The GoAnimate "grounded" videos have become infamous for featuring characters who, despite being portrayed as the heroes for giving troublemakers their just desserts, come across as more unlikable than the troublemakers. It has gotten so bad that it has become one of only two pieces of individual media to have its own page dedicated to this trope.
In general:
- The parent characters. Most of the time, they hand out punishments to their kids which go above and beyond what anyone would deem necessary, including humiliating, torturing, and even killing their children over petty slights such as breaking something or pushing someone over. Despite all this, they're almost always held in the right purely because they're punishing a "baby show character". And there's also the overly long grounding periods.
- Anyone in the execution videos. Even if the person being executed really does deserve it, it's hard to root for the people who rub the fact that the sentenced person is going to die in their face, tell them that they hope they suffer and go to Hell when they die, and celebrate and have parties when the person dies. Especially when the sentenced person is a kid. The endings where the parents literally dance on their graves (which are marked with "burn in hell"; good luck having any sane monument maker engrave that on a headstone) also seem downright tacky and mean-spirited in any humane manner.
Specific characters:
- Boris is the best example of this. Caillou's parents usually fall under this, but none more so than his dad. Boris gets away with murder (both literally and figuratively), yet is treated as the hero for putting Caillou in his place.
- A good example of this is Issac Anderson's second "Caillou Gets Grounded" movie, "A Tale of Two Dimensions". The movie starts with Boris attempting to run down Caillou as his punishment, then acts indignant that he's trying to stay alive. When they're asked to save the world from an alternate dimension Caillou, Boris decides to murder survivors of this dimension, including the Barack Obama of that dimension either because they aren't helping him or, in Obama's case, because he has enough help. He blames Caillou for the evil Caillou's existence, leading to his eventual Face–Heel Turn and when his parents find out, Boris is angry because Caillou isn't being "mature" by accepting the idea that Boris' attacks are good.
- Caillou's mom, Doris, isn't exempt from this, either, as she is shown being a enabler to Boris and anyone else's mistreatment of Caillou and is a Jerkass to Caillou when he acts up albeit not usually to Ax-Crazy levels like Boris. Like before, her behavior is rarely portrayed as wrong.
- Like Boris above, a good example of Doris' actions comes from "A Tale of Two Dimensions" where her first and only suggestion to deal with Caillou is to "legally kick him out of the house" (remember, Caillou is only four). When she calls the "government" to make this happen she is rightfully called out for this, only to have it negated when she bribes the official with $5000. After that, she essentially spends the rest of the movie as Boris' Yes-Man.
- Dora's parents, to put it bluntly, are complete and utter scumbags who verbally and physically abuse Dora whenever she acts up in quite a few videos. This gets to the point where they repeatedly tell Dora to her face how much they hate her and wish she was never born. Some videos even have them being outright racist towards Dora. (Despite being Hispanic like their daughter themselves.) Like Caillou's parents, though, the fact that they're punishing Dora supposedly makes their often downright disturbing behavior acceptable.
- Abuela, Dora's grandmother, isn't much better, and much like Doris, she seems to be the enabler of the actions of Dora's parents. In other videos, she is even joining in on abusing Dora.
- Alan Cook, Warren Cook's fictional father as depicted in several videos (but most notably SlippyV's videos), is a total Jerkass who not only punishes Warren for asinine reasons such as making a fake VHS opening or buying a Disney movie, but is also depicted frequently calling people over to harass Warren just to make him feel bad for his actions, including having him wear diapers. It really honestly makes Warren an instant Woobie the moment these events happen. However, Alan will almost always win (but like other parents, it doesn't always come out right for Alan...
) - Arthur's dad sometimes comes off as a short-tempered Jerkass in the videos by MattTheGoAnimator, wherein he seemingly can't stand the sight of Arthur being happy or having anything positive happen to him, and will ground Arthur the instant Arthur does something he doesn't approve of. He will even go so far as to go after other people doing positive things for Arthur, as he will often alert their parents for having done so and get them grounded.
- The default character Macusoper has an absolute jerkass of a father in Diesel Busters in the videos of D-Future2K17 (formerly SuperMarioFan1999). Nearly every single video has Diesel calling his son a "bitch" as he punishes him. More often than not, Diesel also swears much more at his son and keeps wondering why he gets blowback for his cruel punishments and Macusoper never reforms because of his long grounding terms. You could pretty much throw all of the adult figures in this user's videos under this as well, as they all have an unstated grudge against Macusoper and will absolutely refuse to hear him out, even if he brings up a decent point or if there is a way to easily verify his claims.
- TimCamaro as depicted throughout the "TimCamaro Vs. Characters" series is shown to be a Jerkass who regularly starts conflicts and fights with "baby show characters" who were just minding their own business and were just trying to have fun. Often, TimCamaro uses excessively brutal techniques on his opponents to defeat and kill them, even if they were only little kids.
- As an example, in "TimCamaro Vs. Yo Gabba Gabba", TimCamaro cuts in line in front of the Yo Gabba Gabba! characters at a waterslide, before proceeding to loudly insult and yell at them, despite all they had done was just politely ask him to wait in line like everyone else and to be nicer to them. Although the Yo Gabba Gabba! characters try to fight TimCamaro in various ways, they all fail, being killed in the ways listed below. First, TimCamaro gouges and stabs Muno's eye with a sword, before proceeding to run him over with a Camaro. This is followed by him severely injuring Foofa with a lightsaber and then shooting her in the head point blank several times with a rifle. Brobee is then run over by TimCamaro's Camaro, before the latter annihilates the former with a laser. Afterwards, Toodee is immolated by TimCamaro after she tries to get revenge by shooting ice at him, with Plex arriving in order to try and calm TimCamaro down with a dance. He does not calm down, and instead exposes Plex to a large amount of water in order to short circuit him. Finally, DJ Lance Rock is shot several times with a rifle, before being run over with a Camaro.
- As an example, in "TimCamaro Vs. Yo Gabba Gabba"
Specific videos:
- In this video, Gerald Broflovski sinks to the ultimate low by cruelly trolling Dora the Explorer and causing her to commit suicide. What would normally be considered a horrible act is instead portrayed as a Moment of Awesome for Gerald, and Kyle says that he's happy Dora died, and that she deserved it.
- In this video and other videos by the same video maker, Fred, the main character, is portrayed as an Ax-Crazy Jerkass with a Hair-Trigger Temper, who will easily snap at his own crew at even the slightest provocation. As shown in the video, he smacks Daphne to the ground for talking back to him, threatening a ticket booth operator to let Scooby into the carnival after the operator mentions the ban on dogs in the premises, and giving the entirety of the three (including Velma, who had done nothing wrong) concussions. It gets so bad that in this video of the series, he is sent to anger management classes, though you have to wonder why three people unrelated to Fred and a dog just don't tell him off or let his parents know how he's acting.
- Mrs. Christina, of all people, falls into this trope in this video. While a barrage of "punishments" is par for the course in a GoAnimate video, what puts her squarely into this territory (perhaps more so than even Boris or Dora's parents) is the fact that she overheard Dora getting loudly chewed out by a police officer, immediately ran to and entered Dora's house, and ordered her to come to school as she was being arrested by the cops (one of whom even tries to reassure her that Dora would be arrested, but makes no further attempt to stop her other than that). Not helping matters is how utterly sadistic she is (complete with many a Slasher Smile). She even claims that, because Dora had murdered her parents and Abuela earlier, this horrific treatment doesn't constitute child abuse. Whereas the parent characters are at least given the troublemaker by authorities or witness their misbehavior themselves, Mrs. Christina poked her nose into someone else's business and mercilessly tortured a kid who hadn't even done anything to her in the video but, as always, she's portrayed as someone giving a troublemaker their just desserts.
- Dora's family isn't that much better, seeing as the reason Dora murders them in the first place is due to them grounding her for their amusement one time too many. Both of these might be intentional as a Stealth Parody of how much of a Too Bleak, Stopped Caring feeling these videos can have, however.
- Elena is generally depicted in videos by ItsChesterDern with an explosive temper and absolute potty mouth but still meant to be viewed as putting Dora back in her place note . She especially qualifies as such in this video in which, after two and a half hours of proclaiming what she's thankful for, she refuses to let Dora have any turkey with the family simply because she's already grounded Mind you... , then proceeds to give a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown after Dora (predictably enough) flips out and trashes the kitchen in retribution. To pour salt on a gash, Elena then openly blames Dora for Thanksgiving getting ruined, even though she caused the situation (and her abusive behavior presumably created such a monstrous daughter to begin with) yet you're expected to side with her anyway.
