Grounded

Today on Stuff You Might Have Missed

In “Horror Club,” which aired as episode 41, Steven plays tough about a spooky movie and then watches it from behind the couch.

Obviously the gag is set up to suggest Steven in fact couldn’t handle it, but some people have suggested Steven actually wasn’t just hiding from the scary stuff on the screen; that this was meant to be him dutifully observing his grounding from television, issued as a punishment in “Fusion Cuisine” (aired as episode 32).

To be honest I think Steven actually was just scared in this scene.

But it’s true that this theory tracks with several other instances of Steven enforcing this punishment upon himself even though no one around him cared. He avoids watching Li'l Butler in “Maximum Capacity” and says he’s into books now that he’s grounded from TV, and in “Winter Forecast” Connie mentions him not watching the weather channel because he’s grounded from TV.

He did, however, watch his mother’s VHS tape post-grounding, which is the same level of “rule-breaking” that applies to watching an old horror movie on DVD (or Li'l Butler, honestly). He does consider any images on a television to be “watching TV” even if it isn’t broadcast television.

So the verdict is: who knows?

It’s still a fun detail some people like to point out.