Hazbin Hotel


Hazbin Hotel is an American adult animated musical black comedy television series created, directed, and executive-produced by Vivienne "VivziePop" Medrano. The series revolves around Charlie Morningstar, crown princess of Hell, on her quest to find a way for sinners to be "redeemed" and allowed into Heaven via her "Hazbin Hotel" as an alternative to Heaven's annual "Extermination" of souls due to Hell's overpopulation. The series is produced by SpindleHorse in collaboration with A24, Amazon MGM Studios, and the animation studio Bento Box Entertainment.
Medrano began funding her work on Hazbin Hotel via Patreon in 2014. The pilot episode, released on YouTube on October 28, 2019, was made entirely by freelance animators, and was mainly financed by Medrano's Patreon followers. The first season premiered on Amazon Prime Video on January 19, 2024, with its first episode also released on YouTube a day earlier for a limited release. The second season premiered on October 29, 2025, while a third and fourth season are confirmed to be in production. The series has received generally positive reviews from critics.
The popularity and success of the pilot allowed Medrano to create a spin-off series called Helluva Boss, which began on November 25, 2019, with a pilot episode, followed by the premiere of its first season on October 31, 2020. The series features a different cast of characters within the same in-universe setting. As of January 2024, Hazbin Hotel was the largest global debut for a new animated series on Prime Video. In February 2024, the pilot episode surpassed 100 million views on YouTube.

Premise

The series follows Charlie Morningstar, the princess of Hell, as she sets about fulfilling her seemingly impossible dream of opening a hotel, called the "Hazbin Hotel," which aims to rehabilitate sinner demons. Due to overpopulation, Hell goes through an annual purge where angels, led by Adam, descend from Heaven and kill sinners. Charlie finds this distressing, and wants to find a more peaceful solution to the overpopulation problem. Her goal is to have her clients "check out" from Hell as redeemed souls and be accepted into Heaven.
With the help of her devoted manager and girlfriend, Vaggie, and their reluctant first patron, pornographic film actor Angel Dust, she is determined to make her dream become a reality. But when her proposal on live television goes awry, her plan attracts the attention of the powerful "Radio Demon" Alastor who, finding her belief in redemption laughable, helps Charlie run the hotel for his own amusement.

Voice cast and characters

Main

Mick Lauer, Zach Hadel, Richard Steven Horvitz, and Sam Haft provide additional voices.

Episodes

Pilot (2019)

Season 1 (2024)

Season 2 (2025)

Production and release

Some characters of the pilot had been around for years when Medrano began working with people at School of Visual Arts on what would later become Hazbin Hotel, as the "Misfit Demon Gang" in Medrano's webcomic series ZooPhobia. Originally, the pilot was meant to be an adult comedy "with a raunchy, demonic aesthetic". It took over six months to write the episode, and over two years to animate it, with teasers released in that ensuing period to garner an audience of fans. The series contains various LGBTQ+ characters. This includes a gay character named Angel Dust, a bisexual character named Charlie, and an asexual character named Alastor.
The show's pilot episode was released on Medrano's YouTube channel in October 2019, and it gained 54 million views by early February 2021. Almost a year later, A24 picked up Hazbin Hotel for the production of a TV series in August 2020.
The overall transition towards a television format was difficult for the production crew, as they had to work within an allotted amount of episodes and runtime in order to tell the overall story for the first season. The original plan was to have it consist of 22 episodes, but it was reduced to 8 for financial reasons due to A24 picking up the show without a distributor. This led them to struggle with including the plot elements that were in Medrano's vision for the season without going over any of their set limitations, which affected the overall narrative and pacing of the season as a result. They were also unsure if the show would be renewed for more seasons during its production, although they still remained committed to telling the best story they could.
On December 21, 2021, the official Hazbin Hotel Twitter account teased the release of the first season. It was later reported that the cast from the pilot was not asked to reprise their roles for the A24 production, though these voice actors showed support for the show despite their removal. Medrano said that she loves her characters "more than anything" and that they are "in good hands".
Several main characters had been redesigned from the pilot, including Charlie, Vaggie, Alastor, and Angel Dust. Along with SpindleHorse Toons, Bento Box Entertainment co-produced the series for A24. Animation services were handled by Bento Box's subsidiary, Princess Bento Studio, a Melbourne-based studio jointly owned with Princess Pictures, alongside SpindleHorse Toons and Toon City. According to Medrano, many of the artists who worked on the pilot would be returning for the first season, and argued that the "indie spirit of the pilot lives on".
On October 28, 2022, the third anniversary of the pilot's release, a teaser trailer was released on Medrano's YouTube channel promising a summer 2023 release date for the first season, but this was later stalled due to the 2023 strike of actors and writers. On September 28, 2023, a trailer was posted on the series' official Instagram account and Medrano's YouTube channel announcing its first season's premiere on Amazon Prime Video in January 2024, while also announcing that "Season 2 is coming".
In November 2023, it was announced that the series would premiere on January 19, 2024. On December 13, 2023, the official season one trailer was released. It was also confirmed that the pilot would remain canon to the story.
On July 26, 2024, the series was confirmed to be renewed for a third and fourth season. On August 13, 2024, it was made public that DogHead Animation in Florence, Italy, will also be handling animation services for the second season. On July 24, 2025, it was revealed at the San Diego Comic-Con that the second season would premiere on October 29 of that year. Amazon simultaneously released a teaser for the upcoming season.
In September 2025, Medrano acknowledged that the first season had issues with its narrative and runtime, as the process of telling the first season's story within the show's set limitations was described by her as "borderline-impossible" during its production, although she still remained proud of its final look. She stated that the second season would have improved pacing and narrative. Its story was described as being simpler than the first season, with all of the episodes being longer than 22 minutes. Medrano also stated there is a five-season plan for the show.

Soundtrack

The score of the pilot episode was released on November 3, 2019.
The day after the release of each episode of the first season, the songs featured within them were released on a soundtrack EP through A24 Music, starting with Part 1 on January 19, 2024. Two songs from the first two episodes were released ahead of the series and are not present on any of the EPs; "Happy Day in Hell" was released on October 20, 2023, following a preview at New York Comic Con and "Poison" was released on January 5, 2024. Following the release of the series, "Poison" debuted at number 34 on the US Billboard Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, having accumulated 2.7 million US streams in the week following the show.
The soundtrack for the second season was announced in October 2025 and was released on November 19, 2025. It was preceded by the singles "Hazbin Guarantee " and "Gravity".

Soundtrack albums

Singles

Other charted songs

Reception

Critical reception

Pilot

The pilot episode was critically acclaimed for its animation quality, music, and characters. Matthew Field of Go! & Express, argued that the pilot was part of the "animation renaissance" on YouTube, and said there may be "a lot more projects like Hazbin in the future". Lidia Vassar of the MSU Reporter praised the show, noting its "raunchy sense of humor and quirky art style". She also stated that she was looking forward to future episodes, enjoyed the "diversity of character designs", and stated that it is clear that the show's creators "put a lot of time and heart into this project". In December 2019, in an article about the current state of adult animation, CBR animation critic Reuben Baron stated that while the pilot episodes of Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss had garnered "some warranted criticism" because of their inappropriate and edgy humor, they are still "clear labors of love from an animation standpoint". Another critic on CBR, Nerissa Rupnarine, pointed out that Alastor is on the small list of "canon asexual characters" within animation.
Some reviewers argued the series will have a positive influence on independent animation going forward, and argued that the success of Hazbin Hotel led to the success of Helluva Boss. Reviewer Sean Cubillas for CBR praised the show for "quirky, ambitious, and dark humor" and some of the "fastest, wittiest, and raunchiest dialogue ever seen in independent animation."