The Loud House (2002 TV series)

The Loud House is an American adult animated sitcom created by animator and comic illustrator Chris Savino and developed by Savino, Kyle Marshall, John R. Dilworth (known for creating Courage the Cowardly Dog) and Joe Murray (known for creating Nickelodeon's Rocko's Modern Life), for Cartoon Network's late-night programming block Adult Swim. The series revolves around the chaotic everyday life of the 11 Loud siblings, led by teenage older brothers bossy Loki and idiotic Loni. It is set in a fictional town in Michigan called Royal Woods which is based on Chris Savino's hometown of Royal Oak. The series is mainly known for its profanity and dark, surreal humor that satirizes a wide range of topics towards a mature audience age 14 (or sometimes higher age) and up.

The series was pitched to Cartoon Network in 1999 as part of their then-recently created block Adult Swim. Cartoon Network greenlit the series for production in early 2000 after the pilot was completed for Adult Swim. The series was originally supposed to air in late 2001 as one of the block's debut shows but the show was held back until mid-2002 due to behind-the-scenes issues with Cartoon Network. Episodes are produced at Cartoon Network Studios and Williams Street and animated by the Canadian studio Jam Filled Entertainment. The series is based on Savino's own childhood growing up in a large family, and its animation is largely influenced by newspaper comic strips.

Adult Swim officially premiered The Loud House on June 1, 2002 as part of their New Summer Lineup Block. The Loud House garnered good ratings and reviews from audiences and critics alike. In May 2004, the show's main characters were featured on the front cover of Variety as an example of cultural and ethnic diversity impacting television programs. Ever since, The Loud House is currently the long-running Adult Swim original series.

The series is rated TV-14-DLSV for mild violence, some blood, few character deaths, use of profanity and sexual elements while the uncensored version is rated TV-MA, with TV-PG episodes being rated TV-14.

Plot
In the fictional town of Royal Woods, Michigan, the series follows the misadventures of the Loud Siblings, eleven sibings with distinctive personalities: bossy eldest child Loki; ditzy fashionista Loni; musician Luke; comedian Lane; athletic Lynn; comic fangirl Linka; gloomy, sadistic and demonic goth Lars; polar-opposite twins Leif and Lola; child genius Levi, and baby Leon. One of the siblings (mostly either Loki or Linka) occasionally breaks the fourth wall to explain to viewers the chaotic conditions and sibling relationships of the household, and continually devises plans to make life in the house better.

There are six additional main characters, including Loki's girlfriend Bebe Santiago and her brother Ronnie; Linka's best friend Claire McBride; and the family's anthropomorphic pets, friendly dog Charles, smartass cat Cliff, grumpy canary Watt and laid-back rabbit Gromit, who are deceitful, self-serving masters of disguise.

Main

 * Loki Loud (voiced by Seth Green) - The 17-year-old eldest child of the Loud family and the only Loud child with a driver's license. Loki is depicted as a bossy, short-tempered, sarcastic, and cynical teenager who is condescending towards his younger siblings. Despite this, he cares deeply about his family. Loki is usually seen talking to his girlfriend Bebe on his smartphone and uses the word "literally" frequently. In some episodes, Loki is shown to have a flatulence problem that he refuses to admit by stating that it was either his shoes or the creaking floorboards making the noise.
 * Loni Loud (voiced by Sean Astin) - The 16-year-old second child of the Loud family who is almost always seen wearing sunglasses on top of his head. Loni is depicted as a dim-witted yet friendly blonde boy who shows talents in fashion designing, lock-picking, and wood-carving on occasion. He has a fear of spiders that is referenced in multiple episodes. As Loki's roommate, Loni would tend to borrow some of Loki's clothes without asking, which leads to them occasionally fighting over them. Along with Luke, he has the best relationship with Linka and the younger siblings (except Lola) of the other siblings.
 * Luke Loud (voiced by Greg Cipes) - The 15-year-old third child of the Loud family. Luke has a habit of speaking in a mock British accent. He is a wild and upbeat musician who owns various instruments, with his signature one being a purple electric guitar. He very closely follows the words of his idol Mick Swagger and always encourages his family to "stay cool". He also is a party animal, frecuently forcing old people to having wild parties.
 * Lane Loud (voiced by Rob Paulsen) - The 14-year-old fourth child and comedian of the Loud family and Luke's roommate. Most of his dialogue consists of bad puns, much to the annoyance of his siblings. He wears his hair in a bowl and has buck teeth with braces, giving him a squirrel-like appearance. Every April Fools Day, Lane becomes a prank-obsessed maniac which leaves his family (except Lars, who frequently blames him for some crime these days) and Claire in complete fear of the holiday as they try to avoid his pranks.
 * Lynn Loud Jr. (voiced by Jessica DiCicco) - The 13-year-old fifth child and athlete of the Loud family who is named after his father. He tends to start competitions among his siblings and plays a large amount of sports like baseball, basketball, football, and soccer.
 * Linka Loud (voiced by Jessica DiCicco) - The 11-year-old sixth child and the first daugther of the Loud family, who has white hair and a chipped front tooth and wears a orange shirt, a blue skirt and red Mary Janes shoes. Despite her generally girly appearance, Linka can act somewhat tomboyish at times, such as her passion for comic books (especially for her favorite superhero Ace Savvy). She breaks the fourth wall on a regular basis by speaking to the audience about the chaotic conditions and sibling relationships of her household when she always spend times with her siblings and always survives with them.
 * Lars Loud (voiced by Jessica DiCicco) - The eight-year-old seventh child of the Loud family and Lynn's roommate. Lars is a psycopath gothic boy with interests in poetry, séances and gothic fiction as well as owning some pet bats. He also is frecuently seen mutilating, killing and engaging in sexual debauchery with those who pose a threat to his family. Lars is highly intelligent and possesses incredible strength, surgical skills that he uses to mutilate his victims, the ability to steal from an evil scientist, a high-tech android and demonic powers which allow him to control local animals to do his bidding. He frecuently points knives at his siblings when they squabble. Despite his seemingly-evil ways, he loves and is extremely protective of his family: protecting them from danger, and often killing those who might do them harm, such as murdering a group of pedophiles who tried to rape Leif, attacking an evil scientist who kidnaped Levi or turning an unlicensed breast surgeon who gave Linka breast implants into a multiple-breasted freak. Lars' coffin-like bed leads to a hidden, underground lair that's filled with blood, pentagrams, victims – both living slaves and dead, mutilated bodies – and a throne where he usually watches television. Many of the series' one-time characters usually end up in his lair where they are either killed or kept as prisoners. He also has a long-standing feud with Henry Gobbleblobber, the Louds' next door neighbor who is the only character, besides the remaining Loud siblings, aware of Lars' evil nature. While Lars does not actually harm Mr. Gobbleblobber, he does put the old man in humiliating situations while making him seem crazy. Despite their adversarial nature, Lars has saved Mr. Gobbleblobber from being lobotomized while he was committed to an asylum when he attacked a police officer (as a result of one of their enconters in his underground lair) and a cannibalistic serial killer that Mr. Gobbleblobber had befriended, unaware he was an escaped convict and serial killer.
 * Leif Loud (voiced by Grey Griffin) - The six-year-old eighth child of the Loud family and the twin brother of Lola. Leif a fun-loving troublemaker who loves to play in mud, follow Lars in his killing adventures and get his hands dirty, which often annoys Lola. He is a skilled handyworker who loves animals (mostly frogs and reptiles).
 * Lola Loud (voiced by Grey Griffin) - The six-year-old ninth child and second daughter of the Loud family and the twin sister of Leif. Lola is a bratty "Princess" who is skilled at plotting and scheming to get her way. She becomes maniacal if her siblings anger her in any way, but ends up always put in humillating situations by Lars when it happens. Lola is mostly seen wearing a pink dress that conceals her legs and a tiara on her head. She is constantly entered in child beauty pageants and is the tattletale of the group. Notably, she is the only Loud child to call Lynn, Sr. "Daddy".
 * Levi Loud (voiced by Lara Jill Miller) - The four-year-old tenth child of the Loud family. He is a child prodigy who has a PhD and yet is still in kindergarten. He enjoys solving complex equations and math problems and performing elaborate experiments where he would often using his siblings (mainly Leif and Lola) and Claire as test subjects. He wears round glasses, speaks with a lateral lisp, laughs maniacally when performing experiments and is always annoyed by Leif when he creates a new invention.
 * Leon Loud (voiced by Grey Griffin) - The one-year-old baby of the Loud family. He is mostly seen wearing only a diaper. Linka shares a special connection with Leon and babysits him on several occasions. He has a habit of losing his diaper causing him to go naked and also causing his fellow siblings to put his diaper back on. The only phrase Leon utters aside from gibberish is "poo-poo", generally coupled with his diaper flying across the screen.
 * Bebe Santiago (voiced by Tara Strong) - A Mexican-American teenager who is Loki's girlfriend and older sister of Ronnie. Bebe is often nicknamed "Miss Boo Boo Bear" by Loki. She does various odd jobs like grocery store stockgirl, lifeguard, mall security guard, pizza delivery girl, department store worker and tour guide.
 * Ronaldo "Ronnie" Santiago (voiced by Pamela Segall Adlon) - The younger brother of Bebe who is Linka's classmate and love interest. He is very tough and enjoys skating, playing video games and pranks.
 * Claire McBride (voiced by Cree Summer) - A nerdy 11-year-old girl who is the best friend of Linka and the adoptive daughter of Howard and Harold. Claire owns a walkie-talkie that she uses on missions with Linka. Claire shares many interests with Linka such as video games and science fiction movies. She has an unrequited crush on Loki and tends to faint when he talks to her. When Linka cosplays as Ace Savvy, Claire dresses as her sidekick One-Eyed Jack.
 * Charles (voiced by Nick Bakay) - The pit buller terrier of the Loud Family. Generally smart and friendly with his roomates.
 * Cliff (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) - The black cat and terrorist of the four animals. Cliff is cheated, ridiculed, depraved, devious and cruel. He typically exhibits a lighthearted, carefree temperament while also engaged in his freakish grossness, outrageous malice, and rascally shenanigans and usually spends most of his time making fun of the stupidity of the siblings during their fights. However, much like his three other friends, he has a good time being scratched on the back by one of them.
 * Watt (voiced by Kurtwood Smith) - The yelllow canary of the family. Watt is the first pet of the family and the grumpiest of the quartet as he usually threatens to shove his claw up one of their asses. His personality is heavily based off of Red Forman from That 70s Show.
 * Gromit (voiced by Mitchell Whitfield) - The rabbit and the laid back pet of the family and usually seen sitting on the couch not caring about a thing that goes on around him as he watches TV.

Recurring

 * Lynn Loud Sr. (voiced by Brian Stepanek) - The father of the Loud children. His whole face is unseen until the second season. Lynn, Sr. often breaks up fights between his children before it goes too far and does all the cooking in the family as he dreams of being a chef.
 * Rita Loud (voiced by Jill Talley) - The mother of the Loud children, the daughter of Albert "Pop Pop", and the niece of Ruth. Her face is also unseen until the second season. She is the only Loud whose name does not begin with "L". Rita is caring towards her children, but is not afraid to punish them if their fighting goes too far. Rita is shown to be more level-headed than Lynn Sr.
 * Henry Gobbleblobber (voiced by Frank Collison) - The Loud family's next-door neighbor, referred to by most adult/one-time characters as "Grandpa" due to his elderly age. He is the only character besides the other Loud siblings, who is aware of Lars' evil ways and has borne witness to his several murders and other depraved acts. However, the police dismisses his attempts to expose Lars as just another of one of his "evil boy stories" and sometimes arrests him instead. Mr. Gobbleblobber views Lars as a monster though he understands that most of Lars' victims are just as bad as well. Mr. Gobbleblobber also suffers harassment from Lars, through he briefly got peace from him during his brief fear of vacuum cleaners. He was written out of the show after the ending of the episode "Brain Download" which he decides that he had enough of Lars' torment (after his wife Agnes was launched into space to destroy an satellite which contained a backup file of her memories) and decides to move away up into the mountains. He reappeared only in "Winter Season", where the Louds, along with Bebe and Ronnie, come to the mountains to search Loni, who was kidnapped by an gang of mobsters, while Lars realizes Mr. Gobbleblobber lives there and chases him around the mountains, only to Mr. Gobbleblobber revealing he planned for Lars to follow him and chose a secluded location so he could kill him. However, due to a few twists of fate, Lars escapes Mr. Gobbleblobber's gasp and manages to frame him for murder, though Mr. Gobbleblobber escapes custody when the police car who was taking him away goes off a cliff, becoming a fugitive on the run and revealing he would reappear again in an future episode.
 * Howard and Harold McBride (voiced by Michael McDonald and Wayne Brady) - Claire's overprotective fathers who care deeply about their daughter's well-being. They shower Claire with attention and rarely let her do anything unsupervised. Howard tends to get over emotional while watching his daughter grow up and is rather neurotic.
 * Crazy Linda (voiced by Seth MacFarlane) - an unattractive and deranged woman who is seen in most episodes trying to sell people, especially the Louds, products that are either old or broken. She was once married to Lane but that was because he was drunk during a party. She is often seen digging in trash to search for something to sell to people.
 * Steve - Lars' pet gimp who lives inside his master's underground lair and behaves like a dog. Unlike the prisoners in the lair, Lars actually cares and loves Steve and has made his room the only normal place in the lair. On the walls it shows that Steve and Lars often spend a lot of time together. He frecuently attacks Lola when she tries to get something. It was later revealed that in the double-length episode "Brain Download", Steve is actually Mr. Gobbleblobber's supposed deceased wife, Agnes.
 * Le Quack (voiced by Paul Schoeffler) - an French con-artist duck and the Louds' most recurring enemy. Le Quack first appears early in the show's first season, in which he has a fake amnesia-specialist license; he comes to the Loud House when Loni temporairly suffers from amnesia. Since then, he frequently returns and manages to dupe some of the siblings into helping him commit crime sprees, but he is always defeated by one of the siblings aware of his scams, and arrested by the police, only to escaping custody and returning in a future episode.
 * Ryan Tyson (voiced by Dan Castellaneta) - a boy and one of Linka's friends, who acts neutral towards Claire.
 * Maribelle Johnson (voiced by Candi Milo) - a girl, one of Linka's friends and Mrs. Johnson's daughter, who is short-tempered, sassy and bossy.
 * Lia (voiced by Kath Soucie) - a girl and one of Linka's friends, she has a grandmother and a 4 years old little sister.
 * Zoe Gurdle (voiced by Tara Strong) - a girl and one of Linka's friends, she is a redhead nerdy small girl.
 * Roxanne "Ruby" Spokes (voiced by Jessie Flower) - a girl and one of Linka's friends, she is a tomboyish girl and has two sisters; Roxanne (Lars' love interests) and Rose.
 * Hank and Hawk (voiced by Seth Green and Dan Castellaneta) - the teenage bullies who dislikes the Loud family, Claire and the Royal Woods Roosters.
 * Sophia (voiced by Jennifer Hale) - Lola's rival and the main antagonist of Lola-centered episodes/subplots. She is also one of Lars' most recurring victims.

Episodes
See List of The Loud House (2002 TV series) episodes

Production
The Loud House was created by Chris Savino for Cartoon Network. He based the series on his own experiences growing up in a large family. Early in development, the Loud family was going to be composed of twenty six rabbits, but this was terminated when Joe Murray saw this while working on Nickelodeon's Rocko's Modern Life. He said "It would seem funnier if they were humans". At first Savino was against the idea of making them humans because he didn't see how a huge number of siblings would fit into one family, but he realized that Murray was right.

While working on it after production on Rocko's Modern Life was finished, Savino decided to lower the number of siblings from twenty-six to eleven. He pitched the idea to Nickelodeon, however they turned it down, telling him that it looked too similar to Ren and Stimpy and Rocko's Modern Life, which contained too adult humor, and it would work better as an adult cartoon.

In 1999, he pitched the idea to Cartoon Network for its then-recent late-night block Adult Swim, as a 30 second hand-colored cel animated short of the characters fighting over who gets to the bathroom first and Lars pointing a knife at them to stop the fight. Adult Swim accepted it and originally planned to greenlite the show in 2001, however while working on the pilot for the show. Savino, Murray and Marshall had to deal with an executive who kept persuading them to make the show dark and edgy. This resulted in many arguments, and eventually to him being fired from the company. However, Savino realized the executive was right and hired John R. Dilworth, who added new elements involving Lars, who was intended to be a simple gothic boy, and remade him into a psycopath who kills, mutilates and rapes a bunch of countless victims. In June 2000, Cartoon Network announced that The Loud House had been picked up for a season of 13 episodes in its new late-night block Adult Swim. On June 25, 2002, Adult Swim announced that the series had been picked up for a second season of 19 episodes. On July 19, 2003, the show had been picked up for a third season of 26 episodes. Savino has cited Peanuts and Polly and Her Pals as influences on the show's characterizations and animation. Newspaper comic strips are also influences on the show's background art.

In 2002, Warner Bros. Pictures approached Savino for a movie based off the show, at first he was scared of the idea of a movie and turned down the offer, worried that it might be a terrible mistake to make "an hour and a half episode of the show". However, Marshall and Murray encouraged him to do it, for old times sake in case something like the show would never be brought up again. The cast and staff encouraged him as well to do it.

In Savino's mind, the movie had to be a proper send off to the show. When the film was completed, Savino intended it to be the series finale, "so [the show] wouldn't jump the shark" and it would giving networks that fellow long-running shows like Family Guy, The Simpsons and even SpongeBob SquarePants a lesson to learn, "finales deserve to be respected and not forgotten". However, Adult Swim wanted more episodes, which Savino accepted to continue the show.

Savino's firing
On October 17, 2017, Cartoon Brew reported that Chris Savino was suspended from Williams Street due to allegations of sexual harassment, the report noting that rumors of Savino's behavior have existed for "at least a decade". On October 19, a Adult Swim spokesperson confirmed that Savino had been fired from the studio and that the series will continue production without him. Six days later on October 23, Savino spoke for the first time since his firing saying he said he was "deeply sorry" for his actions. Alongside the announcement of the series being greenlit for a 13rd season, it was revealed that story editor Mike Rubiner had now been named executive producer and showrunner. On January 1, 2018, Adult Swim confirmed Savino would still working in the series, but in a smaller advisory role in which he will reviewing each episode and offering suggestions to Rubiner and the rest of the show's production crew.

Trivia

 * CN Skull variant: In most episodes, a random character (such as Linka, Loki and Luke) says "Skull" or "Loud". After 2012, the characters say random words or phrases instead.
 * This is [TBA].

Critical reception
The Loud House has received positive reviews, specifically for its animation, voice acting, characterization, and its off-color humor. Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media praised the show's voice cast and thematic messages, writing that "Adults and teenages will come to The Loud House for the laughs, but they'll return for the ensemble cast and the surprisingly heartwarming themes that dominate every story." Kevin Johnson of The A.V. Club gave the show a B+, noting that "the characters are defined by their traits, but never judged for them."

Loki, Loni, Linka, Lars, Leif and Lola are considered as the show's most popular characters. Lars is mainly a fan-favorite due to being considered a "satanic version of Dennis the Menace".

Other Media

 * The Loud House: The Complete First Season (DVD)
 * The Loud House: The Complete Second Season (DVD)
 * The Loud House: The Complete Season 3 (DVD)
 * The Loud House: The Complete Season 4 (DVD)
 * The Loud House Movie (2005 film)
 * The Loud House: The Complete Fifth and Sixth Season (DVD)
 * The Loud House: Season 7 (DVD)
 * The Loud House: Season 8-10 (DVD)