Hazbin Hotel

Premise

The series follows Charlie Morningstar, the princess of Hell, as she sets about fulfilling her seemingly impossible dream of finding a way for sinners to be "redeemed" and allowed into Heaven, mainly via her "Hazbin Hotel", which aims to rehabilitate sinner demons. Due to overpopulation, Hell goes through an annual genocidal purge called "extermination" where angels called "Exorcists", armed with angelic weapons and 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

Stephanie Beatriz as Vaggie/Vaggi

Alex Brightman as Sir Pentious and Adam

Keith David as Husk

Kimiko Glenn as Niffty and Susan

Erika Henningsen as Charlie Morningstar

Blake Roman as Angel Dust and the Egg Boiz

Amir Talai as Alastor and Tom Trench

Christian Borle as Vox

Recurring

Brandon Rogers as Katie Killjoy

Jessica Vosk as Lute

Lilli Cooper as Velvette

Joel Perez as Valentino and Maestro

James Monroe Iglehart as Zestial

Daphne Rubin-Vega as Carmilla Carmine

Jeremy Jordan as Lucifer Morningstar

Krystina Alabado as Cherri Bomb

Patina Miller as Sera

Shoba Narayan as Emily

Kevin Del Aguila as Baxter

Patrick Stump as Abel and Hatchet

Guest

Don Darryl Rivera as Travis

Sarah Stiles as Mimzy

Darren Criss as Saint Peter

Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer as Rosie

Liz Callaway as the Speaker of God

Andrew Durand as Prick

Alex Newell as Zeezi

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

Episodes

Production

Creator Vivienne Medrano began funding her work on Hazbin Hotel via Patreon in 2014. Some characters from the pilot had existed for years when Vivienne Medrano began working with people at School of Visual Arts (SVA) on what would later become Hazbin Hotel, such 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 was made by freelance animators and financed by Medrano's Patreon followers. 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 gay Angel Dust, bisexual Charlie, and asexual 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. In August 2020, A24 picked up Hazbin Hotel for the production of a TV series.

The overall transition towards a television format was difficult for the production crew, as they had to work within an allotted number of episodes and runtime in order to tell the overall story for the first season. The episode count was limited to eight 22-minute-long episodes 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 members from the pilot were 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". Medrano has also confirmed that the pilot remains canon to the story.

Release

On December 13, 2023, the first trailer was released. The series premiered on January 19, 2024, with the first episode also releasing on YouTube a day earlier for a limited time.

On July 24, 2025, the trailer for the second season was released. The second season premiered on October 29, 2025.

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 U.S. Billboard Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, having accumulated 2.7 million American 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 (Trust Us)" and "Gravity".

Reception

Critical reception

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".

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 79% of 33 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's consensus reads: "A hellzapoppin' musical series swathed in hot, vibrant colors, Hazbin Hotel is worth a booking." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 69 out of 100 based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Erik Piepenburg of the Los Angeles Times (LA Times) said the show's universe is a "brazenly colorful, queer-inclusive and fast-paced mishmash" with "outlandish grotesque scenes and copious potty mouths", along with "a Broadway pop score". Christine N. Ziemba of Paste argued that the series is not "simply a rehash" of the pilot, is not for kids, and includes "wickedly pointed adult humor", characters which are eccentric or are sinners, and "Disney-esque musical numbers", and called the series "visually eye-catching". Hope Mullinax of Collider said series expectations were "easily smashed", praising the music, cast, and design choices. She was excited to see where the series went forward, but was disappointed that Cherri Bomb did not get a bigger role. Joe Draper of Digital Spy described the series as explicit and including an "all-star cast of stage performers and TV favourites". Petrana Radulovic of Polygon described the series as a "character-driven musical with an overarching driving plot and a lot of deep world-building", also noting that it features "multiple female and queer leads".

Other media

Webcomics

From October 27, 2019, to July 7, 2020, a webcomic titled "Chapter 1: Dirty Healings" (which showed how Angel Dust learned of the hotel) was completed, containing twenty-two pages and hosted on the official Hazbin Hotel website. Another comic entitled "The Radio Demon", also known as "A Day in the Afterlife", which focused on Alastor's daily life in Hell, was posted to the website on October 19, 2020, containing sixteen pages.

Music

"Addict" is an animated music video released on July 17, 2020, on Medrano's YouTube channel, based on and featuring the Silva Hound song of the same name. It centers around Angel Dust's relations with his best friend, Cherri Bomb, and his abusive boss, Valentino, and Angel and Cherri's experiences with addiction. The song was performed by Michael Kovach and Kelly "Chi-Chi" Boyer. Tito W. James of Comicon.com described the video as giving viewers a "deeper look" at the lives of Cherri Bomb and Angel Dust, and praised the "world of Hazbin" for being "paradoxically provocative and empathetic". The song ranked as the #3 dance song on iTunes on July 21, 2020. Additionally, the song #14 on the US Dance/Electronic Songs chart, #4 on the Dance/Electronic Digital Songs chart, and #77 on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs Year-End.

A one-night-only concert, entitled Hazbin Hotel: Live on Broadway, occurred on October 20, 2025, at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. It was hosted by Charlie's voice actor, Erika Henningsen, and featured the show's cast performing songs from seasons one and two of the show. It was produced by RadicalMedia, and a recording of the concert was made available for viewing on Prime Video on November 17, 2025.

Home media

The complete first season received a Blu-ray release that featured cast commentary on the episodes, as well as a trading card and a poster bundled with the purchase. It was released on December 9, 2025.

Helluva Boss

A spin-off series, Helluva Boss, unveiled its first season on October 31, 2020, almost one year after the release of its own pilot. Helluva Boss takes place in the same fictional universe as Hazbin Hotel, the Hellaverse, but it has a different cast of characters and story. As Medrano described it, while both shows share the same setting, Hazbin Hotel is about redemption and consequences of past actions, while Helluva Boss follows "characters and societies that already exist in Hell", focusing on relationships between characters.

Fandom

By August 2020, the show had developed a dedicated fanbase, with the 31-minute pilot receiving over 123 million views as of May 2026, a rise from 32 million views in May 2020. In a white paper about the increase in adult animation, John Evershed, founder of Mondo Media, described the series as a rare exception to shows on YouTube that are picked up by companies as a "long form TV series". He argued that the show generated enough attention and views to interest A24 in producing the show as a TV series. Medrano told Insider in February 2021 that she was surprised the show had gotten so big, saying that the fandom of Hazbin Hotel rivals those of shows with multiple seasons, even with only a pilot released, and that it "hit a chord with people" due to its art style, angst, and drama. Furthermore, she expressed excitement in the direction of the show, noting the demand for her content. Others called the series a "YouTube hit".

Some media outlets noted intense fan interest in the character Lucifer Morningstar, the king of Hell, who had not "physically appeared in any Hazbin Hotel work" prior to the show's first season. Sarah Laudenbach of Screen Rant noted that the series had developed a strong fanbase despite having "minimal content" available, with "longtime fans" praising the series for dealing with "dark topics like abuse and addiction". She also said that Medrano created an "entire Hellish universe" which gained a "fandom of its own". Kimberly Terasaki of The Mary Sue described the show as having inspired the "imaginations of thousands of fans" and noted that there are over 7,000 fan fictions for the series on Archive of Our Own, along with "thousands of fan comics and fandubs". Scholar Ben Mitchell described the series as "sensationally popular" and an effective use of Patreon to subsidize the show's art "through monthly tiered payments". In January 2025, Hazbin Hotel set the Guinness World Record for "Most in-demand animated TV show" with a global demand rating that was 74 times higher than the average show, previously held by Jujutsu Kaisen (JJK).

In other media

On January 19, 2024, Gabriel C. Brown, Alastor's pilot singing voice, released "Thank You and Goodnight", a 'farewell song' sung by the pilot cast of Hazbin Hotel, marking their recast after a full season was greenlit for Amazon Prime Video. In February 2024, an emote entitled "Reaper's Showtime" was released to the video game Fortnite by Epic Games, allowing the player character to wield a red and white scythe while playing the fan-created song "Insane", after Brown paid $10,000 to have the song attached to an emote. On June 19, 2026, Brown uploaded a music video for "Insane" animated by Helluva Boss animator Luximus, before the video was removed from YouTube on June 27 following a copyright removal request by Amazon MGM Studios.