and angrier) Oh, that is it! You are beyond grounded. The next time you see sunlight—Oh, actually, no!—You're never going to see sunlight again. Because by the time your punishment is over, the sun will have burnt out, collapsed into a black hole, and the last remnants of mankind will be living on a rusty little spaceship as the cold silence of space will slowly drive them MAAAAAAD!
    • The detention variant is used at the beginning of one episode of The Suite Life on Deck. When Zack asks Moseby how long will he be there, Moseby tells him that it's permanent, or until Zack graduates, but since he never will it might as well be permanent.
  • Hannah Montana: One episode sees Miley and Jackson fighting over the same bathroom. Dad Robby Ray drops the trope to Miley, who is grounded from using the bathroom with Jackson, delaying her plans with Lilly and Oliver.
  • On The Cosby Show, after Theo accidentally throws a Wild Teen Party, Cliff first takes him to the Army recruiting center before being more lenient and making him serve food to the homeless... every day for 6 months.
  • In The Wonder Years episode "The Lake", after Paul's mom finds out he has a condom, Wayne says that Paul's been grounded for life. But knowing Wayne, he's most likely exaggerating.
  • Subverted in Family Ties, Mallory makes a mistake and her father says to her, "You're grounded until further notice." She looks at him like he's crazy, and says, "You can't ground me, I'm over 18!" Her father looks at her mother in stunned realization that she's right. "Darn, that worked so well when she was younger."
  • In an episode of Salute Your Shorts, Sponge is permitted to use his computer to connect to a phone line (use of phones is usually prohibited at camp, and the show predates the widespread use of the internet). When the others find out, they use it behind Sponge's back and let him face the bum rap when they rack up an absurdly large phone bill. Sponge later laments that he's grounded for the rest of the summer, and if he comes back to camp the following summer, he'll still be grounded, and if he ever has kids and they come to the camp, they'll be grounded as well.
  • In the Lab Rats episode "Memory Wipe", this is said verbatim by Davenport to the kids after he finds them spying on him. Leo's attempt to erase his memory of him giving the punishment goes wrong.
  • The Worst Year of My Life, Again: This line is said when the main character decides to have a house party while his parents are out.
  • Two and a Half Men: Alan grounds Jake for three months after he sneaks out to a concert.
  • One of the segments of the Australian parody current-affairs show Real Stories covers a 27-year-old man who'd been grounded for the last 15 years because his father fell into a coma several hours after grounding him.
  • In Smart Guy Floyd says tells TJ he's grounded forever when he finds out TJ lied about drinking alcohol at a former classmate's birthday party (and were all 12 - 13 yr olds). He rescinds when Yvette makes him realize said overreaction was due to realizing not even a smart person like T.J. is immune to peer pressure, which leads to Floyd sitting down with T.J. to have a proper discussion about it.
  • In Full House, after finding out Michelle ran away from home (actually to her friend's house, where the parents called the Tanners) as retaliation for being punished, Danny says he plans to go to the house, then "to hug her, then kiss her, then ground her for life". Jesse talks him out of it and tells him of a better plan that worked on him as a child that will ensure she'll want to come home. The punishment, in this case, was that, rather than give in to her demands was to make her think she was going to have to live at the friend's house since running away meant she didn't like living with them. It ends up working and she returns home without a fight.

    Music 
  • Garth Brooks' "Ain't Goin' Down ('til the Sun Comes Up)," about a teenage girl who takes off with her boyfriend and stays out all night despite her mother's rule to be in bed before the morning. She breaks curfew and is "grounded 'till she's dead." But that's no obstacle, as her boyfriend just swings by to pick her up and she takes off again.

    Puppet Shows 
  • Dinosaurs episode "License to Parent":
    For scratching his father's brand new car, Robert Mark Sinclair was grounded for six to ten years. He is currently serving his sentence in his room.

    Theatre 
  • In the stage musical of Disney's The Little Mermaid, in "The World Above (Reprise)" King Triton warns Ariel to stay away from the human world and Prince Eric or else he'll ground her "till next year."

    Video Games 

    Web Animation 
  • RWBY: After Weiss has a meltdown towards her father Jacques and a party-goer at a charity ball (resulting in her accidentally using her Semblance in the process), Jacques severely punishes her by removing her heiress status of the Schnee Dust Company in favor of Whitley and imprisons her in the family manor indefinitely until they can "come up with an agreement to her future." Weiss manages to escape the manor a few episodes later with help of the family's butler Klein.

    Webcomics 
  • The Sapphire Lake kids' antics in Precocious usually get Autumn grounded for eternity, though after a few days or weeks they are usually open to negotiations.
  • Homestuck: After Jane nearly gets blown up trying to retrieve the mail, her dad sends her to her room. She is glumly certain she is now "perma-grounded for life."

    Web Original 
  • In one AmazingPhil vlog, he discusses the time he got caught smoking when he was eleven and was immediately grounded, and comments that he thinks he may still be technically grounded. So he calls up his mother to ask — and she says, "Yes. Forever."
  • GoAnimate became (in)famous on YouTube for the multiple "X gets grounded" videos made with it. The videos usually end with the parents of whatever character is the protagonist telling them "Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh! [Character name]! You are grounded grounded grounded grounded grounded grounded grounded for (overly long number) years! Go to your room now!"

    Western Animation 
  • In an episode of The Brak Show, Dad grounded Brak for 3 years.
  • On Codename: Kids Next Door, Mr. and Mrs. Sanban ground Mushi for life after she "kills" Kuki's Posh Party Rainbow Monkey in "Operation: C.L.U.E.S." When she brings it back to life as a monster in "Operation: S.P.A.N.K.E.N.S.T.I.N.E.", it's increased to five-lifetime groundings, though her boyfriend sneaks her out of the house before the end of the episode.
  • Bobby's World: In the episode "It's My Party," after Bobby sabotages Kelly's 16th birthday party, Howard sends him to his room and tells him not to come out until he's twelve.
  • Zig-Zagged in Goof Troop. In "Axed By Addition" Pete threatens to ground PJ forever if he fails his math test, a threat the latter takes very seriously and even plays sick to get in one last day of freedom. Once Pete finds out the truth, he yells at PJ for not guessing he was bluffing... and then says he's grounded forever for that, though he has a change of heart when he finds out that PJ didn't even fail in the first place.
    Pete: Flunk that test, and you are GROUNDED FOREVER!!!
  • Johnny Test: Hugh did this quite frequently. Once, he threatens to ground Johnny and his sisters forever, but one of the sisters reminds him that he can't ground them past 18, so he says he'll ground them UNTIL 18. In "Johnny Long Legs", he threatens to ground them for two lives.
  • Arthur: After Arthur and D.W. ruin their father's souffle, he loses self-control, and gives them a four-month ban on TV. His wife helps him to think rationally again.
  • An episode of El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera ends with Manny admitting to his dad that he expects to be grounded until he's 30 for his actions. It appears as though his dad understands that Manny learned his lesson and will let him off the hook... until a Smash Cut depicts 30-year-old Manny shackled up in his room. Thank goodness for Negative Continuity.
  • Cow and Chicken At the end of "Send in the Clown", Cow and Chicken's father grounded Cow and then told the parents of the clown that cows should not play with clowns. They sadly were never in love again as they were grounded for life. Chicken asked why, and the father explained that clowns and cows just don't mix.
  • Rocket Power:
    • In one episode, Otto and Twister go out into a hurricane to retrieve Twister's video camera. When Raymundo tracks down and rescues them, Ray grounds Otto forever, to which Otto replies sincerely, "That's cool."
    • In a different episode, Ray declares that if his kids were caught sneaking out after dark, they would be grounded until they're his age. Subverted in the end when he only gives Otto three weeks of garbage duty.
  • Littlest Pet Shop (2012) had this in the episode "(Sweet) Truck Ride"; after Blythe Baxter made her first attempt to rescue her Littlest Pet Shop friends from a runaway truck filled with sweets, Roger Baxter grounds her and takes away her cell phone. While Blythe is grounded, her Littlest Pet Shop friends recover her confiscated cell phone and continued to film a reaction of the same incident, with Roger Baxter in hot pursuit of the same runaway truck filled with sweets, resulting in a major death of his dummy pal (while getting a traffic ticket by a police officer). Roger later apologizes to Blythe, ungrounds her, and joins her in his father/daughter race.
  • The Powerpuff Girls (1998) episode "Mommy Fearest" had Ima Goodlady planning to ground the Powerpuff Girls forever so she can commit more crimes. But the plan failed when the Professor found out that she is Sedusa, and the Professor tells the girls to call the police and states that the crook will never deceive them again.
    Sedusa: HA! Never! (in her sweet tone) I'll sweet-talk that sap of a professor. He will believe me (in her evil tone) AND YOU THREE BUG-EYED CREEPS WILL BE GROUNDED FOREVER! (Laughs evilly)
  • On The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, Jimmy received the detention variant twice. The first time was when he switch bodies with Cindy, their attempts at destroying each other's lives include getting themselves 1,800 days of detention. The next comes after Jimmy sends the teachers into another dimension. When they make a Big Damn Heroes return (It's a Long Story), Jimmy claims to have learned his lesson, but they still sic him with 900 days of detention.
  • One of Doug's Fantasy Sequences depicts Mr. Bone making him write lines until they're both old men.
  • The ChalkZone episode "School of Destruction" had Rudy Tabootie's father Joe tell his son that he is grounded until college after finding out that he sneaked into the rock concert of the titular band.
  • Steven Universe:
  • Darkwing Duck:
    • Gosalyn Mallard usually gets grounded for life by her father (along with her allowance being suspended until further notice)
    • When Honker is held responsible for an art theft that was committed by the villain Splatter Phoenix in the episode "A Brush With Oblivion", his parents ground him in his room. His father makes a list of things Honker isn't allowed to have, including going out, having friends over, watching television, and sunlight, food, and water. His wife points out that those last few items are a bit excessive.
    • In "Star Crossed Circuits", Drake tells his daughter Gosalyn that she's grounded for 50 years after being informed of what house rules Gosalyn had broken by the D-2000.
    • "Fraudcast News" has Darkwing ask Launchpad what he could have done to drive Gosalyn to side with the Bugmaster (unaware that Gosalyn is playing The Mole to help bring the villain down). Launchpad reminds him that Darkwing once informed Gosalyn that she was grounded until her senior year of high school.
  • In The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, when Loki and his Anti-Anti-Christ son are falling down a bottomless pit after the latter defies Loki to save June, Loki grounds him for an eternity.
  • One episode in The Fairly OddParents! has Timmy's dad threaten to ground him "for infinity" if his case of glass sculptures ever gets damaged.
  • In the Star vs. the Forces of Evil episode "Raid the Cave", Star is worried that her parents will do this to her when she tells them that her spellbook was stolen by Ludo. While they're initially shocked, it doesn't come to that.
  • In one episode of Stickin' Around, Stacy goes to Picture Day thinking that she's dreaming and causes chaos because she believes that she won't face repercussions. The next day, she is given detention for a very long time before her mother convinces the school board to shorten her sentence to 2 years.
  • An episode of Kim Possible used the detention variant, after Ron is caught cheating in school thanks to a mishap that gave his naked molerat advanced intelligence. The ending scene sums up the punishment:
    Kim: So how much detention did you get?
    Ron: I dunno, she just gave me one of those sideways eight thingies.
  • The Canadian animated series Detentionaire uses both the grounded and detention variants of this trope. After Lee Ping is framed for a massive prank he didn't commit, he is sentenced to detention for the entire school year while his strict mother (a teacher at his school) grounds him for the same length of time.
  • DuckTales (2017): At the end of "Happy Birthday, Doofus Drake!", Doofus's parents finally stand up to him after adopting Mark Beaks' robot son Boyd, causing him to get half of the fortune Doofus inherited, and tell him he's grounded "INDEFINITELY!"
  • Jackie Chan Adventures: The episode "Jade Times Jade" has Jade using one of Uncle's spells to create a clone of herself to stay behind while she accompanies Jackie to Japan to find The Dark Hand. The only problem is that the Jade clone accompanies the real Jade and keeps producing more clones due to Jade not applying a finishing spell. After The Dark Hand is defeated, the spell must be removed, but it will only work on the real Jade. Unable to tell which Jade is the real one (by now, there are hundreds of Jade clones), Jackie convinces the clones to identify the real Jade by saying that she will have no TV for a year.
  • The Ren & Stimpy Show: Ren invokes this when dealing with a troublesome Stimpy in the episode "I Was a Teenage Stimpy".
    Ren: You're grounded, FOREVER!!!
  • Bionic Six: This is semi-invoked by Helen Bennett in the episode "House Rules" when her children throw an out of control house party that nearly ends up revealing the team's secret identities.
    Helen Bennett: One thing is for sure, you're all grounded for a year! YOU HEAR ME, A YEAR!!!
  • In The Loud House episode "Silence of The Luans," Lily was grounded by Rita until she was 16 years old, and then she immediately bumped it up to until she was 21.


 
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High Tidings Grounded Forever!

After being caught red-handed having sex with a much older boyfriend, Kimberly's father lays down the law, in a similar fashion to the Goof Troop episode, Axed by Addition.

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