Hazbin Hotel is an adult animated musical comedy series created by Vivienne Medrano. The series follows Charlie Morningstar, the princess of Hell as she tries to find a way to rehabilitate demons so they can enter Heaven. The quirky comedy series started life as a single animated short on YouTube. However, it was picked up for a series by Amazon Prime Video, which premiered in early 2024.
Creator Vivienne Medrano recently discussed the series in a new interview where she also spoke about the inspiration behind the adult animated series. Medrano revealed the several influences that contributed to the show’s adult-oriented humor and musical element that make it a fresh and breezy viewing experience. Here is everything Medrano revealed about the creation of the Hazbin Hotel.
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Vivienne Medrano Reveals How South Park Inspired Hazbin Hotel
Vivienne Medrano recently sat down for a conversation with Gizmodo and discussed the creation of her adult animated musical-comedy series Hazbin Hotel. During the interview, Medrano spoke about the influences behind the series and cited the long-running adult animated sitcom South Park as a major inspiration.
“I’ve always been really, really influenced by adult comedy. I saw South Park at (a) very young age and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, swearing is so fun.’ It really just changed the entire trajectory of my career.”
Medrano further elaborated by stating that South Park pushed her to make an adult animated series. However, her other primary influence was musical theater and she wanted to incorporate that aspect into her series as well. Medrano continued by stating:
“So making an adult animated comedy was always kind of in the cards for me, but I’m also a huge musical theater fan. So to combine that into this raunchy musical that’s animated and looks so fluid and appealing was all the things I love, and that really resonated with people.”
As a result, from Medrano’s words, it is safe to conclude that Hazbin Hotel is an amalgamation of the creator’s affection for adult animation and musical comedy. Medrano also credited other animated shows such as The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and Invader Zim as major influences on her overall career.
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Vivienne Medrano Shares Other Inspirations Behind Her Musical Comedy Series
During the interview, Medrano also discussed the mythology of the series and how she came up with it. Medrano explained that she loves adaptations of mythological stories. The writer-director explained that she has always been fascinated by the lore of mythological stories from different religions.
“There’s so many different texts and there’s so many different religions and there’s so many different ways of depicting the afterlife that I was like, Oh, this is so fun.”
Medrano revealed that she wanted to explore a different kind of lore related to Hell. As a result, she decided to write Hell as an analogy for a circus where the main character is the ring leader. Medrano implied that the protagonist Charlie Morningstar is very loosely based on Lucifer.
At the same time, Medrano also stated that the personality of Charlie Morningstar was inspired by Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation. However, Medrano revealed that wasn’t always the plan for the main character and she pivoted to a different personality after writing a redemption arc for Charlie.
Hazbin Hotel is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
