'Toon Reviews 13: The Loud House Season 2 Episode 21: No Laughing Matter/No Spoilers

No Laughing Matter

When it comes to Luan, how you feel about her depends on how much you can tolerate her constant need to work in a joke to almost everything she says.  I’m sorry to say that her puns have become so frequent that I can’t tolerate them as much as I used to and wish she’d just talk like a normal person more.  That said, I do admire that Luan comes off as one of the more relatable Louds since, however you feel about her jokes, she’s really passionate about what she loves, and it’s especially shown in cartoons with her as the star.  They feature her never ceasing to pull off elaborate pranks on April Fool’s Day, and also explore how seriously she takes comedy such as Season 1’s “Funny Business.”  This cartoon does fit into the latter type of Luan cartoon, but it’s lacking in the character-developing power.  What happens is that when Luan goes on a huge pranking spree to work up to an upcoming comedy competition, her siblings start getting fed up with her jokes.  She hears them venting and proceeds to give up comedy.  This means, in an interesting change of pace, Luan talks completely normally which is weird to all the siblings who expect her to pull some sort of prank or work in a joke or pun.  One admirable thing about this though is that despite being clearly and understandably annoyed by Luan’s constant joking, the other siblings feel the need to help her out of her funk and get her back into comedy, particularly when they also learn she’s dropping out of the comedy competition.  They understand that no matter how they feel about Luan constantly doing what she does, it’s wrong for her to be stripped of her passion, which is what makes her who she is. They spend the entire cartoon attempting to get Luan back in the comedy game.  In a way, this can be seen as a message to Luan’s detractors, as well as offer a new perspective on anyone who’s passionate about something.  That said, in all the moments of Luan turning herself against jokes and pranks by acting normal, there are a lot of missed opportunities for explorations of her character.  When she throws away everything associated with her comedic passions, we never find out the depths of how she feels about doing this.  Her role in the cartoon would’ve been more powerful if she explained how she got into comedy in the first place.  That reveal also would’ve helped make her siblings’ attempts to get her joking again more engaging.  I guess all we can do is see if a future cartoon will explain this.  Even if we don’t learn much about Luan’s history with comedy though, we do get one significant piece of development at the end when Lincoln unintentionally flubbing jokes at the competition goad her to go on stage, tell them the right way, and become the winner.  While this means she’s back to her jokes, Luan makes it clear that she understands how overbearing she can be with them to her siblings, and vows to hold back on the jokes a little, only ending the cartoon with a bunch of them at everyone’s approval.  Basically, this conclusion is a satisfying one for being considerate of both sides of the issue.  We’re left with a cartoon with a good message on respecting passionate people and Luan getting some handle on her jokes.  It may not be as in-depth as it could be, but it’s still impactful in its own right. 9/10

No Spoilers

If a cartoon character is dumb, said character is either a completely useless and unentertaining menace to society or highly endearing and innocent who can sometimes provide some good to a situation.  Leni is a dumb character who fits the second category.  With this cartoon, Leni’s appeal really increases with the establishment of a significant talent of hers amidst her lack of intelligence.  A specific part of Leni’s ditzy nature shown here is her inability to keep things as a surprise, especially when it comes to birthday parties.  As a montage shows, whenever the Louds try to throw a surprise party, Leni always finds a way to spoil the surprise to the family member receiving it whether she’s hiding right in front of the guest of honor, sending an invitation to the party’s recipient, or asking the birthday sibling what dress she should wear.  Each of these moments help make the family’s frustration with Leni’s issue understandable, as well as evoke some laughs out of the different creative ways Leni blows the elements of surprise.  Regarding the family, they’re planning a surprise birthday party for Mom and agree that under no circumstances should Leni be informed about what they’re doing.  As a result, much of the cartoon is just Lincoln doing what he can to prevent Leni from seeing anyone’s preparations for Mom’s party while all the other Louds put everything together.  It features some nice displays of Leni’s character in which her interests in fashion Lincoln exposes himself to for surprise’s sake demonstrate one of her rare moments of intelligence, which in a way, foreshadow what’s to come.  Still, her persistent dumb moments are plentiful through her clever interpretations of her siblings’ party preparations that don’t get her to realize what’s really going on which also have their own distinct cuteness.  They also, foreshadow what’s to come when Leni gets ideas for Mom’s party under the guise that everyone wants to keep it low-key.  What I mean by foreshadowing is how all that goes on leads to how much the kids realize they need Leni for what they’re doing.  Without her, their party is a complete mess with unappealing balloons and streamers, overly sugary cake, overly spicy sandwiches, problematic entertainment, and a guest list of people Mom sees but doesn’t necessarily like.  The only way the party comes together as something nice is when Leni gets involved.  She takes the time to consider what Mom likes and puts it all together for the party.  It does beg the question why nobody else considered to include what Mom likes in the original preparations.  Well, technically Lisa’s guests and Luan’s jokes tried but were just misguided, but everything else should’ve attempted to show some consideration for the guest of honor.  Regardless of this, the party Leni plans truly is impressive, and Mom’s reaction to the party feels completely earned.  It really shows that even if people lack intelligence, that doesn’t mean they’re incapable of everything, as Leni had previously shown with her hobbies and party ideas from her siblings hiding their work from her.  To cap off Leni’s newly established talent, she’s named the official Loud family party planner leaving the promise for many great parties to come…just not surprise parties.  Basic as the overall story may be, it’s executed in a charming manner that develops and does justice for Leni and proving that she is one of the best dumb characters in media. 9/10

The Ranking

1. 11 Louds a Leapin’
2. L is for Love
3. Pulp Friction
4. Frog Wild
5. Yes-Man
6. Party Down
7. Friend or Faux
8. Room with a Feud
9. Lock n Loud
10. Fool’s Paradise
11. Fed Up
12. Out of the Picture
13. Job Insecurity
14. Potty Mouth
15. The Loudest Mission: Relative Chaos
16. Spell it Out
17. Baby Steps
18. Shell Shock
19. Suite and Sour
20. Back in Black
21. Future Tense
22. Patching Things Up
23. No Spoilers
24. The Whole Picture
25. No Laughing Matter
26. Health Kicked
27. Garage Banned
28. Back Out There
29. The Old and the Restless
30. Kick the Bucket List
31. Intern for the Worse
32. Lynner Takes All
33. Cheater by the Dozen
34. Pets Peeved
35. Making the Grade
36. Vantastic Voyage
37. Change of Heart
38. ARGGH! You for Real?
39. No Such Luck
40. Brawl in the Family

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Lincoln and Dad bond over competing in a modern spin on a classic Nickelodeon game show in "Legends," and Lincoln exercises his big brother skills as well as his Rip Hardcore skills in "Mall of Duty."

If you want to stay updated for more reviews, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter.

If you would like to check out other Loud House reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

'Toon Reviews 13: The Loud House Season 2 Episode 16: Fool's Paradise/Job Insecurity

Fool’s Paradise

With this cartoon, it seems to suggest that every season is going to include a cartoon about April Fool’s Day considering that Season 1 gave us “April Fool’s Rules.”  That raises a lot of questions about the timeline of this show.  Will the kids continually age with every new April Fool’s Day cartoon?  Won’t Lori have to go to college during one in the following seasons?  Do these cartoons even have a way to logically fit in the timeline?  Questions aside, the appeal of this cartoon is that it takes all the interpretations of April Fool’s Day to the apocalypse from last season and further expands on them creating an unforgettable atmospheric experience filled with hilariously imagined pranks with the perfect Loud for the day, Luan, as the mastermind.  The rest of the family believes they’re finally able to catch a break from the annual prank onslaught this year when they find a magazine ad for a clown camp they send Luan to.  However, just when they think they’re safe, those thoughts are dashed when their car breaks down and they have to spend the night at a crummy motel.  Once at the motel, a series of antics lead them to evidence that Luan set up pranks all over the facility, and it’s only a matter of time before one gets set off for each of the siblings.  The whole family is forced to make a run for it without any knowledge of when the next prank will strike and their fright is creatively staged as running from a strange monstrous force.  It also helps that what they get up to is set against a dark and threatening setting like an old motel at night.  When the pranks do get set off, they really up the creativity in execution from the last time.  There’s collapsing balconies into a big gelatin mold, trap doors that launch people up to a fly paper-laden sign, fake rooms filled with nasty obstacles like a skunk and rhubarb pies (which Lana’s allergic to), Lily getting replaced with a monkey that attacks Lynn, and a ton of bleach covering a certain sister who loves darkness.  Through it all, there’s a huge revealing twist to this prank barrage that Lincoln is quick to discover.  It turns out that Dad was in on Luan’s plans the whole time to get out of her April Fool’s Day pranks for a decade, and the explanations for how everything from the pranks to the clown camp ad that started it all are highly clever.  The best part about this reveal is that Dad feels genuine regret for helping Luan with her prankish tortures on his family, right down to questioning what kind of father he is.  Fortunately, he gets a big moment of redemption when he and Lincoln form a special prank to get back at Luan, and it’s a huge success as Luan gets flung into the air, stuck on that fly paper sign, lands in dirty laundry, and gets stuck in the sky.  This is sure to satisfy anyone who felt that her simply getting a pie in the face last April Fool’s Day wasn’t enough for her.  However, in fitting with the horror genre of the cartoon, the ending isn’t completely happy as the whole family is left running scared of the prospect of next April Fool’s Day which Luan promises to be even worse.  What she does then actually turns out to be a pretty nasty set of pranks, but that will be discussed in my eventual reviews of Season 3.  For this April Fool’s Day cartoon though, it’s easily one of the show’s most creatively structured cartoons aided by the genuine suspense, fun and insightful character moments, imaginative pranks, and some sense of victory from the victims. 10/10

Job Insecurity

If all the Loud siblings working as a team more often than in the first season wasn’t enough to prove how mature they’re becoming, perhaps this cartoon where they’re led to question how their actions impact their dad’s life can help.  With so many cartoons where the kids frequently run wild for their own amusement without much concern for others, it’s great that they turn out so thoughtful here.  They find out that Dad no longer works at his old IT job and has instead taken a dishwasher position, a job he doesn’t like, at a local fusion restaurant.  It’s here where the kids become more considerate of their actions to others, getting the idea that they got him fired from his IT job, namely for their hyperactive antics at the latest Take Your Kids to Work Day (nice to know that his old job at least became more inclusive since Season 1).  Anyway, they take a generous route of finding Dad a new job and making sure he gets it.  There’s plenty of heart in how seriously the kids take finding a new job for sure, but there’s also some humorous bits like imagination spots of Dad doing random jobs and, after they find a new IT job and get someone to pose as Dad to make sure he gets it, teaching Mr. Grouse, someone with an old world mindset, what certain computer terms mean.  Speaking of Mr. Grouse, he’s fast becoming one of the best supporting characters.  He’s still a grump and typically does things for Dad’s famous lasagna, but this is where it starts feeling like he’s putting in some effort in a bargain through actively trying to understand computer terms and getting better as time goes on, and showing happiness for the kids when he gets the job in Dad’s place.  With the job secured, the kids let Dad know what they got for him, and it’s at this point that even if the kids meant well, there’s no shaking off that this is another misunderstanding plot.  They didn’t know that Dad lost his old job for three weeks and he never told them, then when they found him washing dishes, they went with the idea that it was their fault.  However, Dad tells them that he actively quit his IT job and became a dishwasher to train to be a chef at the same restaurant which is his dream job, tying into his frequently seen talent for cooking.  Anyway, since Dad shows no hesitation in telling the kids this despite having a reason not to tell them, that means nothing was stopping the kids from just asking him why he has the new job. Granted, their beliefs seemed believable from what they saw, at the time it looked like Dad didn’t want to talk about it, and we weren’t given a scene of the truth the kids didn’t know, so the plot could’ve been executed worse.  Plus, what the kids learn leads to a very impactful ending when they push for Dad to get his restaurant job back, regretting their actions again, Dad kindly makes them feel better, and circumstances lead to him not just being allowed to work at the restaurant again, but also become a chef right then and there.  It’s all one of the most pleasing and satisfying conclusions the show has turned out.  Overall, this cartoon stands as one of this season’s strongest.  It’s not just humorous in parts, but it’s also got legitimate heart through the character bonds, opening new chapters for characters’ lives, and especially presenting the Loud siblings at their most thoughtful and mature.  9.5/10

The Ranking

1. 11 Louds a Leapin’
2. L is for Love
3. Pulp Friction
4. Frog Wild
5. Party Down
6. Room with a Feud
7. Lock n Loud
8. Fool’s Paradise
9. Fed Up
10. Out of the Picture
11. Job Insecurity
12. Potty Mouth
13. The Loudest Mission: Relative Chaos
14. Spell it Out
15. Baby Steps
16. Shell Shock
17. Suite and Sour
18. Back in Black
19. Patching Things Up
20. The Whole Picture
21. Back Out There
22. The Old and the Restless
23. Kick the Bucket List
24. Intern for the Worse
25. Cheater by the Dozen
26. Pets Peeved
27. Making the Grade
28. Vantastic Voyage
29. No Such Luck
30. Brawl in the Family

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode with "ARRGH! You For Real?" misunderstanding the appeal of fictional media, and Lori discovering what having your own place is really like in "Garage Banned."

If you want to stay updated for more reviews, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter.

If you would like to check out other Loud House reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

'Toon Reviews 13: The Loud House Season 2 Episode 9: Kick the Bucket List/Party Down

Kick the Bucket List

This is another cartoon about Lincoln and Clyde getting up to activities best suited for their age, so that’s a sign that it’s not going to be as exciting as something with more interesting characters like most of Lincoln’s sisters and the side characters.  Nevertheless, what’s present in this cartoon is still fun and even relatable to an extent, especially if you’re a student.  If you are one or were one, breaks from school are no doubt something special to look forward to such as spring break.  With many days off, there are so many opportunities for fun, which is precisely how Lincoln and Clyde approach their upcoming spring break.  They have a whole itinerary of the best things they could do in a week and intend to do everything on their list.  It is smart that they planned what to do ahead of time and that the very thing that gets in the way of their schedule is out of their control.  Clyde’s dads surprise him with a vacation to Hawaii which Clyde won’t be back from until the last day of the break.  This factor makes it easy to get behind their attempts to work a week’s worth of activities into one day.  However, even if what Lincoln and Clyde decide to do is easy to get behind, it’s still not that exciting especially since it’s easy to predict that rushing through the activities will backfire if you’re old enough to know that’s what happens when you do it in real life.  From watching recorded episodes of their favorite TV show as it fast-forwards, to attempting and failing to ride a new Dairyland ride by cutting the line, to ending up orange while trying to swim in a pool of gelatin, the fun activities that continually backfire just keep on coming and their pretty obvious.  They’re thankfully funny most of the time, but they happen so much you wish that Lincoln and Clyde would remember what they learned about how schedules shouldn’t get in the way of having fun back in “Overnight Success.” There’s even more backfiring fun when their rushing leads Lincoln and Clyde to split up to finish the list.  This is where the enjoyment picks up when some of Lincoln’s sisters are thrown into the mix at times as well as Clyde having a humorous running gag of posing random objects as Lincoln as he does his share of activities, and constantly loses them.  However, the most exciting part of the cartoon comes at the end when Lincoln and Clyde meet up and have a ride home filled with non-stop action which always has you question what will happen next.  Not only does the race home save the most amount of entertainment for last, but it also effectively gives Lincoln and Clyde the message of how having fun is more important than schedules, even though they should already know this.  It may be easy to predict that things will go wrong, but since this cartoon is still highly entertaining as it is, it’s easy to forgive all that and enjoy what we have. 9/10

Party Down

What’s so special about taking a lot of distinct characters and bringing them together for a party?  It’s that a cartoon featuring this scenario is bound to turn out to be an exciting gathering with various character interactions and various points of view.  That’s the case with this party-themed cartoon, and the way the party builds up to a big, fun gathering is effective through the story direction.  It’s about Lori being allowed to throw her own party, and she wants everything to be perfectly sophisticated based on what she reads in a magazine.  However, through Lori following the magazine closely, the party may be sophisticated, but it’s very boring for all the guests that attend, and you really get their boredom as they struggle to go along with the sophisticated mannerisms of the party without enjoying themselves.  It’s only when some of the Loud siblings show off their skills when the party gets more fun for the guests, unsophisticated as it is. They include Luna making music out of anything she could fine, Luan telling jokes with her dummy, Mr. Coconuts, to an audience more receptive than her family, and Lincoln performing party tricks he studied disguised as a Russian exchange student.  Since what they do doesn’t fit the guidelines of Lori’s magazine, Lori ultimately bans them from the party, though thankfully, she isn’t nearly as harsh or bossy when doing so as she was earlier in the series, so that’s another clear sign of development for her.  However, without Lori’s family around, the party suffers as more guests are driven to leave and Lori slowly realizes that her trying to be sophisticated isn’t making for a good party.  Even if she was in the wrong for relying too much on that magazine, Lori is still sympathetic in this case since her intentions were understandable and she was never too hostile towards anyone who was simply trying to liven up the party.  However, that long time of Lori’s boring party and brief scenes of her siblings wanting to make things fun is what builds up to an incredibly lively party big on fun and featuring one fun character moment after another.  It also builds into a more satisfying conclusion to show that Lori’s learned to lighten up and have fun when it comes to parties.  It starts off with a fun party with her family that even she adds onto, but then Leni, through her interest of posting things, informs the guests who left of a more exciting party, which leads to Lori being rewarded with the big party she wanted as well as enjoyable interactions between the guests and the Louds.  Then when Mom and Dad come home to the wildly fun party, it would be easy for them to ruin the mood and stop the party just when it was getting fun.  Thankfully, they willingly join in the harmless fun, sealing the deal to this ending party being the perfect conclusion to this story.  Basically, this is one of those cartoons where everything just works with Lori’s great portrayal, a relatable setup, and a sense of fun that builds up to a grand finale of memorable character moments. 10/10

The Ranking

1. 11 Louds a Leapin’
2. Frog Wild
3. Party Down
4. Lock n Loud
5. Baby Steps
6. Suite and Sour
7. Back in Black
8. Patching Things Up
9. The Whole Picture
10. The Old and the Restless
11. Kick the Bucket List
12. Intern for the Worse
13. Cheater by the Dozen
14. Making the Grade
15. Vantastic Voyage
16. No Such Luck
17. Brawl in the Family
    

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where the kids get "Fed Up" with Dad's making the same dinner every week and team up to do something about it, and Ronnie Anne returns to team up with Lincoln for an egg baby challenge in "Shell Shocked."
If you would like to check out other Loud House reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

'Toon Reviews 4: The Loud House Season 1 Episode 24

Funny Business

 

 

 

As fun of a character Luan is for her love of comedy and ability to fit in a joke to any situation, I have to admit that she does it so much that throughout the season, she felt more like a joke machine than an actual character.  Then, this cartoon comes along to really flesh her out as someone that people who are passionate about certain things can relate to.  Luan needs an assistant to help her with clown duties at birthday parties, and following a hilarious montage of how many of the Loud siblings who took on the role before failed to live up to expectations, she appoints Lincoln.  We’re left with the impression that Lincoln might not be a good fit as Luan’s assistant either, but he surprisingly becomes a big hit at his first party after accidentally putting on a pratfall while trying to assist Luan.  If that’s not all, Lincoln feels so confident as a clowning assistant that he adds his own pratfall acts at all the birthday parties he and Luan attend, getting big laughs each time.  The biggest strength here is how one’s emotions are played with.  It’s easy to feel glad for Lincoln for knowing what he’s doing, as if he found something he’s good at, but you’re still able to feel for Luan.  As previously established, comedy is something she takes very seriously, almost down to treating it like an art.  For her own brother to treat it like it’s nothing by only needing to fall on your butt to generate laughs must be pretty hard for her.  She really comes off as a character with her own world view, and that really helps increase the appeal of this cartoon.  Since Lincoln doesn’t understand this when Luan first confronts him, he soon does when he takes on a birthday party on his own.  With the audience being a crowd of emo tweens, Lincoln’s pratfalls do nothing to entertain them.  It’s only after Luan comes in to help when everything works out, and it delivers a good message to anyone wanting to go into the entertainment business.  You have to know your audience.  Don’t just rely on gimmicks and standards.  To really make this cartoon a strong work, we end with both Lincoln and Luan getting something to learn.  We’ve already covered what Lincoln learned, but Luan also learns to be more patient with beginners since it’s not uncommon to find difficulty with getting your first laugh.  This cartoon really makes me feel good for naming Luan as one of my favorite Loud siblings and is aided by impactful messages and one of the show’s best portrayals of love between siblings.  It’s easily some great and, of course, funny material. 10/10

Snow Bored

 

 

 

 

If you like watching characters having fun in the snow, this is a cartoon for you.  Much of what we see here features the Loud siblings getting up to all kinds of snow day activities, and they all put their own appealing spin on what they do.  There are even some nice Peanuts references here and there, very fitting given the show’s comic-like aesthetic.  The plot that all these charming moments revolve around involves the Loud siblings trying to show Lisa how fun snow days can be so to convince her not to use special salt to ruin it.  Now, so far in the season, Lisa honestly hasn’t shown much to prove herself as one of the most entertaining Loud siblings.  In fact the most interesting thing about her is the type of character she is.  There’s a lot of uniqueness in a four-year-old girl being the smartest one in the family, and it’s great to see such a character come to life before our very eyes.  However, nothing else makes Lisa stand out .  This cartoon, however, does allow a lot more of Lisa's character to shine as well as fit in some decent entertainment.  Her siblings having fun in the snow greatly clashes with her intellect that deflates any potential fun she could be having and much of it is pretty funny.  Also, while we’re so accustomed to seeing Lisa act as a genius, we hardly ever see her literally act her age.  She finally gets a sense of how fun snow days can be when her siblings get her involved in a snowball fight.  In fact, she enjoys it so much that she has the snow day last for another day just so she can take part in more snowball fights which seems believable for a common 4-year-old, and when you add in her genius status which includes her ability to build highly functional snowball launchers, her snowball fights are another comedic highlight.  Plus, the rest of the siblings trying to hide from Lisa’s snowballs have a lot of humor to them which prevents their fear of getting pelted from being hard to watch.  The conclusion is a satisfying one where Lisa respects her siblings having enough of snow days which she now loves, and agrees to call them off while also cleverly stating to herself that this was all part of the plan, showing that she may be a genius, but like any child, there’s a trickster in her.  On the whole, this cartoon is a charming watch for its snow day atmosphere, and the ways it expands on Lisa’s character. 9/10

The Ranking

1.      For Bros About to Rock

2.      A Tattler’s Tale

3.      Undie Pressure

4.      Project Loud House

5.      Funny Business

6.      Space Invader

7.      A Fair to Remember

8.      Driving Miss Hazy

9.      Left in the Dark

10.  Toads and Tiaras

11.  Picture Perfect

12.  Dance, Dance Resolution

13.  House Music

14.  Save the Date

15.  Sleuth or Consequences

16.  Hand-Me-Downer

17.  No Guts No Glori

18.  Roughin’ It

19.  Attention Deficit

20.  Changing the Baby

21.  Along Came A Sister

22.  Snow Bored

23.  April Fools Rules

24.  A Novel Idea

25.  Sound of Silence

26.  Butterfly Effect

27.  A Tale of Two Tables

28.  Cereal Offender

29.  Cover Girls

30.  It’s A Loud, Loud, Loud, Loud House

31.  The Waiting Game

32.  Overnight Success

33.  Raw Deal

34.  In Tents Debate

35.  Lincoln Loud: Girl Guru

36.  Out on a Limo

37.  Linc or Swim

38.  The Sweet Spot

39.  Heavy Meddle

40.  Get the Message

41.  Come Sale Away

42.  Ties that Bind

43.  One of the Boys

44.  Making the Case

45.  Chore and Peace

46.  The Loudest Yard

47.  Two Boys and a Baby

48.  The Green House

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Lincoln becomes a nervous wreck after seeing a scary movie thus paying "The Price of Admission" and the flu causes a zombie apocalypse in the Loud House in "One Flu Over the Loud House."