The Loud House / Tropes I to M

The Loud House Trope Examples
A - B | C - D | E - H | I - M | N - Q | R - S | T - Z

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I

• Iconic Item: Most of the sisters own an object or more that they are closely associated with and practically define their personality:
  • Lori - Her phone
  • Leni - Her sunglasses
  • Luna - Her guitar
  • Luan - Mr. Coconuts, her Whoopee Cushion, her pies, and her microphone
  • Lucy - Her poetry, her bust of Edwin the Vampire
  • Lana - Her cap, her pet frog (Hops), and her wrench
  • Lola - Her tiara
  • Lisa - Her experiments
  • Lily - Her blanket
• Identical Twin Mistake:
  • Played with in "Training Day", when Lana initially thinks Snazzy the rabbit is Stella's rabbit Jazzy. They turn out to be brothers from the same litter, though it's unknown if there were any others in the litter.
  • In "Fam Scam", when Cricket sees her classmate Lola's twin sister Lana for the first time, she believes that Lola changed her clothes.
  • In "Double Trouble", when the Loud twins meet Scoots's twin sister Mopes (so-called because she rides a moped), they think she is Scoots in disguise.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: For a while, almost every Extra-Long Episode of the main series and The Casagrandes had a Verbed Title with an exclamation mark at the end. This trend stopped for the most part since Season 5 of the former and Season 1 of the latter, now being mostly relegated to specials (which were already the most common episodes to be titled that way before then).
• Idiot Ball:
  • In "Cover Girls", the Loud kids don't realise they can change back to their regular clothes when Pop Pop wants to see them together.
  • In "No Such Luck", Lincoln manages to convince Lori, Lisa, and the parents that he is bad luck surprisingly quickly. And in the end, once Lincoln convinces them that’s not the case, they assume the (cramped, worn and heated) suit he’s wearing is good luck and make him keep it.
  • In "Brawl in the Family", everyone seems pretty incompetent with their 'Sister Fight Protocol'. While Lincoln is a careless blabbermouth who just can’t resist letting insults loose about the angry sisters without even apparently realising that they'd be offended.
• Illness Blanket: Downplayed in "One Flu Over the Loud House", where all the Louds end up getting the flu, but only Rita is wrapped in a blanket.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • Lincoln has "Linc" or "Linky". To a lesser extent, he also has "Stinkin'", courtesy of Lynn Jr., but only she calls him that.
  • In a similar manner, many of the other siblings are also given shortened nicknames by each other. Lana and Lola are often referred to a "Lans" and "Lols" respectively. Luna is sometimes called "Lunes", Lisa is called "Lis" and Lucy is called "Luce". Lynn Jr is given the abbreviation "LJ" by the family, too, especially since it helps differentiate her from her dad.
  • Bobby has "Boo-boo Bear".
  • Lisa has "Lis" (pronounced like the word lease).
• Incompetent Guard Animal: In "Lock 'n Loud", Lana trains Charles to be an attack dog, but his laziness interferes. This is subverted at the end of the episode when Charles does attack a burglar, who's actually Lynn Sr., only because he saw some strips of bacon on the backside of the latter's pants.
• Inelegant Blubbering:
  • As shown in episodes like "The Loudest Mission: Relative Chaos" and "Missed Connection," both Bobby and Lori cry in this manner.
  • Lynn Sr. is also prone to this as shown in episodes like "Garage Banned," "Breaking Dad," and "Can't Hardly Wait."
• Inexplicably Speaks Fluent Alien: Discussed in the episode "Zach Attack", when Zach accidentally leads the citizens of Royal Woods to believe an alien invasion is taking place. To solve the problem, he dresses up three of his friends as aliens, who speak gibberish, and Zach pretends to translate them for the other citizens.
• Infernal Background:
  • In the episode "Toads and Tiaras", Lincoln has Lola's twin sister Lana fill in for her at a pageant while Lola's out with an injury. When Lola finds out, she is absolutely livid, leading to a scene where the background briefly turns into a raging fire behind her.
  • In "Butterfly Effect", Lincoln's Imagine Spot of Lisa getting angry with him over wrecking her experiments has flames appear behind her.
• Injured Limb Episode: In "Toads and Tiaras", Lola trips over a can of hair spray before a beauty pageant and breaks both an arm and a leg, so Lincoln trains Lana to sub for her.
• Innocent Awkward Question: In "Frog Wild", when the class of fifth graders are looking at the pet frogs, one of them asks, "What are those two doing?", prompting the teacher to awkwardly cover up the tank, implying they were mating.
• Innocent Swearing: In "Potty Mouth", the siblings think that they heard Lily say the "D" word (dammit). Double-subverted, as she was actually saying, "dannit" and trying to say, "donut". However, at the end of the episode, she says a bleeped swear.
• Insignificant Anniversary: Lori and Bobby celebrates random anniversaries such as their six weeks anniversary, 88 days anniversary, or the first time they ate pizza together.
• Instant Illness: In "One Flu Over the Loud House", the flu took seconds (for the twins, Lynn, Luna, Lucy, and Leni) or minutes (for Lincoln and possibly Luan) to manifest.
• Intentional Mess Making:
  • In "Pets Peeved", the Loud family gets a new dog. The original dog, Charles, plus Cliff the cat, Geo the hamster, and Walt the canary, are jealous of him, so they try to get him kicked out. First, they frame him for knocking over a vase, but Rita hated the vase so she praises him for it. Then, they spread mud all over the house and frame the new dog, but the family assumes it was an accident and simply clean up.
  • In "So Long, Sucker", Cliff deliberately coughs up a hairball as part of a Zany Scheme to get rid of an automated vacuum cleaner that he, Charles, Geo, and Walt hate.
  • What jump-starts the subplot of "Schooled!" is Lily soiling herself, which gets her kicked out of preschool. It's later revealed that she did it on purpose so that she wouldn't have to go to preschool.
• Ironic Echo: In "Net Gains," when Lynn is forced to join the worst team in the local basketball league, she comes up with the strategy that the other girls should pass her the ball whenever they get a chance. After winning their first game, Lynn is ecstatic, but the other girls lament that they barely got a chance to play, to which Lynn says "a win's a win, no matter who plays." After their following game ends in defeat, Lynn brings some older girls to help her win. When they win that game, Lynn calls out the older girls for hogging the ball, and not letting her play, to which one of them replies "a win's a win, no matter who plays."
• Irony: Lisa hilariously lampshades this in "Fool Me Twice" when she says, "Oh, sweet irony! We handed Luan the perfect weapons to destroy us!"
• Irritation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery: In the episode "Roll Model", after witnessing Ronnie Anne save a dog, Carl considers her to be a hero and decides to copy everything she does, much to her annoyance. Later, it is revealed that Ronnie Anne used to copy Bobby when she was younger.
• Irritation Nightmare: Leni often has nightmares about out-of-fashion clothes, which she seems to find legitimately scary.
• It's Always Spring: Averted. All seasons have been featured at least once. The episode "Tea Tale Heart" is even clearly set during Autumn (the leaves are all colored) without it being relevant to the plot.
• It's Quiet… Too Quiet: Typically, the Loud family, with the exception of Lucy and, to an extent, Lincoln, lives up to their surname, so if they're being quiet, it's a bad sign. For instance, in "One Flu Over the Loud House", it turns out to be because Lori, Lynn, and the twins have the flu and the rest are hiding. In "Snow Escape," the siblings are hiding from Lynn during a snowball war, and this phrase is uttered.

J

• Jailed One After Another: In "For Bros About to Rock", Lincoln and Clyde are arrested for buying counterfeit tickets from an undercover cop for a rock concert after the real tickets have been sold out. Luna disguises herself as Lincoln's mom to get him and Clyde out of there, but Bobby doesn't quite understand what's going on and innocently blows her cover, getting her thrown in the same cell.
• Jar Potty:
  • Lana uses a bucket called Old Sloshie as her toilet. In "Brawl in the Family", the family has to use it instead of the toilet when the sisters sulk in the bathroom.
  • Leonard owns his own toilet bucket he calls Frank. When Lana finds out about it, she insistently calls it Sloshie Jr.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Aside from Leni, Lily, and Luna who are naturally nice (with extreme limitations), the other girls have good qualities to balance out their not so good moments like helping Lincoln with his oral report after he accidentally destroyed his diorama.
• Jumping-to-Conclusions Diagnosis: In "One Flu Over the Loud House", Lincoln suspects Lucy to be infected twice because she looks pale, even though she always does.
• Just Friends: In "Be Stella My Heart", Lincoln and his guy friends all crush on the new girl Stella; by the climax, Stella reveals she doesn't have romantic interest in any of them, and only wanted to be friends.

K

• Kansas City Shuffle: In "Pranks Fore Nothing," after a number of failed pranks in their prank war with Sandtrap U, Lori and her crew at Fairway University convince their rivals that they set booby-traps all over their golf course. The Santrap U crew then spend all night searching for the traps, to no avail.
• "Kick Me" Prank: The title card of "Heavy Meddle" depicts Lincoln with a "kick me" sign on his back.
• Kick the Dog: Luan does this every April Fool's Days, where she sets pranks across the household that are downright malicious and fatal.
• Kiddie Kid: The more mature and older Loud siblings can venture into this territory when their Not So Above It All side is shown. The ending of "A Tale of Two Tables" is a good example of this, where all eleven children participate in a foodfight. However, the ones who can be seen as this on a regular basis are:
  • Lincoln, in a Downplayed sense. He behaves like an average 11-year-old kid, yet still owns a stuffed rabbit toy named "Bun-Bun", which he cares deeply for.
  • Luan. Despite being 14 years old, she has a passion for puns, clowns, pulling pranks, and childlike comedy in general. She also owns and plays with several toys of the novelty variety, most notably her ventriloquist, Mr. Coconuts.
  • Lastly, 13-year-old Lynn. She rides on a shopping cart and wrecks many aisles in "Cereal Offender" and plays on a tire swing in "Sitting Bull". She's also prone to throwing tantrums if things don't go her way and exhibits poor sportsmanship. Finally, "Singled Out" shows her enjoying a food fight with a little 6 year old kid in the Burpin' Burger, and making a mess of the place (her friends even join in, showing they are also less extreme examples of this trope at heart despite being into teenage romances).
• Kidnapped from Behind: In "Fool's Paradise", one of Luan's pranks at the booby-trapped hotel involves hooking Lily with a fishing line, reeling her from her mother's arms, and lowering a monkey in her place.
• Kids Are Cruel:
  • Played for Laughs with Lola, who has an explosive temper and is not above threatening anyone who dares messes with her. In one episode, her older siblings even tell stories of how she intimidated them.
  • Played much more seriously in "Middle Men"; Lynn reveals that, during her sixth-grade year, most of her schoolmates frequently picked on her and pulled mean-spirited pranks on her.
• Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films:
  • In "The Price of Admission", Lincoln sneaks into one against his parents' wishes and is scared of the dark once he gets home. When his parents decide he can go after all, they almost take him back to see it before he admits he already saw it and never wants to see it again.
  • In "The Boss Maybe", he and Clyde watch another horror film said to be the scariest movie of all time. Leni, who's in charge with Lori in college, ends up reading them a children's book after they're scared out of their wits.
• The Killjoy:
  • The show has the Loud family's grumpy neighbour Mr. Grouse, who often tells the family to stop having fun and goofing around because he finds them too... well, loud.
  • While Lori isn't usually an example, she becomes one if she's left in charge, disallowing her siblings to goof around like usual to the point of being nicknamed the "Queen of No".
• Kindhearted Simpleton:
  • Leni's usually a nice girl despite not being that smart.
  • Bobby's kindness more than makes up for his stupidity.
• The Klutz:
  • Leni's pretty clumsy, often bumping into the wall and falling downstairs.
  • Downplayed for Lincoln, who does pratfalls on occasion.

L

• Lacerating Love Language: Both Lynn and Ronnie Anne tend to express affection via punching.
• Large Ham:
  • Let's just say there's a reason the titular family's surname is Loud. Nearly all of them are hammy in their own ways, from Lori's Drill Sergeant Nasty persona when she's in charge to Lincoln's dramatic side when geeking out to Lisa's Mad Scientist proclamations to Lily's crying. Luna is arguably the hammiest, being an aspiring rocker, though Lola comes close with her diva personality and aggressive temper.
  • Outside the Louds, a few supporting characters ooze with their own styles of hamminess. Clyde can match Lincoln's hamminess in regards to their geeky side, while Mrs. Bernardo is an overdramatic theater teacher. Frida Puga Casagrande is also very dramatic and cries a lot.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Frequently happens when the siblings take things too far:
  • Happens in "The Sweet Spot" when the sisters fight Lincoln for possession of the best seat in the family van; all they succeed in doing is destroying the van and are immediately grounded for it.
  • Happens in "Come Sale Away" where the siblings try to outsell each other and sell everything in the house to do it. When they realize they sold Lily's blanket by accident, they end up losing all of their earnings to Flip when he cons them all with duplicates. They come to find Lily's blanket was actually in the wash, and all of them are grounded yet again. In addition, Flip tries to make a fast buck off of the unstable chemicals he bought from Lisa, and ends up trashing his own gas station when he tampers too much with them.
• Last-Name Basis:
  • In "One Flu Over the Loud House", Lincoln tries calling himself and his healthy sisters by their surnames, but Lucy points out that "we're all Loud."
  • Mr. Grouse frequently refers to the Louds as just "Loud", though he does sometimes use their given names at times.
• Last-Second Joke Problem:
  • At the end of the pilot, Lincoln resolves his Potty Emergency... only to find there is no toilet paper left.
  • At the end of "No Guts, No Glori", Lori learns not to be so bossy, while her siblings realize that a complete lack of authority leads to chaos. However, they're still in trouble because Lola had broke one of Lynn Sr.'s golf clubs.
  • At the end of "Linc or Swim", the Loud siblings have finally found peace and have a swimming pool to share, but baby Lily poops in it.
  • "Homespun" ends with a revelation that the tornado didn't destroy the eponymous house after all. However, when Lynn Sr. goes to open the front door, the doorknob falls off, locking the Loud family out.
• Later-Installment Weirdness:
  • Lincoln's fourth wall breaks become less frequent in Season 2, but are back in Season 3. Season 4 onwards though, they are more or less gone.
  • Lynn Sr.'s restaurant business only gets fully established at the end of Season 3.
  • Season 5 brings three major changes to the show: Lincoln is now in Middle School (meaning he now has to deal with different school staff, so no more Mrs. Johnson or Principal Huggins), Lori goes to College (meaning she no longer lives with the Louds) and Lily is now in Preschool, potty trained and fully clothed.
• Latino Is Brown: The Latino characters shown, including the Casagrandes, Francisco, and Miguel, all have brown skin and dark hair.
• Lazily Gender-Flipped Name: In "Along Came a Sister", the tarantula is named Frank, but then it turns out to be a girl so she's renamed Frances.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In "Overnight Success", Lincoln says, "Time to make history!" after hearing the doorbell. Immediately after he says this, the first same-gender couple for Nickelodeon appears.
• Liar Revealed: Both the main series and The Casagrandes are guilty of overusing this trope, so much so it might as well fit as a Drinking Game entry. A lot of episodes involve one or more characters doing something contentious, and once the gig is up, they have no choice but to admit.
• Lie Detector: Lisa once developed a lie detector technology and set up lie detectors all over the house, forcing the entire family to be truthful at all times. Eventually, Lisa came to realize that sometimes a little lying is okay.
• Like Is, Like, a Comma:
  • Leni uses the word "like" a lot, which the others find annoying.
  • Ruby from "Stage Plight" also says "like" a lot.
• Likes Older Women:
  • Clyde (who's 11) has a crush on Lincoln's oldest sister, Lori (who's 17).
    • Same thing with Carl (who's 6 or 8).
  • All the sisters except Lily get crushes on Hugh, who's in his twenties.
  • Haiku, who's about eleven, likes a centuries-old (fictional) vampire.
• Limited Wardrobe: Though most of the main and recurring ones have worn many outfits, including different ones for the same occasion (e.g. Lori's night attire changed multiple times throughout the series), all of the human characters always wear the same respective regular outfits. In Lincoln's case, several shots of his room show that the only regular clothes he has in his closet are orange polo shirts and jeans.
• Lineage Ladder: In the "The Sweet Spot", when Vanzilla is destroyed from the siblings fighting for its "sweet spot", Lynn Sr. claims while lamenting its destruction that it was his first car, as well as the one of his father and grandfather. This is explicitly confirmed in the later episode "Vantastic Voyage".
  "That was my first car! And my dad's first car! AND HIS DAD'S FIRST CAR!"
• Literal Metaphor: Lynn Sr. isn't happy with Rita when she tells him that she has a bun in the oven, since he's gluten-free.
• Literal-Minded: Leni sometimes takes things literally, for example, saying, "I don't know any other Lenis" when Lincoln says, "You're the best, Leni!".
• Little Professor Dialogue: Lisa says a lot of big, technical words.
• Living Prop: Lily, which is a given, since she's a baby and can barely talk.
• A Lizard Named "Liz":
  • Lincoln's toy rabbit is called Bun-Bun.
  • Lana's frog is called Hops.
  • Lucy's bat is called Fangs.
• Lonely Together: In "Dance Dance Resolution", after Lincoln decides to be with Ronnie Anne, Clyde and Haiku, Lucy's friend, decide to spend the evening together since they both have an unrequited love (Lori for Clyde and Edwin the Vampire for Haiku).
• Lost Voice Plot: In "Spell It Out", Lucy finds a spell book and casts a spell which appears to take away her siblings' voices, which causes them trouble. She decides to get them back, sacrificing her own voice, but they claim that they just strained their voices shouting for their grandpa. However, the photo of Great Grandma Harriet (who was also into the occult and is a dead ringer for Lucy) smiles, so what took their voices is a mystery.
• Loud Sleeper Gag: One episode of the official podcast, Listen Out Loud, has a sleep-deprived Luan complaining that Luna had been yelling, "Stage dive!" in her sleep.
• Lovable Jock: Lynn, depending on the episode. She's a Jerk Jock who loves roughhousing and can come off as quite mean-spirited to Lincoln, but at the end of the day she really loves him and her family in general.
• Love Interests: All the kids have gotten a love interest at least once (if you count Lily's bear in "L is for Love").
• Love Triangle:
  • Clyde has a crush on Lori, but she's dating Bobby.
  • Carl has a crush on Lori too.
• Ludicrous Gift Request: One promotional video has Lana asking for dog biscuits for Christmas.

M

• Massive Numbered Siblings: The main theme of the show is how the lead character comes a family of eleven kids—and, on top of being the middle child, Lincoln's also the only son.
• Matchmaker Failure: In the episode "Teachers' Union", Lincoln tries to pair up Mrs. Johnson (his teacher) and Coach Pacowski, but he inadvertently idealised Coach P too much by telling her that he travelled a lot (without realising those photos were actually of him at a golf course) and had a boat (when really he lived in a houseboat). This makes Mrs. Johnson sour and she breaks up with him.
• May It Never Happen Again:
  • Zigzagged in "Ties That Bind" — the Loud children eavesdrop on their parents, Rita and Lynn Sr., talking about getting rid of something and assume it's them when it's really Lynn Sr.'s ties. At the end, Lincoln vows never to eavesdrop again, but when he overhears Lynn Sr. tell Rita she has "a bun in the oven" when he meant literally, it's implied he may eavesdrop again anyway. However, the episode ends before we find out if he eavesdrops again.
  • Subverted in "Fool Me Twice" — Luan promises not to prank her family again after her family claims they're moving house to prevent being pranked by her. However, it then turns out that her family were just pranking her back, and in later episodes, she's back to being a prankster.
• Meaningful Name: In a family of eleven kids, the Louds definitely live up to their name.
  • Mr. Grouse complains a lot.
• Medicinal Cuisine: In "One Flu Over the Loud House", when the Loud family starts getting the flu one by one, Clyde tries to make "heal meals" for them, which involve egg rolls and guacamole.
• Medium Blending: The characters are drawn in regular cartoon form, but the backgrounds use a crude style similar to those of newspaper comic strips, especially the outdoor scenes. Also, if you look closely at the background, you can see the paper detailing within.
• Middle Child Syndrome: Lincoln is right smack in the middle of his sisters. While his sisters have actual bedrooms, Lincoln's room is actually a converted linen closet. But while the girls have to share their rooms, Lincoln is the only one who gets his own space.
• Middle School Is Miserable: Zig-zagged. "Middle Men" reveals that Lynn's experience in middle school was terrible due to relentless bullies, and in "Schooled!", when Lincoln and his friends move up to middle school, they fear being bullied, with one of Lincoln's new teachers being a Stern Teacher. Despite this, Lincoln and his friends actually don't have that hard of a time in middle school.
• Mid-Season Twist: At the end of "The Loudest Mission: Relative Chaos", Ronnie Anne and Bobby permanently leave Royal Woods for Great Lakes City.
• Minor Injury Overreaction: Lincoln's sisters occasionally have this reaction when Lincoln hurts himself, treating a paper cut and a thumb cramp as a major medical emergency in "Heavy Meddle" and "One of the Boys" respectively.
• Mistaken for Brooding:
  • In "Home of the Fave", Lynn Sr. fears that his children think he's playing favourites, and while most of them really were unhappy (albeit for a different reason), this is played straight with Lincoln (who was simply looking at Lynn Sr. to acknowledge him) and Lucy (who frowns all the time anyway).
  • In "Back Out There", Clyde, Liam, Rusty, and Zach think Lincoln is feeling down about Ronnie Anne moving because he's been frequenting her old house, so they stealthily try to cheer him up, and they even give him a vacation. He says he's not upset, but they don't believe him and make him catch the bus. Then Ronnie Anne calls them and reveals that he wasn't distraught after all, he's been going to her house often because he wanted to get a package she sent for him there.
• Mistaken for Destitute: In the episode "Roadie to Nowhere"; Luna's roadie Chunk appears to live in his van, and upon seeing this Luna fears this might be her future too if she fails as a rock star and can't find another job. However, we find out later that Chunk does have a home and he only sleeps in his van the night before a big gig with his band.
• Mistaken for Pregnant: Implied at the end of "Ties That Bind", when Lynn Sr. mentions Rita having a bun in the oven (a literal bun) and Lincoln is shocked.
• Mistaken for Santa: In "11 Louds a' Leapin'", Mr. Grouse gives back the Louds' possessions he stole while dressed as Santa, but doesn't try to actually fool anyone into thinking he's Santa. Despite this, Lisa sees him and decides Santa must be real.
• Mistaken for Thief: In one of the podcasts, Lincoln suspects his sisters (particularly Lynn and the twins) of taking the hammock, when really it was Mr. Grouse.
• Mr. Fixit: Lana is a Miss Fixit. She likes fixing cars, toilets, sinks, TVs, and more things besides.
• Mundane Horror: "One Flu Over the Loud House" is a Plague Episode parodying a Zombie Apocalypse, in which the Loud family gets the flu. The first visible sign that things aren't right is that the upstairs hallway looks different— it's dark, it's a mess (while a bit of clutter is normal in the Louds' hallway, this time it's so bad that even the furniture is knocked over), the ceiling light is askew, and "RUN!" is written on the wall with a backwards "R".
• Musical World Hypotheses: The show often uses shades of Diegetic, courtesy of the rocker girl Luna.
  • The songs that the Louds (minus Luna) sing throughout "Really Loud Music" appear to be All In Their Head and Adaptation, as they say they weren't singing when Luna questions such. As pointed out by Lisa, Luna was actually hallucinating her family singing because of her brain trying to find the right genre for the song she's writing.
  • "Schooled!" seems to add Alternate Universe to the list, as Lincoln's Pep-Talk Song was even mentioned.
  • The songs in "Save Royal Woods!" are also Alternate Universe, given that Joyce Crandall is commenting about people singing twice near the end of the episode.
• My Life Flashed Before My Eyes: In "Two Boys and a Baby", both Lincoln and Clyde experience this when Lily farts on them. In the case of the latter, he states that the former's life flashed before his eyes.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Lincoln's original concept version as a rabbit named Warren can be seen in the form of his stuffed rabbit Bun-Bun.
  • Speaking of the show's original premise, "White Hare" has Lincoln dream of an Alternate Universe where he and his sisters (who are increased to an amount of 25 in the dream) are rabbits, with his dream version looking exactly like and having the same name as Warren.
• My Little Panzer:
  • "Family Bonding" features the Agent Steele ink pen, which has a real, working laser.
  • There's also the equally unsafe ARGGH ghost phaser, seen in "Ghosted!".

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