I've thought long and hard about how to describe the adult animated series, "Hazbin Hotel." I'm going to go with a dark Disney musical that takes place in Hell, where most of the heroes are demonic furries, and everyone curses a lot. The art style is very mid-2000s Cartoon Network, crossed with Tim Burton-y aesthetics. The characters wear lots of suits with bowties. Lots of stripes. Lots of gigantic eyes.
Finding the origins of the show led me down several intriguing internet rabbit holes, to "viral creator" Vivienne Medrano, aka Vivziepop. She's a popular independent animator who built up a following through Youtube videos and webcomics, and managed to crowdfund the pilot for "Hazbin Hotel," which she posted to her Youtube Channel in 2019. At the time of writing, it has 100 million views and a passel of rabid fans, so it's no wonder A24 took notice. Five years later, the first season was released on Amazon Prime. And it's fascinating stuff.
Charlie Morninstar (Erika Henningsen) is the bubbly, do-gooder princess of Hell. As a naive nepo-baby, she wants to help the denizens of Hell with her latest project, the Hazbin Hotel - intended to redeem the damned and help them ascend to Heaven. Charlie has the support of her girlfriend Vaggie (Stephanie Beatriz), a very untrustworthy Overlord of Hell named Alastor the Radio Demon (Amir Talai), and his minions Husk (Keith David) and Niffty (Kimiko Glenn), who work as hotel staff. They start out with two guests - sex worker Angel Dust (Blake Roman) and slithery Sir Pentious (Alex Brightman). Unfortunately, Heaven hasn't signed off on this idea. They only seem interested in sending down stabby Exorcists every year to murder Hell's inhabitants (yes, you can die again in Hell) as population control.
"Hazbin" is initially a very tough watch. There are a ton of characters to introduce, complicated worldbuilding to explain, and lots of different arcs and mysteries to set up. And frankly, it does this pretty badly. The pace moves way too fast and I frequently felt like I was missing information. The chaotic first episode also does that thing that all adult animated series seem to feel obligated to do, which is to pile on the adult content in the first episode to make it very obvious that children should steer clear. The overkill is not pleasant, and I nearly jumped ship after the premiere. I think that it's helpful to watch the original "Hazbin Hotel" pilot on Youtube before the rest of the series, because it handles some of the introductions better. There are also "Hazbin" comics and music videos, which provide a few more answers and bits of context.
I didn't give up after the first episode, however, because the show does a couple of things very well. The first are the musical numbers. We get two in each episode, infectious Broadway style songs written and composed by Andrew Underberg and Sam Haft, and sung by stage vets who know what they're doing. I was not enjoying the exorcist leader Adam (Brightman) until one of his rants turned into a fantastic villain song, "Hell is Forever." Or there's the villain song that gets taken over by a different villain, "Stayed Gone." And when Charlie's dad Lucifer (Jeremy Jordan) shows up, of course he gets a number, "Hell's Greatest Dad." I think Angel's traumatic "Poison" is probably my favorite though, along with the more cheerful "Loser, Baby" duet that gives Keith David a chance to shine.
Also, once things settle down a little, the lead characters are an appealing bunch - Alastor's my favorite for his old-timey radio announcer voice and serial killer vibes. They're very LGBT friendly, with a lesbian couple front and center, plus others who are genderfluid and/or queer-coded. There are definitely a few cross-species romances going on. When you get past all the vulgarities and debauchery, there's a lot of heartfelt talk of emotions and friendship and never giving up in the face of adversity. A whole episode is devoted to Charlie reconnecting to her dad in a terribly wholesome way. The darkest material - and the show does get dark - is handled with surprising sensitivity and care.
So, there's a lot less parody of Disney musicals than I expected, and a lot more of, well, actually sticking to formula and being a Disney musical. "Hazbin Hotel" talks dirty, but it's got so much earnest theater kid energy, it's no wonder that its audience skews young and obsessive. However, there's plenty of room for improvement. A few characters are so over-designed it hurts to look at them. And the writer's room desperately needs reinforcements. And it really should not have been so difficult to find the prequel comics that explain how Angel met Charlie.
It's going to be a long wait, but I look forward to season two.
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