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. and because "standards and practices is typically stricter with human characters", 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
Collin Dean took up the role from the episodes "One of the Boys" until "House of Lies", with Jackson Petty providing Lincoln's singing voice briefly in Dean's penultimate episode, "Really Loud Music". On September 20, 2018, Tex Hammond, son of regular series voice actress
Grey Griffin, announced that he would be taking up the role of Lincoln, with his first episode being "Game Boys". On October 24, 2019, Griffin announced on Facebook that Hammond had finished his tenure voicing Lincoln, with his final episode playing the character, "Room and Hoard", airing the following year. Two months later, another regular voice actor on the series, Andre Robinson, announced on an Instagram Q&A that Asher Bishop would succeed Hammond as the voice of Lincoln, which he would do from the episodes "Wheel and Deal" until "Flip This Flip", in addition to voicing him in the franchise's first feature-length film,
The Loud House Movie. Bentley Griffin began voicing Lincoln in the video game
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl and would later go on to voice him in the series, succeeding Bishop, from the episodes "Save Royal Woods!" until "Can't Lynn Them All", although he would go on to voice Lincoln one last time in the 2024 film
No Time to Spy. Sawyer Cole has then taken up the role of Lincoln since the episode "One in a Million" and also voiced him in the film
A Loud House Christmas Movie: Naughty or Nice. Since the episode "Summer Camp: Ticked Off", Lincoln has been voiced by Nick A. Fisher. Wolfgang Schaeffer portrayed Lincoln in the 2021 live-action
television film A Loud House Christmas, the 2022 television series
The Really Loud House and the 2023 television film
A Really Haunted Loud House. In the episode "Heart and Soul", a young Lincoln was portrayed by Justin Allan (brother of regular series cast members
Ella and Mia Allan) in a flashback. Upon being cast as Lincoln in
A Loud House Christmas, Schaeffer opted to portray the character as similarly to a cartoon character as he could, while also trying to innovate his own characterization to differentiate his Lincoln from the animated version. For the film, Schaeffer dyed his hair to give Lincoln his signature
albinism; however, the hair dye caused him to go partially bald, so when
The Really Loud House began production, he wore a wig for the role instead. ==Reception==