Well folks, this is it. We’ve finally reached the last installment of our Pop Dream miniseries salute to The Loud House.
“But Star Bros.”, I hear you ask, “How could you have one more? You’ve already covered Lincoln and each of his 10 sisters…
“…Who’s left?”
-Why, their parents, of course!
“What the what??”
Yes, we’re throwing y’all a curve ball for this one. Our final Loud House Pop Dream is all about the couple who made all of the Loud kids possible. Today’s Pop Dream spotlights Lynn Loud, Sr. and Rita Loud!
Lynn Sr.: A Pop Dream all about the ol’ parents? Well, that gets a few points on the Dad-O-Meter!
Rita: Hon…that’s joke’s so lame it’s on crutches.
Wait a minute. Lynn Sr. and Rita? Senior? Rita? Senorita!
OVERVIEW
Lynn Loud, Sr. (a.k.a. Dad) is the father of Lincoln and his sisters. Lynn Sr. is a supporting character in the first season, but becomes a more major character from Season 2-onward.
Additionally, Rita Loud (a.k.a. Mom) is the mother of the Loud children. Rita is a supporting character in the first season, and a major character from Season 2 and onwards.
The only Loud family member not to have an alliterative name, Rita’s name is a pun on the phrase “read aloud”, referring to her desire to be a novelist, which involves reading (and writing).
The Loud parents act playfully romantic towards each other (an example of this is when they skinny dip into the hotel pool).
Don’t worry, we’re not gonna show you that.
“Thank goodness!”
Initially, the parents’ faces were never shown during the first season. They were finally revealed in the Season 2 premiere, “11 Louds a Leapin'”.
“Yeah, brutha, it sucks to not have a face!”
“Eh, it’s not so bad. For one thing, you never have to shop for hats!”
At the beginning of the episode “Suite and Sour”, for the first few seconds of the episode their faces were again kept hidden, as if their reveal never happened, only to show them afterwards.
“Fooled ya!”
APPEARANCE
Rita wears a pink shirt with a white collar and cuffs, and purple pants. She has big blonde hair and white earrings. She also wears blue eye shadow and red lipstick. She also wears black low tops.
Plus she’s got a serious set of thighs and glutes!
“Dude! That is not cool! You’re gonna get us in trouble again!”
Lynn Sr. wears a sea green sweater over a light-green checkered collar and cuffs, and brown slacks. He has a long pointy nose, brown eyebrows, and curly brown hair that is thinning on the top.
Also, Dude’s kind of hairy!
“He’s bringin’ sexy back!”
PERSONALITY
Lynn Sr. is stern, and often calls a halt to his kids’ fights, but he loves and cares about them. He also loves his wife, and often acts playfully romantic towards her. He has been shown to have a childlike side at times, even sometimes taking part in his kids’ antics, when it’s all in good fun. He’s also the more sensitive of the two parents, often necessitating his wife, and stepping in whenever he needs to pull himself together.
In the episode “House Music”, we learn that Lynn Sr. used to play the cowbell. He was even in a band…
…Until the other members kicked him out for going nuts with it.
Thankfully, he does get his moment to shine at the family fair.
Rita is caring toward her children, but is not afraid to punish them if they go too far. She and her husband act playfully romantic towards each other, though she is apparently more level-headed than him.
She dreams to be a novelist but initially seems to lack a creative side, as she wrote a story about a bored dental assistant talking to her fish before being inspired by Lincoln to write about a thrill seeker with white hair, himself.
“_ _ _ _ _ ,
_ _ _ _ _ _ _.
_ _ _ _ _ _.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _.”
-Four lines from a lazy poet.”
Lori, Leni, Lana, Lola, and Lily seem to resemble Rita the most. Out of all the kids, Rita she is closest with Lincoln. Out of all her daughters, she’s the closest to Lori, Leni, and Lily.
Luna, Luan, Lynn, and Lisa seem to resemble Lynn, Sr. the most. Out of his children, he’s the closest to Luna, Luan, Lynn, and Lana. He is the first character in the series, apart from Lincoln, to speak to the audience. This instance occurred at the end of “It’s a Loud, Loud, Loud, Loud, House”. Lynn Sr. seems to enjoy jokes and dancing. He is shown to dance on occasions in episodes such as “The Loudest Yard”, “Ties That Bind”, “Come Sale Away”, “House Music”, and “Lock ‘N’ Loud”. In addition, it is mentioned in “A Tattler’s Tale” that he won a dancing contest, and had a disco ball trophy that Lincoln broke. In addition, in “Sleuth or Consequences” he mentions enjoying karaoke. On occasion, he enjoys Luan’s jokes, and tries making his own, which appeal to Luan as well, as shown in “Raw Deal”.
He’s also shown to be quite a coward, as he screams and faints at the sight, sound, and idea of spiders, Lana’s mud wrestling, horror movies, and Halloween.
“The nuts don’t fall too far from the tree! Yuk-yuk!”
“What are you, NUTS? That joke was NUT very good! Get it?”
FUNNIER MOMENTS
“The Price of Admission”: The fun begins when Lincoln wants to go see a horror movie starring a character called The Harvester, a fiend who harvests peoples’ innards. Lincoln shows his mom Rita a trailer for the movie on the phone, but Rita forbids him from going.
Rita: Uh-uh, Lincoln, you are not seeing that movie. It is too scary for you. He pulls around a cooler full of organs!
Lincoln: (disappointed and groaning) Mom!
Rita: You know how you get. You’ll have nightmares. You’ll think something’s out to get you. You’re just like your father.
(As she walks away, Lynn Sr. comes out from behind the sofa with a teddy bear.)
Lynn Sr.: That is a total exaggeration! On a completely different note, that trailer is never to be played in this house again. (walks away fidgeting in fear.)
But wait, there’s more: later, after Linc sneaks into the theater to see the movie anyway, and is of course, freaked out beyond belief that night, he does everything he can to stay awake, at one point going to the kitchen and spotting this:
“I’m gonna slice you right down the middle!”
Lincoln reacts the way you’d expect. This gag comes up again in the following scene the following morning.
(In the kitchen, Lynn Sr. is working on the ceramic pumpkins and Rita is checking the fridge.)
Rita: Honey, have you seen the cake I baked for the school fundraiser?
Lynn Sr.: (spits out coffee) No, I didn’t see your carrot cake.
Rita: (suspicious) How did you know it was carrot?
Lynn Sr.: I…uh… (sees his son) Lincoln! There you are.
And later on, after Rita and Lynn allow Lincoln to see the movie and even accompanying him (not realizing he’s already seen it), Lincoln confesses and the folks let him off the hook. Lynn Sr. laments what a ‘shame’ it is that they won’t get to see the films because he “loves scary movies” so much, he spots the family’s neighbor Mr. Grouse cosplaying as the Harvester.
“AAAHH! THE HARVESTER! DON’T TAKE MY PANCREAS!”
What a guy!
“April Fools Rules”: the parents deal with their daughter Luan’s annual pranking spree in the appropriate manner.
“Lock ‘n’ Loud”: The parents return from a night of dance lessons. Lynn Sr. twirls Rita…right into the bushes, then gets riled up at those darn kids not locking the front door that he forgets to retrieve her. This happens twice in the short.
“Homespun”: Hiding out in the basement during a hurricane, the family talks about, among other things, how thin the walls are, leading to a flashback involving Lucy gripped in a romantic conundrum on whether or not she should cheat on her vampire bust Edward with a sexy werewolf. Eventually nearly everyone in the house weighs in on this, including Lynn, Sr. and Rita.
“Don’t these books sound a little old for Lucy?”
“Of course not, dear. When I was a girl, I read a series about a cute lumberjack.”
Side bar: I love the title of the book Rita’s reading, The Mom Jeans Ultimatum.
In another flashback we see the time the kids treated their parents on their anniversary by painting the house…quite literally.
“SURPRISE!!!”
“O-M-Gosh!”
Later the kids re-paint the house back to normal, but they still leave their mark by leaving their hand prints on the side.
Note how the color of the hand prints each Loud sibling places on the house, all match the colors they appear in the show’s theme song (except for Lincoln):
-Lincoln – Orange
-Lori – Light blue
-Leni – Turquoise
-Luna – Purple
-Luan – Yellow
-Lynn – Red
-Lucy – Black
-Lana – Blue
-Lola – Pink
-Lisa – Green
-Lily – Lavender
And if you picked up on that, congratulations! Here’s your Geek Card!
“Best…anniversary gift…ever.” (sniff)
“Come Sale Away”: the kids are showing off their victory butt-dances, trying to out do one another, until Rita intervenes.
“Kids! Please!” (The kids stop their victory dances.) “This is how you do a victory dance!” (does her own victory dance.) “Uh-huh! Go Mom! Shake that booty!”
Yeaaah, I probably enjoyed that more than I should have.
CONCLUSION
While The Loud House is first and foremost a kidcom, I have to say that the parents and their little scenes and interactions are one of the highlights of the show for me. I like how Rita and Lynn, Sr. are actual characters, rather than just being cardboard rule-givers or perpetually off-screen entities. Each of them has a clear-cut personality, the 2 of them compliment one another perfectly and neither is perfect; they sometimes disagree, do silly things and occasionally set bad examples for the kids; that’s much more interesting. I hope to one day create a kidcom, and the parents’ roles on the show will basically be like Lynn, Sr. and Rita’s. It’s good to show that kid protagonists have parents, and moms and dads are always around to keep the kids grounded, or just to embarrass them beyond belief.
That wraps up our Loud House Pop Dream. Next time, Pop Dream is gonna get wild, savage, in fact, downright animal. We’ll be heading to the mystic land of Jaamu for a little…
Keep on Pop Dreaming.
Twin Images 