Western Animation / The Casagrandes

Sundays and Mondays are all fun days
When you're with the
Casagrandes! (mucha vida!)
Casagrandes! (bienvenida!)
Casagrandes! (mucha risa!)
Casagrandes! (we're all famiilia!)
(Tan-tan!)

— Theme Song

The Casagrandes is a Spin-Off series of the hit Nickelodeon cartoon The Loud House. The last show of the Nicktoons brand to debut in the 2010s, the series was originally announced as being in development in March 2018, before being officially greenlit in July 2018. The series premiered on October 14, 2019 and is executive produced by Mike Rubiner, who served as story editor on The Loud House prior to becoming showrunner on both productions.

After moving from the suburban town of Royal Woods, Michigan to the larger metropolis that is Great Lakes City, Ronnie Anne Santiago and her family now find themselves adjusting to life in the big city alongside their extended family, the titular Casagrandes. In addition to getting used to her large new family, Ronnie Anne finds herself making new friends such as fellow apartment dweller Sid Chang, and getting into misadventures just as silly as those back in her old stomping grounds.

Before the show's premiere, several episodes of The Loud House had featured the show's cast. "The Loudest Mission: Relative Chaos" introduced the main family; "City Slickers" introduced Ronnie Anne's city friends Casey, Sameer and Nikki; "The Spies Who Loved Me" focused on them; and "The Loudest Thanksgiving" featured them and the Loud family having Thanksgiving dinner together. In addition to all this, the fourth season of The Loud House began with a dedicated five-episode miniseries, wherein each segment used a "...With the Casagrandes" naming convention.

Principal voice cast includes Izabella Alvarez (Westworld) as Ronnie Anne, Carlos PenaVega (Big Time Rush) as Bobby, Roxana Ortega (The League) as Frida, Carlos Alazraqui (The Fairly OddParents!) as Carlos, Alexa Vega (Spy Kids) as Carlota, Jared Kozak (Born This Way) as CJ, Alex Cazares (The Boss Baby: Back in Business) as Carl, Ruben Garfias (East Los High) as Hector, Sonia Manzano (Sesame Street) as Rosa, and Sumalee Montano (Nashville) as Maria. Additional cast members include Eugenio Derbez (Overboard) as Dr. Santiago, Leah Mei Gold (Legion [2018], Coop & Cami Ask the World) as Sid Chang, Lexi Sexton as Adelaide Chang, Ken Jeong (Dr. Ken) as Stanley Chang, and Melissa Joan Hart (Clarissa Explains It All) as Becca Chang.

The premiere episode, "Going Overboard", was uploaded to YouTube ahead of the show's premiere, and can be viewed here.

On February 19, 2020, it was renewed for a second Season which premiered October 9, 2020. On September 24, the show was renewed for Season 3 which premiered September 17, 2021. On February 17, 2022, it was announced the spin-off was cancelled and will not be returning for a fourth season, although the cast will still pop up in The Loud House proper. A Grand Finale feature film released on Netflix on March 22, 2024.

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The Casagrandes provides examples of:

#-L

• Actor Allusion:
  • Sonia Manzano, who did Maria on Sesame Street, once again voices a Latina character in a kids' show, Rosa.
  • Carlos Alazraqui, who voiced Walden on Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, voices another nerdy character with glasses on a Nickelodeon cartoon.
    • He also voices Sergio the parrot, yet another instance of him voicing one.
  • Melissa Joan Hart voices another blonde character in a Nickelodeon show after Clarissa Explains It All. Likewise, Carlos PenaVega also returns to Nickelodeon.
  • "What's Love Gato Do With It?" has Greta The Great, a magician, voiced by Kari Wahlgren. This isn't the first time she voiced one.
• Ambiguous Situation: It is unclear whether Seasons 2 and 3 of this show are set before or during Season 5 of The Loud House. However, an upcoming episode in the third season seems to imply the latter.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In "Fast Feud", Sid writes a complaint for the Burger Blast restaurant that gets built across the street from the Casagrandes' apartment:
  Sid: Your sign is too bright, your smells are too strong, your singing is too loud, but your complaint jar is nice.
• Artistic License – Paleontology: In "How to Train Your Carl", Carl claims Komodo dragons "are the last living dinosaurs". In reality, birds are the last living dinosaurs.
• Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: In "The Big Chill", this exchange occurs when Hector refuses to buy his family an air conditioner:
  Hector: If you want an air conditioner so badly, why don't you buy it yourself?
  CJ: Maybe we will!
  (CJ looks up air conditioner prices on his phone.)
  CJ: Maybe we won't.
• Babysitter's Nightmare: Invoked in the episode "Flight Plan". The Casagrande brothers don't want to be babysat; they want to ride with their parents on a plane, so they drive away all the babysitters. They do this by destroying Mr. Nakamura's antiques, scaring Miranda, and tricking Maybelle into thinking her celeb crush wants to meet her.
• Back to School: In "Señor Class", Hector goes to Ronnie Anne and Carl's school to live out the experience he didn't get to have, due to him running the family's Mercado as a kid. Hector embarrasses Ronnie Anne and Carl to no end, and the two try to get rid of him. In the end, they get the idea to have Rosa homeschool him.
• Baffled by Own Biology: In "Bun-stoppable", three bandits get a brain freeze, but don't know what it is. They think the Chang sisters somehow attacked them with the sundaes they got it from.
• Bathroom Control: Played with in "Stress Test" in that Bobby doesn't need the bathroom but is concerned he might. When Carlos is helping his nephew, Bobby, study, one of the things he does is have Bobby sleep upside down. When Bobby says, "But what if I have to pee?", Carlos replies, "Hold it."
• Best Friend: Sid Chang, introduced in "Friended!", is Ronnie Anne's new friend in the city, and the two are pretty much inseparable following that episode.
• Bilingual Bonus: "Casa grande" means "big house" in Spanish. Appropriate surname for a family of eighteen people.
• Bilingual Rhyme: The theme song rhymes "store" with "amor" (Spanish for "love").
• Canine Confusion:
  • In "Lalo Land", a flashback shows a younger Lalo wailing Ocular Gushers due to losing a toy, and in the present day, he has flooded the apartment with his tears. Dogs can't cry emotionally in real life.
  • In "Dial 'M' for Mustard", Vito and his dogs cry after Bruno's hot dog cart is stolen. Dogs never cry from emotions in the real world.
• Cast as a Mask: In "Monster Cash", El Cucuy (who is Rosa in disguise) is voiced by Eric Bauza instead of Sonia Manzano.
• Christmas Episode: "A Very Casagrandes Christmas" is about the Casagrandes going out to celebrate Las Posadas before coming back for Christmas celebrations. This excites Ronnie Anne since they're all together for it. However, they then have to deal with their friends and neighbors whose plans were all ruined in some way.
• Clothing-Concealed Injury: In "Going Overboard", Carlos injures his leg when he tries to teach Ronnie Anne some of his old skateboard tricks. Because Carlos promised Frida he wouldn't skateboard again after they had children, Ronnie Anne helps him hide his cast with bear-skin boots from Carlota's closet.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure:
  • In the episode "Arrr in the Family" Carlota pantses Carl, revealing his "Choo-choo chonies".
  • In "V.I.Peeved", Hector embarrasses his granddaughter Carlota by wandering around the living room in his underwear while she's making a video.
  • In "Maybe-Sitter", Hector forgets to wear pants when trying to dress up formal for a party.
  • In "Achy, Breaky Art", Frida rips off her dress to reveal a jumpsuit underneath. Carl tries, but belatedly realises that he's only wearing underwear under his clothes.
  • In "Battle of the Grandpas", Hector's pants fall down, revealing his red underwear, which angers a bull, causing the bull to charge at him.
  • In "Chancla Force", Carlos skateboards with no pants on. Though, this turns out to be All Just a Dream that Carl was having.
• Crossover Punchline: In "Croaked", Carl is told on Dia de los Muertos that he has to spread marigold petals to form a path for their ancestors from the "land of the dead", leading him to venture outside the apartment to make a long path to this "land". At the end, when he finally uses up all the petals, he finds himself in front of the Loud residence.
• Crying a River:
  • In "Grandparent Trap", when Frida cries while watching Camila, she floods her apartment with her tears. At one point, the apartment is half-flooded and Lalo swims in the tears with Carlitos riding on his back, and at the end of the episode, the apartment is completely flooded and Frida, Lalo, and Carlitos are all dressed in scuba suits.
  • In "Achy Breaky Art", Frida cries literal waterfalls of tears after reading the review on the last remaining newspaper in town and starts flooding the room. First, a puddle of tears goes through her door. Then, her tears gush out from the keyhole. And lastly, the paper goes through the keyhole, and an explosion of tears enters her door.
  • In "Lalo Land", When Ronnie Anne, Carl, and CJ are training Lalo to express emotions on cue, Lalo is told to think of a time when he was very sad. We are then treated to a flashback when Lalo was a puppy. He lost his favorite toy, and that made him cry Ocular Gushers. Cut back to the present, and Lalo has now flooded the apartment with his tears.
  • In "Born to Be Mild", Carl convinces Alexis to make fun of Bobby's hair, knowing that Bobby is Prone to Tears. Alexis comparing Bobby's hair to a dirty broom hurts Bobby's feelings and predictably results in him crying so hard he floods the mercado, to the point where Vito is swept away to the docks.
• Delusions of Doghood: The episode "What's Love Gato Do with It?" revolves around Bobby getting hypnotized into thinking he's a cat when he hears any bells. He returns to human mode, however, if he hears the word "papaya".
• Don't Eat and Swim: Invoked in "Slink or Swim"; Carl deliberately makes Rosa feed him a large quantity of food so that he doesn't have to swim in the community pool.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The theme song is not only performed by Izabella Alvarez in her character's voice but is also joined by Ally Brooke for a duet!
• Embarrassing Old Photo: At one point in "Señor Class", when Hector shows Ronnie Anne's class the Casagrande Family Tree, he humiliates Ronnie Anne with a photo of her as a baby wearing a dirty diaper.
• Episode Title Card: Just like its sister series, though using papel picado sheets in place of comic panels, as well as Mexican artwork in the corners. Also, at least one of the Casagrandes always appears somewhere in the top picture next to the title.
• Expository Theme Tune: The theme song explains the premise of the show.
• Expy: According to Lalo Alcaraz , TV astrologist Ernesto Estrella from "Horror Scope" is based on Walter Mercado.^note The episode came out a week after his death, but because animation takes a long time, it's pure coincidence it was released afterwards.
• Fear-Induced Idiocy:
  • In "Stress Test", Bobby gets such bad test anxiety that he gets all the answers wrong and misspells his own name as "Booby". Downplayed, since he's usually kind of airheaded anyway.
  • In "The Long Shot", Carlota thinks that she's Athletically Challenged, but it turns out that she was just feeling unconfident due to hating the uniforms. She becomes a competent athlete once she's feeling better due to wearing clothes she likes.
• Food Fight: In "Do the Fruit Shake", three elderly women who were initially in a band but broke up due to an argument meet again for the first time since the argument, and begin arguing again. As they were in a grocery store at the time, they started picking fruit and vegetables off the shelves and throwing them at one another.
  Bobby: "Ladies! Act your age!"
• Foreshadowing: In "The Kid Plays in the Picture", the woman who Carl signs the contract for is foreshadowed as evil before she does anything bad when her contract is shaped like a skull and she does an Evil Laugh.
• Ghostly Animals: The episode "Bad Cluck" focuses on the ghost of a chicken named Alfredo haunting the eponymous family (plus the Santiagos, who live with them) due to holding a grudge against their pet parrot Sergio (who's still alive).
• Gratuitous Spanish: Given that the family is Hispanic, Spanish words are sprinkled throughout the episodes, as well as in the theme song.
• Halloween Episode: "New Haunts" focuses on Ronnie Anne and Sid trying to have a good time for their first Halloween in the city. It doesn't go that well.
• Heat Wave: In "The Big Chill", a heat wave hits Great Lake City, and since Hector refuses to buy an air conditioner, the kids try to raise the money by setting up a sitting booth at the street fair. They nearly succeed, but are forced to pay Vito's medical bills when Bobby tries to pass himself off as a chair. In the end, Ronnie Anne gets the idea to turn Hector's raspado machine into an air conditioner.
• Hidden Depths: Carlos gets some in "Going Overboard", where he is revealed to have been a skateboarder in college, as skateboarding was the most efficient way to get around campus.
• Hypno Fool: In "What's Love Gato Do With It?", Bobby is hypnotized by Greta the Great to act like a cat whenever he hears a bell. It's so crazy that the rest of the family is unaware for the most part.
• I Have This Friend: In "The Horror-Scope", Lincoln asks Ronnie Anne for advice about a friend who likes a girl, but they're in a long-distance relationship. Ronnie Anne assumes he's talking about himself, but the end of the episode reveals he's really talking about Rusty.
• Inelegant Blubbering:
  • Bobby does this in "Stress Test" and "Operation Dad."
  • But it had to come from somewhere. Towards the end of "Teacher's Fret," his father Arturo sobs uncontrollably after his soccer team loses.
• Injured Limb Episode: In "Going Overboard", the series' first episode, Carlos injures his leg when he tries to teach Ronnie Anne some of his skateboard tricks.
• In the Blood: Certain episodes imply that Bobby got his ditziness from his maternal grandfather Hector, who does things like mistakenly wear his grandchildren's clothes and believe that Vito got turned into a mango. "Teacher's Fret" also implies that Bobby got his proneness to Inelegant Blubbering from his father Arturo, as the latter ends up crying his eyes out after his soccer team loses a big game.
• Just Friends: The episode "Horror Scope" has Ronnie Anne trying to invoke this trope, where she thinks Lincoln is trying to confess romantic feelings to her. As it turns out, he just wanted her opinion for a magic act at a school talent show, and the person with a crush he was talking about was Rusty.
• Kids Hate Vegetables: At the beginning of "Chancla Force," it is revealed that Carl hates asparagus, and so he tries to make it bearable by having his pet bird Sergio dump chocolate sauce and sprinkles on it. This plan is thwarted when Abuela Rosa pelts Sergio with her chancla.
• Kids Play Match Breaker: In "Teacher's Fret", shortly after moving to Great Lakes City, Ronnie Anne's divorced father, Arturo, starts dating her teacher, Ms. Galiano, much to Ronnie Anne's embarrassment. She and Sid try to sabotage the couple. They give Gina tainted perfume and bad hair advice, try to frame Arturo for cheating, and even switch the numbers in their phones to create miscommunication. When the couple actually does break up, however, they seem to be distraught and heartbroken, and a guilt-ridden Ronnie Anne confesses her tricks. It turns out that the breakup was mutual and had nothing to do with the tricks, just the decision that they were Better as Friends, and they were crying over other things.
• Leitmotif: Mariachi music plays whenever a scene changes or there's a montage.
• Loose Floorboard Hiding Spot: In "Chancla Force", Rosa tosses her chanclas at anyone who doesn't obey her rules, so Carl sneaks into her bedroom in the middle of the night and hides them under a loose floorboard in his bedroom, as several other hiding places were taken by his halloween candy, hair gel, and cash. The next morning, Rosa is unable to stop her family from doing what they want without her chanclas. At first, Carl enjoys this, but things soon begin to spiral out of control, as Carl has his favorite things taken by the rest of his family and nobody is doing their chores. When he tries to make things right by returning the chanclas, Lalo finds them and Sergio blends them. At the end of the episode, the chaos escalation as a result of Carl's bad decisions turns out to be an Opinion-Changing Dream, and Carl returns the chanclas to Rosa the next morning.
• Loose Tooth Episode: In "Tooth or Consequences", Adelaide loses her tooth after she and Carl crash into each other, so Carl tells her about El Ratón, the Latin American version of the Tooth Fairy. He doesn't come due to Bobby scaring off some mice^note Though it's suggested that those were just regular mice, so Bobby disguises himself as El Ratón to give Adelaide the money. As it turns out, El Ratón was actually stuck in a family reunion, and the episode ends with Bobby losing one of his own teeth.

M-Z

• May It Never Happen Again: Played with at the end of "Monster Cash", where Carl promises not to scam anybody again after he thinks a demon is punishing him for scamming.^note It's actually his grandmother, Rosa, dressed as a demon. However, according to the family parrot Sergio, he's made similar promises before and always broken them, and in later episodes, he does go back to scamming.
• Multigenerational Household: The second floor of the apartment building is occupied by Ronnie Anne and her family—to go into greater detail:
  • Apartment-2A is occupied by Hector and Rosa Casagrande (Carlos and Maria's padres), Maria and Maria's hijos through Arturo (her ex-esposo), Bobby and Ronnie Anne.
  • Apartment-2B is occupied by Carlos, Frida (Maria's cuñada and the yerna of Hector and Rosa) and their four children (Bobby and Ronnie Anne's primos): Carlota, Carlos Junior ("C.J."), Carlino ("Carl") and Carlitos.
  • Both sides of the family spend a lot of time in each other's apartments, particularly Carlos and his side being in 2A.
• Never Trust a Title: "No Egrets" (a pun on the phrase "no regrets") actually does feature three egrets.
• "No Peeking!" Request: Carl has his brothers (plus Lalo and Sergio) turn away while hiding his grandmother's slippers so that they won't see where his secret compartments are.
• Nose Nuggets: In "Silent Fight", when Frida is singing her cold-ridden baby son Carlitos to sleep, she sings that "In Dreamland, there's no coughing or noses leaking ooze".
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Zig-zagged; whereas the The Loud House characters have aged up a year in the show's fifth season, the timeframe of The Casagrandes is less clear, as, while at least two episodes of Season 2 of The Casagrandes clearly take place during Season 5 of The Loud House, with references to Lori being in Fairway University, Bobby ought to be in business school, Carlota ought to be in a fashion designer school, and Carlitos ought to be potty-trained.
• Ocular Gushers: Adelaide, over the loss of her Froggy in "Croaked".
  • Tia Frida does this all the time, most notably in "Grandparent Trap" and "Achy Breaky Art." In both cases, her tears flood the apartment.
• Poor Communication Kills: In "Croaked", poor wording on the part of Ronnie Anne and Sid leads Adelaide to believe that her dead pet Froggy will really come back on Dia de los Muertos. When she finds out that this isn't the case, she's crushed.
• Prank Punishment: In "Monster Cash", Carl runs a "haunted tour" scam in spite of his Abuela's warnings about a demon called "El Cucuy", who is said to eat rotten children. Later, Carl finds himself being haunted by El Cucuy, but it turns out to be Abuela scaring him into doing his chores and giving everyone their money back.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Ronnie Anne uses these on Hector in "Fails From The Crypt", when she says she wants to spend a night in the cemetery to break a record.
• Putting the Pee in Pool: In "Slink or Swim", Carl tries to get out of swimming in the community pool by putting a chocolate bar in it, causing everyone to think someone pooped in it. When Bobby finds out the truth, he decides to teach Carl how to swim, and in a later scene, when the rest of the Casagrande family tries to get Carl to join them in the pool, Bobby puts another chocolate bar in the pool and acts as if he pooped to scare everyone out. At the end of the episode, Bobby sees what looks like another chocolate bar in the pool, but as it turns out, Lalo really did poop in the pool.
• Quirky Household: The Casagrandes, much like the Louds, are shown to be a large, wacky family with a lot of heart throughout the miniseries and this show.
• Replacement Goldfish: In "Croaked", Ronnie Anne and Sid give a new frog to Adelaide to replace her dead one, Froggy, and act like it's the same one.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: In "The Two of Clubs", Ronnie Anne correctly guesses that Sid is sad, but thinks it's because of the black substance leaking from her eyes (she thinks it's makeup and Sid is crying). Actually, the substance is squid ink.
• Secret Compartment: Carl keeps his candy hidden in a hole in the wall so that his siblings, cousins, and pets don't steal it.
• Secret-Keeper: Ronnie Anne and Carlos become this to each other in "Going Overboard". When Carlos finds Ronnie Anne skateboarding at night, he decides to skateboard with her, and so they decide not to tell each other's secrets because Frida doesn't want Carlos to skateboard anymore.
• Shout-Out: Continuing the Running Gag of family pets being named after famous cartoonists from The Loud House, the Casagrande's parrot is named Sergio.
  • In "Fluff Love," one of the games at the arcade is called Bop the Nematoades.
• Slumber Party: "Blunder Party" is about Ronnie Anne throwing a slumber party on the roof with Sid, Nikki, Sameer, Simon, and Laird. Carl and Adelaide crash the party in order to have some fun.
• Spin-Off: Of The Loud House.
• Stop Drowning and Stand Up: When Bobby teaches Carl how to swim in "Slink or Swim", Carl looks like he's drowning at one point, but Bobby points out that he's in the shallow end of the pool and can easily stand up.
• Take That!/Deconstructive Parody: The Kid Plays In The Picture is this to Ryan ToysReview, showcasing just how hectic life of a child toy reviewer can be. It also counts as Biting-the-Hand Humor, as Ryan's Mystery Playdate airs on Nickelodeon.
• Third-Party Peacekeeper: Subverted in "The Grandparent Trap", where Bobby, Ronnie Anne, Carlota, CJ, Carl, and Carlitos think their grandparents Hector and Rosa are about to get divorced because they were arguing. They set up a date for them, but then it turns out that they were never planning on divorcing and were just "blowing off steam".
• Tied-Together-Shoelace Trip: At the end of "Slink or Swim", Bobby ties his shoelaces together and trips into the pool. Fortunately, he's saved by the lifeguard.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Ronnie Anne is much less grumpy and more friendly here, as well as in the "...With the Casagrandes" miniseries from Season 4 of the main show.
• Training the Pet:
  • In "Perro Malo", the eponymous family thinks their dog Lalo has been acting aggressive, and the grandfather, Hector, threatens to send him away if he's not retrained. The Casagrandes try to give him lessons with their friends' dogs, but none of the attempts work. Luckily, it turns out that this was actually his brother Malo, and the real Lalo is returned to the family.
  • In one episode, "My Fair Cat Lady", the pound owner threatens to lock a clowder of aggressive stray cats away if they can't be tamed. Adelaide tries to teach them manners and get them adopted, but they only behave if fish is on offer. Thankfully, when Great Lakes City gets a rat infestation, they're hired as exterminators.
• Troublesome Pet: In "My Fair Cat Lady", Adelaide tries to train the aggressive clowder of stray cats. However, she only teaches them to behave to earn fish, so when their new owners don't have fish, the cats become aggressive again and the owners give them up.
• Writing Around Trademarks: "Stress Test" concerns Bobby's struggles with getting a good score on the BATs^note Big Academic Test, rather than the SATs or the ACTs.

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