Hazbin Hotel Had a Long Road to Becoming a TV Show

The Big Picture

• Animators have faced cancellation and uncertainty in recent years, but Hazbin Hotel demonstrates the value of independent animation and the hard work required to develop a series.
• Vivienne Medrano, the creator of Hazbin Hotel , developed the characters and world of the show through her YouTube channel and webcomic series, building a dedicated fanbase.
• After a period of silence, the series gained momentum with A24's involvement and has now premiered on Prime Video, showcasing the dedication and passion of the creative team and their ability to turn their vision into reality.

Animators have been going through hell over the past year, particularly for teenage-adult-themed audiences. Shows like Inside Job got a Season 2 order and then ended up being canceled in an instant, Final Space was canceled and then saw itself being pulled from its streaming service altogether (before its revival as a comic), Pantheon received the same treatment on AMC+ with a completed second season before Amazon picked it up, and Fired on Mars has been stuck in waiting limbo.

All of this brings us to Hazbin Hotel. Vivienne “Vivziepop” Medrano’s original series tracking demons of hell trying to redeem themselves lit the animation world on fire with its pilot in October 2019. Now, the series has gone from a partially crowd-funded pilot to getting a two-season order on Prime Video with A24 in the mix. Granted, hesitancy about that order is fair given what we’ve seen with adult animation, but Hazbin Hotel’s journey showcases just how much work it takes to make a series and the value of independent animation.

Hazbin Hotel

In an attempt to find a non-violent alternative for reducing Hell's overpopulation, the daughter of Lucifer opens a rehabilitation hotel that offers a group of misfit demons a chance at redemption.

How Did 'Hazbin Hotel' Start?

Many of the characters you’ve seen in the Happy Hotel first appeared on Medrano’s YouTube channel earlier than the Hazbin pilot. She launched her Vizziepop channel back in 2012, mostly making short, animation test videos or sketches. Many of these featured some hellish creations, like her film posted in 2013, “Hell of 666,” which she made in college. In September 2013, Medrano released a video of a character who looks like Hazbin Hotel’s Angel Dust (Michael Kovach pilot, Blake Roman series) holding a gun with the Sarah McLachlan song “Angel” playing in the background. Medrano would also release several videos of speed draws where she recorded herself drawing the characters we know and love today that would then be either fully animated to standup bits or songs or just consist of still frames with music playing in the background. Other characters now in the Hotel also first appeared in her webcomic series, Zoophobia. Here — as well as through her social media presence — Medrano played with the wacky and wonderful characters that would eventually embody her hellish creation.

All of that work and fandom culminated with multiple clips from the show, merchandise, and Hazbin Hotel’s pilot, which centers around the overly optimistic Princess of Hell Charlie Morningstar (Jill Harris speaking and Elsie Lovelock singing in the pilot, Erika Henningsen in the upcoming series) and her hardened partner, Vaggie (Monica Franco in the pilot, Stephanie Beatriz in the series) trying to make a restorative hotel for sinners. Hell — made up of seven rings of territories one for each of the seven deadly sins — has an overpopulation problem. So, once a year, heaven holds an extermination where souls are, as Charlie puts it, “slaughtered every year.” Charlie describes her alternative in a TV news interview: she wants to “rehabilitate” sinners, helping them go to heaven, and she and Vaggie have made a “hotel” because they are for “people passing through.” Of course, demons are not interested in changing — they love sin and violence. Case in point: the hotel’s first resident, adult film star Angel Dust, is caught taking part in a turf war, which derails the already failing hotel.

But their efforts do attract one investor: Alastor "the Radio Demon" (Edward Bosco speaking and Gabriel C. Brown singing in the pilot, Amir Talai in the series), a mysterious being who has defeated some of the most powerful forces in Hell and has broadcast his killings across the seven realms. Alastor sees the hotel not as a legitimate means to change sinners, but as a joke, and he wants to help them for his own amusement by watching demons work for redemption and then fail. Despite her partner’s hesitations, Charlie says it would be against the hotel’s wishes to turn someone away, so she orders Alastor to help for as long as he desires without making a deal.

Alastor pulls some “favors” (with beings who owe him something) to add to the hotel staff: neat freak Nifty (Michelle Marie in the pilot, Kimiko Glenn in the series), who helps keep the place clean, and sour Husk (Mick Lauer in the pilot, Keith David in the series), who is only there for the cheap booze as he mans the front desk. The pilot has since been viewed more than 90 million times, one of the most successful independent animated projects on YouTube, and it showcases everything you’d want — the fantastic songs, an introduction to the world that’s vibrant and gross in the best way possible, and the threat posed by Alastor that contrasts with Charlie’s mindset for wanting to do good by her people.

'Hazbin Hotel's Journey to Becoming Its Own TV Show Is Over

The pilot came out in October 2019, but there was some radio silence about the show after its initial release. Medrano was still releasing episodes of Helluva Boss, which is set in the same version of Hell and is now in its second season on YouTube — but Hazbin took a step aside in public. But those viewers who watched the show kept talking and creating, including great fan-made songs with some of the voice cast of the pilot, like “Heaven 2 Hell,” and, of course, “Addict,” which even got its own music video on Medrano’s channel. Then in late 2021, an official Twitter/X page for the series hit the app, announcing A24’s involvement. Main updates in 2022 came from those accounts with images of the redesigned characters, and one post from late October previewed a summer 2023 release.

Flash forward to September, and we finally earned a release window and a place where the show would air: January on Prime Video. More details soon followed at New York Comic Con. Not only did we see the new voice cast with Broadway stars and legends included, but the casting felt right. Beatriz and Glenn are perfect choices for their characters, Henningsen, Joel Perez, Alex Brightman (who has worked with Medrano on Helluva Boss), and Christian Borle all have musical theater pedigree, and newcomers like Roman and Talai can grow with the characters. Luckily, Medrano's songwriting from the series — including Sam Haft who’s worked on Helluva Boss — is back, and the panel showed a clip from Charlie’s song “Happy Day in Hell,” a melody introducing the realm the characters will inhabit and the state of life there. Along with Henningsen's beautiful performance — which you can now hear in full — it showcases a brief glimpse of Beatriz and Roman as Vaggie and Angel Dust, as well as the hot, horny, and violent world of Hell.

Hazbin Hotel has traveled a long road from Medrano’s sketches and original YouTube video to the hit pilot and now the newly-premiered series — and it's all a testament to how Medrano and her team built a grassroots fanbase that grew exponentially over time because they saw the passion behind these characters and were willing to wait to see their vision fully formed. It shows how powerful independent animators can be by making their own work and choosing when to work with studios and when to do it yourself. Now, the series has a chance to turn a hellish landscape into a creator’s paradise.

Hazbin Hotel is available to stream on Prime Video.

Watch on Prime Video

ncG1vNJzZmibn6G5qrDEq2Wcp51ktaLGwaKlZqCfqbKtedOvZKygn6x8