Lincoln Albert Loud is a fictional character and the main protagonist of Nickelodeon's The Loud House franchise. Loosely based on series creator Chris Savino's childhood, Lincoln is the middle-aged sixth child and only son of the eponymous Loud family. The character has been voiced by numerous child actors throughout the series' run due to them aging out of the role, notably Grant Palmer, Collin Dean, and Asher Bishop. Lincoln was portrayed by Wolfgang Schaeffer in the live action media.
Lincoln first appeared in the series' pilot created by Savino and released by Nickelodeon, which was later picked up for a 13-episode series. Lincoln is the focus of the series, which revolves around his chaotic everyday life as the 6th child and only son in a large family of eleven children, in the fictional town of Royal Woods in Michigan, US.
The character has received universally positive reception, with multiple actors who played him having been nominated for awards as a result of the character's popularity. Though, there have been criticisms of punching-bag treatment of the character in both old and new seasons through the series.
Role Lincoln is an 11-year-old (12-year-old from season 5 onward and in The Really Loud House) boy with white hair who is the middle child and the only son in the Loud family. Lincoln has a passion for comic books, especially his favorite superhero, Ace Savvy, who has a playing card theme, as well as secret agent David Steele. Lincoln is also the family nerd along with Lisa. He is also, however, the primary leader of his ten sisters, as he typically plans schemes, strategies, and "operations" for better convenience, as well as to help others, that the girls more often than not follow. Lincoln has other talents, including cooking, playing video games, performing magic tricks, and coaching his younger sister Lola to prepare her for her pageants. Lincoln wears an orange polo shirt, blue jeans, gray socks, and white sneakers with three red stripes on each pair.
Lincoln often breaks the fourth wall by talking to the audience about living with all of his sisters and considers himself the "man with a plan." He tries to give helpful advice concerning sibling relationships. For the first four seasons, Lincoln attended Royal Woods Elementary School with his younger sisters Lucy, Lana, Lola, and Lisa and is a 5th grader there.
In "The Loudest Thanksgiving", it is revealed that Lincoln is vulnerable to tryptophan which causes him to fall asleep before Thanksgiving dessert is served.
In "Schooled!", Lincoln starts attending Royal Woods Middle School and transitions to 6th grade. As of that episode, Lincoln attends school with his older sister Lynn.
Development Conception and creation Chris Savino grew up fascinated by newspaper comic strips and cartoons, with notable examples including Peanuts, Polly and Her Pals, Krazy Kat, Pogo, Dennis the Menace, MAD Magazine, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, Underdog, Popeye, Looney Tunes, and the works of Jay Ward. By his senior year of high school, Savino learned about the animation industry and immersed himself in every animation book he could find at his local libraries before encountering the 1990 cartoon Big House Blues at an animation festival. Upon learning that Big House Blues had spawned a series in the form of The Ren & Stimpy Show, Savino mailed a letter to the series' creator, John Kricfalusi, which secured him an opportunity to join the series' staff.
After spending twenty-two years of his career at various animation studios, including Spümcø, Nickelodeon Animation Studio, Cartoon Network Studios, and Disney Television Animation, Savino was introduced to the Nickelodeon Animated Shorts Program by executive Jenna Boyd in 2013. His contract stated that he had the opportunity to pitch three ideas as a -minute short for the program, out of which one would be picked. The selected idea ended up being the one involving a big family— this pitch specifically involved an anthropomorphic humanoid rabbit with 25 sisters (a reference to how rabbits give birth to large litters) dealing with the chaos of an extensively large immediate family. The original premise of the short involved the protagonist (at the time named Warren, a reference to rabbit warrens) trying to escape the house without encountering his sisters, who would inevitably intend to interfere with the outfit he had chosen for the day. Upon realizing that the premise would not be relatable for children who don't have siblings, Savino changed the premise so it would be about Warren trying to reach the bathroom after holding it until the last minute. Savino had proposed making the characters rabbits because he had come fresh off the production of the human-focused Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil and because "standards and practices is typically stricter with human characters", but Boyd instead suggested for him to make them human, considering that to make it more likely to get his pitch sold. Initially, Savino disagreed and also considered making the characters mice, with Lincoln's prototype name in this concept being Milton Fields. He ultimately followed Boyd's advice of making them humans after connecting the idea of the story he was trying to tell with his own experiences growing up in a large family. The original concept would later go on to be revisited in the Season 3 episode "White Hare" as a dream that Lincoln has upon encountering a family of rabbits in the forest.
After retooling his concept art of the short's protagonist so it depicted a human, Savino took inspiration from his own life to make the core aspects of the family fall into place. After Savino had narrowed Warren's twenty-five sisters down to ten (reflective of how he grew up as the ninth of ten children), which he deemed to be much more manageable, he gave them all names beginning with L, taken from various parts of his life. Lincoln was the last of the main cast to receive his name, earning it from E Lincoln Avenue in Royal Oak, Michigan, the street that Savino grew up on as a child. While the short had always been titled "The Loud House," the name was initially only in reference to the chaotic nature of a family of that size. A Nickelodeon employee named Scott Kreamer suggested that the family's name be "Loud," which Savino caught onto, noting how it would give the siblings alliterative names. The Loud family having an alliterative naming theme was further inspired by writer Karla Sakas Shropshire, who grew up with three siblings, all having names starting with K. Lincoln's prototype, Warren, later went on to become the design inspiration for his stuffed rabbit, Bun-Bun.
Savino's initial pitch was approved for pilot production on January 30, 2014. On June 6, 2014, the initial pilot of The Loud House was picked up for a thirteen-episode series. Savino loosely based Lincoln on himself and his own experiences growing up in a large family, using his personal life experiences as the foundation of the series' core elements. While the series was not intended to be autobiographical on Savino's part, many of the writers (particularly those who had siblings themselves) gave input on things that happened to them as kids, which often sprouted into episodes with Lincoln as the central focus where he would figure out ways to resolve his sisters' issues. During the development of the series, the writing staff took heavy inspiration from The Brady Bunch, primarily due to its similar focus on the chaos held by a large family and the heart shared by all of its members.
Characterization Taking inspiration from the Peanuts cast, Savino opted to make Lincoln adopt the maturity necessary to solve his problems on his own, leaving him primarily independent of his parents. His initial idea was to have Lincoln speak down to the audience, teaching viewers how to survive in a big family like his own; upon realizing that not everybody has siblings (let alone as many as Lincoln), Savino retooled Lincoln's primary gimmick into inviting the audience into his world, showing what his life is like with ten sisters. Savino has described Lincoln's character as the polar opposite of his personality, referring to him as "the type of kid who always has a plan", elaborating on such by saying that "if there's something that he wants, and he knows that he has 10 siblings who are basically obstacles, then he's going to do what it takes to get what he wants." The first season had Lincoln as the primary focus to lay the groundwork for the series' basic concept of Lincoln being crammed into a small house with his large family. Beginning as early as the second season, the series gradually shifted its focus more onto Lincoln's sisters than specifically onto Lincoln himself to delve deeper into their personalities and expand the series' universe. As this change came into effect, Savino made it so that audiences would not fear that Lincoln would be missed; citing the episode "For Bros About to Rock" as an example of an early episode that brought one of his sisters into the spotlight, Savino described the process of making the sisters more complex and multi-faceted as having the effect of making Lincoln a complex and relatable hero.https://www.inquisitr.com/chris-savino-discusses-his-hit-animated-nickelodeon-show-the-loud-house#deny
Lincoln's fourth voice actor, Asher Bishop, has described the character as "energetic, enthusiastic, and [having] an ever-optimistic outlook on life". Bishop also highlighted how Lincoln is always trying to negotiate his relationship with his sisters, and although he frequently messes up, he ultimately learns from his mistakes. He has also gone on to say that the central theme of The Loud House Movie, which is that being special is not necessary to grab people's attention, has resonated with him the longest due to Lincoln's highly relatable character arc in the film, where he goes from feeling highly insecure about his largely unrecognized and quasi-black sheep status to accepting his hidden talent of always keeping his family together, no matter the circumstances.
Fox News has described Lincoln's lifelong predicament of being the middle child between five older sisters and five younger sisters as the foundation of him learning to always stay a step ahead in order to survive his household. They have also acknowledged that Lincoln "sometimes gets a little too much attention from his sisters" in various ways, but ultimately loves them and is always willing to help them. Variety has stated that Lincoln always plans ahead to stay one step ahead of the chaos of his family, though his adventures always begin with the question of whether or not his plans will be effective.
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