'Toon Reviews 13: The Loud House Season 2 Episode 12: Potty Mouth/L is for Love

Potty Mouth

Life is filled with things that are inappropriate or too hurtful to say and do, which is why films and TV shows have to be censored on certain terms.  This is a media practice that has been going on for years, and many shows often turn out some entertaining material which pokes fun at the need for censorship.  With this cartoon, The Loud House is now one of those shows to fit that trend.  When you consider a baby character like Lily, you might not expect a lot of personality out of her since she’s too young to be fully fleshed out.  However, her infant tendencies are what drive the censorship references that make up the cartoon.  Since we’re so used to bad actions or words being blocked out by cutting away or using a certain sound, these references have their own clever way here.  Since Lily can’t talk, she communicates what sounds like a curse word through her baby babble, making it not stated directly, but audible enough to deduce it as, what everyone else calls it, the d-word.  This is not only a unique way of making exactly what the word is clear when other shows with this plot normally leave us guessing what was said, but given that it’s coming from a babbling baby, it’s honestly kind of cute whenever Lily says it.  For the plot though, her apparent swearing is a big problem since she’s to be interviewed for a special daycare Mom and Dad have been trying to get one of the kids into since Mom was pregnant with Lori.  Through an effective use of montage, another mature layer to the Loud kids is shown as looking back at the times they used the d-word out of frustration makes them think they may have badly influenced Lily, and set out to take responsibility for their actions.  From an audience perspective, the times the kids use the word are humorously executed, as are all their attempts to not say it when they repeat what they did in front of Lily. Anyone can relate to this since when things get really frustrating, we can’t help what we say, especially at an older age.  However, even with them eventually becoming strong enough to not say the d-word, Lily still keeps on saying it, so when the daycare interview finally happens, the kids take it upon themselves to make it go well.  We’re treated to a humorous sequence of Lisa going in Lily’s place as the head of the daycare center, Dr. Shuttleworth, interviews her, and Lisa feebly attempts to put her intellect aside to act like a 1-year-old.  Plus, it’s an interesting follow-up to an earlier humorous aside that she lost her hair and teeth in a nuclear experiment gone wrong.  Then when Lily ends up saying the d-word anyway right after getting into the daycare center, Dr. Shuttleworth reveals that she was just trying to ask for a donut the whole time.  It’s certainly an interesting twist considering that, if you look closely, all the scenes of Lily saying what was thought to be the d-word involved donuts in some way.  However, you’d think that at some point the kids would figure that Lily’s babble could’ve meant anything.  It’s obvious that she still has a lot to learn when it comes to talking.  I’d also have the final scene of Lily cursing for real when Charles steals her donut down as a weak point, but since what we had was highly entertaining enough, the end bit doesn’t really sting at all.  In all, this cartoon has one of the most entertaining uses of censorship along with strong comedy and moments of the kids growing more considerate of their effects on the world around them. 9.5/10

L is for Love

When you stop to think about it, it’s astounding how many things family members can bond over, and some of them being a common occurrence in life. In the case of this cartoon, that common occurrence is finding love, and in addition to its strong sense of family bonds, the story also works in other engaging qualities that make it an impressive animated work for this season.  Everything unfolds when the kids discover a love letter marked L. Loud, and since their parents gave them all names that start with L, that means the letter could be for any of them.  Like the previous cartoon, this one effectively uses the filming device of montage to help tell the story, specifically through showing all the love interests all the kids hope the letter came from.  While most of the love interests match the kids’ interests, some of them show some interesting points to the characters, like Leni, a highly fashionable girl, liking a fat geeky boy, Lucy apparently having Rocky from “Back in Black” as a rebound crush in favor of a boy more like her, and Lily, with her infantile mindset, cutely crushing on her teddy bear.  Anyway, given their competitive and temperamental nature shown throughout the series, it would be easy for the kids to constantly fight over who the letter’s for.  Instead, the cartoon goes the more pleasing route by having everyone support each other to find their love all the way through with sending their crushes a signal, and giving a sign of affection after another letter comes with a rose, even if the letter’s not for them.  Of all the Loud kids though, Luna stands out the most, and given how she’s the favorite character of many fans, including me, it’s extremely welcome to get some development from her, especially since this season doesn’t feature a lot of cartoons with her as the lead.  Now, Luna’s always very caring and entertaining as well as one of, if not the most relatable Loud sibling.  Even her interests give her the most depth as they’ve been shown to define her purpose in life.  Here, we see that through being true to herself, she fears that she’s no match for her love interest, Sam, thus being too shy to show affection which is very relatable and sympathetic . Luckily, her siblings continue to show great support by urging her to keep trying, especially when it feels like the letter was from Sam after all.  It turns out that it was actually from Dad which ties into a story of how Mom kept sending love letters to him due to fearing he was out of her league, but the letters ultimately gave her the strength to directly tell him her feelings, and they perform the same ritual to relive the past to this day.  So amidst the love letter plot, we get solid development for the parents as well.  What’s more, the story they tell ties into another great trait of Luna’s, which is how her family bonds inspire her to get by in life.  She decides to show her affection to Sam with her own love letter and leads the other siblings to do the same with their crushes.  It’s after this scene where we end with a montage where all the kids are enlightened enough to sneak in their own love letters to heartwarming effect which includes an interesting layer to Luna’s crush.  It turns out that Sam’s not a guy Luna likes…

Sam’s a girl Luna likes.  Since she has a name that can go with any gender and no pronouns were used when discussing her with no reveal until the end, this works as an effective twist especially when you consider that this makes Luna bi (she was shown to also crush on guys earlier in the series).  Plus, even if Luna’s anxieties of winning Sam over were simply because of her not being cool enough, Luna can still be seen as relatable to real-life LGBT members who are often overlooked by society, only recently starting to appear in family shows.  I certainly look forward to see how this potential couple will work as well as how Sam turns out as a character.  This cartoon really packs in a lot of greatness with newly-revealed layers to the characters, some of the best moments featuring the Loud kids together, and the show’s biggest form of LGBT representation since the reveal of Clyde’s dads.  It’s big on charm as well as engaging executions. 10/10

The Ranking

1. 11 Louds a Leapin’
2. L is for Love
3. Pulp Friction
4. Frog Wild
5. Party Down
6. Lock n Loud
7. Fed Up
8. Potty Mouth
9. Baby Steps
10. Shell Shock
11. Suite and Sour
12. Back in Black
13. Patching Things Up
14. The Whole Picture
15. The Old and the Restless
16. Kick the Bucket List
17. Intern for the Worse
18. Cheater by the Dozen
19. Pets Peeved
20. Making the Grade
21. Vantastic Voyage
22. No Such Luck
23. Brawl in the Family

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Ronnie Anne and her family take up the starring role in the season's second half-hour special, "The Loudest Mission: Relative Chaos."

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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 21

The Loudest Yard

 

 

 

  

 

There are only three cartoons in this season that I consider bad.  We’ve already covered two, “The Green House,” and “Two Boys and a Baby,” and this is the third one.  It’s the least bad of the three, but there are still a lot of factors that prevent it from being enjoyable.  The main premise of the cartoon is that Lincoln is signed up for football despite not being good at sports after not being willing to do basic exercises.  I’m not fond of Lincoln being forced into something he’s not good at when Mom could’ve just goaded him to try harder at basic exercises and use football as a threat if he doesn’t, though you have to wonder why she only has him and no one else exercise.  At the same time, Lincoln doesn’t hold much sympathy because he really doesn’t try.  As a result, I can’t go along with either side of the situation.  Now, we are treated to a lot of Lincoln’s relationship with Lynn here which is nice.  We’re used to seeing her roughhouse with Lincoln a lot due to her love of sports, but as we watch her willingly coach Lincoln at football, this cartoon proves that she really does care for him.  The only problem is that, once again, Lincoln isn’t really trying, resulting in a lack of sympathy.  The lack of sympathy grows even more when Lincoln decides that Lynn should disguise herself as him on the actual football team, perhaps the most stupid idea he has ever come up with.  The kicker is that it actually works for an entire season with Lynn going in Lincoln’s place while he sits around and reads comics literally everyday even if it should’ve been easy to figure out that the player wasn’t Lincoln if someone just looked closely or took off the helmet. In other words, this part of the cartoon is hard to suspend disbelief towards.  What really makes the cartoon bad though is the ending.  The truth ends up exposed during the final game when Lynn sprains her ankle and everyone sees who she really is when her helmet comes off.  Lincoln admits his wrongdoing and fills in for her, the moment staged to be one to redeem himself by winning the game.  Instead, Lincoln ends up scoring for the other team and everyone’s mad at him.  If he had actually won the game and realize that he is capable of sports, everything in the cartoon would’ve been worth it and this would be one of his best performances.  However, we close things out with the impression that Lincoln is a disgrace to everyone who can’t do anything right, and, as is normal with most weak cartoons of this show, nothing is accomplished.  If it wasn’t for the great portrayal of Lynn and Lincoln’s relationship, this cartoon would be a lot worse than it is.  Still, it suffers from stupid plot decisions, unlikable characters, and an ending that really sours everything.  Because of this, it’s a good one to skip. 4.5/10

 Raw Deal
 

 

 

 

 

 

People often tell me that I shouldn’t let fear rule my life.  This is what helps me relate to this cartoon a lot.  It starts out like it’s going to be a great day out at a national park for the Loud family, Lincoln especially.  The theme of not letting fear rule your life comes into play when Lucy brings out a set of cards that predict everyone’s future, one of them saying that Lincoln’s day will end in tragedy.  It doesn’t seem like much to believe in at first, but slowly, in a lot of clever and funny ways, the rest of the sisters’ good predictions come true, making it likely that Lincoln’s will come true too.  The rest of the cartoon follows Lincoln too paranoid to take part in all the fun things to do at the park with his family.  I can identify with Lincoln a lot because there are times when I worry a lot about certain bad things happening.  However, while I mostly put them aside and live my life hoping for the best, Lincoln goes the extreme route by keeping himself from doing anything.  The ideas he has for what bad things can happen to him have a comedic charm to them and they’re easy to sit through since he’s bringing his lack of enjoyment on himself.  Even so, I can’t help but feel sorry for the fact that he ends up missing out on a lot of great things to do so much so that it overshadows the humor of his paranoia.  That, and Lucy, who’s normally on good terms with Lincoln, doesn’t seem to show much sympathy for him considering that she made him feel the way he does with her predictions unlike most of the rest of the family.  These points are remedied somewhat by Lincoln realizing he had nothing to worry about and learning something from it, him being the only Loud to see a usually dormant geyser go off, and a hilarious ending gag involving Lucy’s cards.  This cartoon’s heart is easy to sense even if you don’t relate to it on a personal level.  Even more importantly, while not perfect regarding entertainment, there’s still plenty of elements to make it an enjoyable experience. 8/10

The Ranking

1.      For Bros About to Rock

2.      Undie Pressure

3.      Project Loud House

4.      Space Invader

5.      Driving Miss Hazy

6.      Left in the Dark

7.      Toads and Tiaras

8.      Picture Perfect

9.      House Music

10.  Save the Date

11.  Sleuth or Consequences

12.  Hand-Me-Downer

13.  No Guts No Glori

14.  Roughin’ It

15.  Attention Deficit

16.  Changing the Baby

17.  Along Came A Sister

18.  April Fools Rules

19.  A Novel Idea

20.  Sound of Silence

21.  Butterfly Effect

22.  A Tale of Two Tables

23.  Cereal Offender

24.  Cover Girls

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

26.  The Waiting Game

27.  Overnight Success

28.  Raw Deal

29.  In Tents Debate

30.  Lincoln Loud: Girl Guru

31.  Out on a Limo

32.  Linc or Swim

33.  The Sweet Spot

34.  Heavy Meddle

35.  Get the Message

36.  Come Sale Away

37.  Ties that Bind

38.  Making the Case

39.  Chore and Peace

40.  The Loudest Yard

41.  Two Boys and a Baby

42.  The Green House

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Lincoln has to juggle four dates at a Sadie Hawkins Dance and in turn come up with a "Dance, Dance Resolution" around it, and Lincoln hanging with Bobby and Lori hanging with Clyde at a fair turns out to be "A Fair to Remember."

'Toon Reviews 4: The Loud House Season 1 Episode 15

Cover Girls

 

 

 

Now here’s another cartoon that demonstrates how much the Loud siblings care for each other and are always willing to help.  You can see it right at the beginning which is an awesome action-packed sequence of the girls distracting Mom and Dad as Lincoln rushes to get home so no one realizes he missed his curfew.  Their care and love continues on well into the rest of the cartoon where Lincoln returns his sisters’ favor by covering for them on spring cleaning day while they go out to do other things.  You may think that the cartoon will feature Lincoln unfairly suffering by being the only one to keep up the charade while everyone else takes advantage of him, but the cartoon wisely goes in the direction that requires all the siblings to play their part.  Their grandpa, who they call Pop-Pop (just like what my family used to call our grandpa), calls them on video chat which prompts Lincoln to cover as his sisters as best he can so no one notices that they’re not home.  As more of the sisters come home, they start posing as other siblings too, and the cartoon results in one hilarious collection of different Loud siblings posing as other siblings.  There’s a lot of passion thrown into the acting that allows the characters to successfully emulate the different characters they’re imitating, but still remaining true to themselves.  Some of my favorite interpretations include Lana as Leni, Lynn as Lisa, and Lori as Lincoln.  Leni and Luan even put on a great homage to the Marx Brothers at one point.  Then, we get an ending where the kids get caught deceiving everyone by their parents who then proceed to punish them by having them go out and do what they wanted to do while dressed in their disguises, resulting in all of them getting into embarrassing situations.  This ending does have a bit of a downer tone that honestly unfairly sours things for the kids.  I mean, was their act of deception really THAT bad?  Honestly though, despite this being a bit of an issue with the cartoon, the ending is still tolerable since I’m still able to get a good laugh out of at least a few of the scenes of the kids being forced to do what they planned on doing in their disguises.  Also, it doesn’t change the fact that we still see the great factors of the bonds of the Loud siblings.  With that in place, I personally call this cartoon a good watch. 8/10

 Save the Date

The end of the cartoon, “Heavy Meddle,” suggested that the girl bullying Lincoln, Ronnie Anne, actually really likes Lincoln signaling the start of them potentially growing as friends.  This cartoon here shows that happening.  Although to get there, we start off with Lincoln being bullied by her again, this time with the kids at school teasing him about how this may mean she likes him.  Personally, I don't get why having a lover would be a reason for bullies to tease.  Finding love is seen as a great thing.  Why would bullies think otherwise?  Anyway, when Lincoln tensely rejects that, he accidentally hurts her feelings.  Following a hilarious over-the-top display of the trope of an average teenage girl reacting to a break-up from Lori whom Bobby broke up with on account that her brother, Lincoln, hurt his sister, Ronnie Anne, Lincoln finds himself roped into a double date with Lori, Bobby, and Ronnie Anne. This is part of an attempt for him to make things right with Ronnie Anne so Lori will get back with Bobby.  This is where we start to see some natural progression of Lincoln and Ronnie Anne warming up to each other.  At first, they’re not too pleased to see each other, but as Lori and Bobby start flirting with each other, clearly showing that they do not want to be broken up, the younger siblings find a common interest as they comment on the cheesy flirting.  The more they talk about this, the more Lincoln and Ronnie Anne start to like being together, ultimately going on to apologize for being such pains to each other.  This is a newly formed respect for each other that was a result of believable events, in this case, enjoying something similar, and is ultimately one worth getting behind especially since the other character pairing of Lori and Bobby, seems to be a very basic relationship established on flirting over each other, though its over-the-top tone and the clear care they have for each other make it enjoyable.  Because Lincoln and Ronnie Anne’s relationship is so appealing, it’s a bit frustrating when Lincoln goes on to hide that he’s starting to like her as the kids from school arrive at the very restaurant he’s at.  Is there seriously no reason why he can’t just tell Ronnie Anne that he doesn’t want them to tease him for liking her?  Anyway, this whole shtick ends up causing Lincoln to hurt Ronnie Anne again which seems like a sad end for what could’ve been a great relationship.  However, the cartoon remembers what greatness it set up by having Lincoln follow Lori’s earlier advice of how actions speak louder than words. Lincoln shows Ronnie Anne how he really feels about her by kissing her.  I can certainly see them as a couple, but the show is obviously pushing for Lori and Bobby to get together, so if Lori and Bobby do become a couple, wouldn’t it be awkward for Lori’s brother to end up with Bobby’s sister?  Well, I guess that’s a topic to be addressed in later seasons.  For this cartoon, we get a satisfying end that has Lincoln and Ronnie Anne remain friends and Lincoln avoid being teased for it, which is good because this cartoon really succeeded in building them up as a charming pair.  For that, I can proudly say that it left me wanting more. 9/10

The Ranking

1.      For Bros About to Rock

2.      Undie Pressure

3.      Project Loud House

4.      Space Invader

5.      Driving Miss Hazy

6.      Left in the Dark

7.      Toads and Tiaras

8.      Picture Perfect

9.      Save the Date

10.  Sleuth or Consequences

11.  Hand-Me-Downer

12.  No Guts No Glori

13.  Changing the Baby

14.  Along Came A Sister

15.  Sound of Silence

16.  Butterfly Effect

17.  A Tale of Two Tables

18.  Cover Girls

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

20.  Overnight Success

21.  In Tents Debate

22.  Linc or Swim

23.  The Sweet Spot

24.  Heavy Meddle

25.  Get the Message

26.  Ties that Bind

27.  Making the Case

28.  Chore and Peace

29.  Two Boys and a Baby

30.  The Green House

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where we really get to know Clyde's dads in "Attention Deficit" and witness one of Lincoln's worst displays of family love as he goes "Out on a Limo."