The first season of A24 and Prime Video’s smash-hit animated series “Hazbin Hotel” ended on February 2, 2024, and while the creative team is hard at work on season 2, the show’s popularity hasn’t decreased. “Hazbin Hotel” earned the largest global debut viewership for a new animated title on Prime Video, surpassing other hot commodities like “Invincible” and “The Boys Presents: Diabolical.” The series doesn’t boast the same recognizable IP as its contemporaries, but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming a phenomenon. In the months since the season’s end, convention circuits have shown that “Hazbin Hotel” has become one of the most popular shows for cosplayers to emulate, fanart floods social media feeds on the daily, but thanks to the death of the monoculture, the popularity often feels like it exists in a vacuum.
I’ve previously described “Hazbin Hotel” as adult animation, but too edgy for the constraints of something like “The Simpsons.” It’s as raunchy as “South Park,” but caters to a queerer audience base. It boasts a Broadway cast as impressive as “Central Park,” but without the “Hamilton” name recognition to excite your mom. “Hazbin Hotel” is what happens when you grow up watching “Batman: The Animated Series” and “Invader Zim,” listen to show tunes, and spend a lot of time wading through horny Tumblr discourse in the 2010s. “Hazbin Hotel” doesn’t really have contemporaries, but that’s nothing new for the brainchild of Vivienne “VivziePop” Medrano.
The pilot episode that helped put the show on A24 and Prime Video’s radar was almost exclusively financed by Medrano’s Patreon followers, and completed with a team of freelance animators. It’s “the little animated series that could,” but the show has a secret weapon to maintain relevance and hopefully help push the series over the niche edge and into mainstream consciousness.
“Hazbin Hotel” has some of the best music of any film or television project released in 2024. After being snubbed by the Emmys, it’s time for the Grammys to do the right thing.