‘Hazbin Hotel’ Is the Most Frustrating Kind of Raunchy ‘Adult’ TV
There are two kinds of “adult” television: the kind that uses mature themes like violence and nudity to titillate, and the kind that uses them to tell more complex stories. Hazbin Hotel, Prime Video’s new animated musical-comedy series (premiering Jan. 19), fits into the former camp. Priding itself on its massive amounts of innuendo and profane language, the series often obscures its legitimate charms with its see-through attempts at subversion. While there’s some fun to be had with its song-and-dance mode, it’s impossible to ignore how closely Hazbin’s concepts of mature themes and comedy match up with those of a 15-year-old boy.
Hazbin Hotel got its start on YouTube in 2019, when twenty-something artist Vivienne Medrano uploaded a half-hour pilot that she wrote, directed, and animated herself. She’d first gained a following there with her animated, unofficial music videos, with her own characters lip-syncing to popular songs; the pilot capitalized on that gimmick while adding in a story, dialogue, and original music. The impressively crafted short eventually attracted nearly 100 million views, and Medrano’s spinoff shorts featuring the characters singing new songs further grew the fanbase. Eventually, Medrano landed a production and distribution deal with A24, and fans have waited with bated breath for the full-fledged series ever since.
Both the YouTube pilot and the Prime Video series follow Charlie, the happy-go-lucky princess of Hell, where she’s recently opened a hotel-meets-rehabilitation center to help demons become angels. That way, they can make it out of Hell before the angels in Heaven come and exterminate them to curb overpopulation, as they do on an annual basis—a process which, in the series, speeds up by six months after Charlie accidentally pisses off the angels in charge. With the pressure now on, Charlie and her motley crew of guests sing their hearts out as she slowly sells them on her untested plan for salvation. At the same time, other shadowy figures emerge with their own plans for defeating the angels and seizing control of Hell.