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Nickelodeon’s highest rated program currently airing—and highest rated animated program across networks— is The Loud House. Executive produced by Mike Rubiner (who worked on a personal favorite, KaBlam), I don’t find that The Loud House has made waves like, say, Steven Universe or Gravity Falls. Those who aren’t paying close attention to network animation would have no reason to have heard about this show unless they accidentally turned on Nick. It’s a fairly traditional children’s cartoon fitting Nick’s aesthetic. The premise follows Lincoln Loud, an eleven-year-old who lives with his parents and ten sisters in suburban Detroit. Each episode, they run into some kind of trouble, which all the siblings typically need to help fix. It’s a really easygoing, episodic comedy and I don’t feel pressured to watch every single episode or marathon an entire season. It has a tone similar to Nick classics like The Fairly Oddparents and Spongebob Squarepants, which I’m sure has contributed to its mass success. Before season four has even aired, The Loud House was already renewed for season five!

It has great appeal for younger audiences who are still parsing out their basic moral compass. It’s also an easy show for babysitters to put on without it feeling like some torturous task: the jokes land, the animation has a timeless quality to it, and the characters aren’t irritating. When I first saw The Loud House, I assumed it would be a comedy that centers an annoyed boy who hates his sisters and finds their antics too girly for his taste. But, the show presents a loving family who realistically get on each other’s nerves and helps one another when they’re in a bad situation. I don’t love that all the sisters each have a personality stereotype (the cool older sister and her daft twin, the punk rocker, the comedian, the athlete, the emo poet, the genius, the pageant queen and her tomboy twin) while Lincoln has a range of interests and aspects to his personality.

There are a few moments that also made me cringe: an episode in season one where Lincoln dreams that he has ten brothers who end up being extremely messy and violent is an example. Others, like a season two episode where Lincoln and his sisters plot against a guy who they suspect is cheating on their eldest sister, made me laugh a lot. Overall, I think The Loud House has been a great addition to the network and I’m not surprised it’s been performing so well. Since I haven’t watched the show chronologically, sometimes it’s difficult to see how the characters and plot lines have improved. But when looking up episode titles, I can tell that there’s been more depth to each episode after season one, particularly in giving the Loud sisters more nuanced personalities and stories that don’t just center Lincoln.

Recently, the show earned a GLAAD award for featuring Clyde’s (Lincoln’s best friend) dads. They’ve been prominent characters in several episodes, the show praised for including an interracial gay couple on-screen. In season two’s “L is for Love,” Luna Loud (the rock-enthusiast) is revealed to have a girlfriend with whom she’s exchanged love letters, much to her siblings’ excitement. While it’s sometimes clumsy, I can tell that The Loud House is also trying to subvert the idea that having a lot of sisters inherently means that the environment hosts a lot of cattiness, shopping sprees, and Boy Talk. Perhaps it’s not as meme-worthy as other Nick classics, and not heavily pushing boundaries like some Cartoon Network or Disney programs, but this show quietly makes waves as it gains more popularity among its target demographic. This is a show for younger audiences that, unlike shows on CN and Disney, doesn’t have a large adult base, which makes it more significant that they’re adding these storylines because it’s truly for kids. It’s also nice to casually watch a show that isn’t wrapped up in lore, or has adults arguing about animation-frame speed, shipping, or consistency errors online.

That said, for me it’s also one of those shows, like We Bare Bears and Gumball, that I can only watch in small doses. If I watch these programs, it’s usually while I’m doing other tasks and want an easygoing show that helps me pass the time. It’s that or Great British Bake-off. They’re enjoyable enough that I can watch for the amount of time it takes to detangle my hair (two or three hours) or make dinner (30 minutes), but I don’t go out of my way to watch it. And that’s okay! I’m not the target audience, but I appreciate what the show is doing and how it’s going to impact kids. In an interview with Animation Scoop, Mike Rubiner discusses the show shifting its point of view from solely Lincoln in order to have more complex stories about his sisters and secondary characters, their three Emmy nominations (they won two!), and the upcoming movie coming to Netflix.

Another related program to look forward to, is The Casagrandes, a spinoff of The Loud House that will follow Lincoln’s friend, Ronnie-Anne Santiago, as she and her family move to the city to live with their relatives, The Casagrandes. Also produced by Rubiner and following a similar episode format, this will be another exciting show presenting new perspectives on Latin-American families. The voice cast looks incredible and Lalo Alcaraz (cartoonist for Coco) has served as the show’s cultural consultant. It’s a perfect spinoff that not only expands the world of The Loud House but finally gives us protagonists who aren’t white.

The last commercially-successful show to feature an non-white protagonist on Nickelodeon was Avatar: The Last Airbender, so it’s great to see that Latin-American audiences will be able to watch relatable stories, perhaps reflecting their own families, on television. El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, was a short-lived 2007 series on Nick featuring a super powered boy living with his family and friends in Mexico. Since then, there hasn’t been another show with a prominent, Latinx cast. The Casagrandes will air in October 2019 and hopefully there will be ample time for promo so that this series can see success as well. The next season of The Loud House airs on May 27th on Nickelodeon and there are frequent reruns if you’re interested in checking it out.