In 2019, Vivienne Medrano released the crowd-funded animated pilot for Hazbin Hotel on her Youtube channel, VivziePop, which went viral. A24 decided to pick up the adult animated musical black comedy to series. The first two seasons have bee released on Amazon Prime Video, and the show has already been greenlit through season 4.

In the opening moments of the first season, we get a quick rundown of the premise and how Heaven and Hell work in the world of the series. Heaven is ruled by angels, and Hell began when angel Lucifer Morningstar (Jeremy Jordan) fell in love with Lilith, and together they tempted Eve in the garden. They were cast into a dark pit of darkness, and never got to see the good that humanity ultimately had become. Together they had a daughter named Charlie, but the couple have long since separated. The population of Hell has been growing exponentially, and some of the angels in Heaven fear that the demons may realize they have the numbers and rise up and revolt. So once a year, Adam (yes, that Adam) leads an army of angels to descend into Hell for the annual Extermination, where they kill= off thousands of sinners’ souls.

Charlie Morningstar (Erika Henningsen), the princess and heir to Lucifer’s throne, decides that she wants to find a more peaceful solution, and help these sinners. She wants to rehabilitate these souls so that they can go to Heaven instead of being a part of this annual culling. In order to achieve this seemingly-impossible dream, Charlie has created Hazbin Hotel, a place where these sinners can stay while learning to change their ways and repent. However, she doesn’t know if this will work, or if Heaven would even accept these reformed souls. Assisting Charlie in running the Hell-based hotel are girlfriend Vaggie (Stephanie Beatriz), host Radio Demon Alastor (Amir Talai), bartender Husk (Keith David), and housekeeper Niffty (Kimiko Glenn). However, the hotel is severely is lacking guests—male sex worker/porn star Angel Dust (Blake Roman) has volunteered to be Charlie’s first/only patron. He is skeptical about Charlie’s goals, but welcomes the chance to have a place to get away from his demanding boss, Valentino (Joel Perez). Soon after, the hotel welcomes its second guest, serpent Sir Pentious (Alex Brightman), who reluctantly joins the program after his poor attempt tp spy on the hotel for Alastor’s rival, Vox (Christian Borle), quickly goes awry.

The latest Extermination just took place, so Charlie believes she has a whole year to prove that her program is viable. However, she soon discovers that Adam has decided to move up the timetable, and start running Exterminations every 6 months instead. She desperately looks for a way to appeal this to those in Heaven, and prove that her program could work. However, all is not as it seems, and soon it looks like Charlie and her small team of 6 are headed for an all out war with the angels. They now must prepare for the impending battle and raise an army of their own. Do they even have a remote chance in Hell of succeeding?!

While the premise of Hazbin Hotel may sound a bit dark, the series is anything but. The show is fast-paced, with lots of adult humor, and each 22-minute episode features at least two original musical numbers. Much of the cast from the original pilot has been replaced with talented voice actors who are no strangers to the Broadway stage, and it really shows. The music is definitely the highlight of the series for me. These are not just throw-away songs, they are fully-produced musical numbers, with witty lyrics and amazing vocals. The style of the songs runs the gamut, including rock, power ballad, pop and more. But my favorites are those sung by Charlie, whose musical numbers sound like Broadway-meets-Disney Princess (though many of these lyrics could never be uttered in a Disney movie!).

The characters are really fun, diverse and quirky, and this bizarre world that is set up feels fresh and original. The musical aspect of the series made it so much fun and enjoyable to watch and what really sold me on the show. While some of the language, humor and topics are definitely adult, it never felt like the writing was being crass just to be crass. While the 8 episodes are serialized, and tell a complete story, each episode also has a somewhat self-contained arc, and at the end of the season, there are hints at how the story could be continued in the future. While I enjoyed the series overall, a did have a couple of the issues. First was with the story/pacing, where some story elements and characters get dropped and seemingly forgotten after an episode. I kept waiting for some of these story points and characters to return, but they never did. I also found the overall mythology a bit too complex and confusing at times. There are a lot of characters, with new ones being introduced each episode, and it was hard to keep track of who was what type of demon, their place in the hierarchy, and who controlled whose soul and why. I had not seen the original pilot episode before watching this first season—I actually didn’t even know it existed until listening to the commentary tracks. It is my understanding that the pilot introduces a lot of the same characters, but that the series does rehash the same story from the pilot—there wasn’t enough time in just 8 22-minute episodes to include everything from the pilot in the show. Unfortunately the original pilot episode, “That’s Entertainment”, is not included on this disc, but it is available on the Vivziepop YouTube Channel.

A24/Alliance Home Entertainment has released this first season of Hazbin Hotel on Blu-ray, which we were sent for review. The video looks stellar, with a crisp, clean picture, and bright beautiful colors. I can’t imagine the series looking any better. The audio track is also great, providing clear dialogue, making nice use of the stereo and surround channels to provide the immersive ambiance of this world, and really showcasing the show’s amazing musical numbers. The 8 episodes of the first season are spread across 2 discs, which are placed overlapping on one side of a slightly thicker clear Blu-ray keepcase. The release does not include any digital copy, but the keepcase did contain a folded mini-poster and a trading card, and was covered in a nice cardboard slipcover. The bonus material consists of audio commentaries on all episodes by the series creator and directors.

What’s Included:

Episodes: (3:05:00)

• All 8 episodes of season one:
  Disc 1 (1:32:13): “Overture”, “Radio Killed the Video Star”, “Scrambled Eggs”, “Masquerade”
  Disc 2 (1:32:47): “Dad Beat Dad”, “Welcome to Heaven”, “Hello Rosie!”, “The Show Must Go On”
• 1080p / Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish

Extras:

• Audio Commentaries
  Series creator Vivienne Medrano, art director Sam Miller and animation director Skye Henwood provide entertaining and informative commentaries on all 8 episodes. The discuss the similarities and differences to the original YouTube pilot, the constraints of a 22-minute episode, the arc of the first season, the music, the casting, the performances, and more. Throughout the episodes, they also share some fun stories and trivia about the production. Select from:
  • “Overture” (23:12)
  • “Radio Killed the Video Star” (23:03)
  • “Scrambled Eggs” (22:57)
  • “Masquerade” (22:59)
  • “Dad Beat Dad” (23:11)
  • “Welcome to Heaven” (23:11)
  • “Hello Rosie!” (23:12)
  • “The Show Must Go On” (23:12)
• Mini-Poster
  Inside the keepcase is a foldout 17″ x 10.5″ mini-poster (see photo above)
• Exclusive Trading Card
  Inside the keepcase is an exclusive Hazbin Hotel Trading Card. In our copy was a card called “Hate Watch” (see photos above).

Final Thoughts:

I was pleasantly surprised by this first season of Hazbin Hotel—I didn’t really know anything about the series before sitting down to watch. I found it fun and quirky, with a unique animation style. But what really blew me away were the show’s amazing musical numbers. A24’s Blu-ray release looks and sounds great, and includes entertaining commentary tracks on every episode. Unfortunately the original pilot is not included on the release, but it is still readily available on YouTube (and embedded below). The series has already aired 2 seasons on Amazon Prime Video, and has been greenlit for 2 more. I will definitely be checking out more of this show! This release is worth picking up for fans of the series, musicals, or adult animated comedies. Those with Prime Video can check out the series there before making a blind buy.