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On October 28, 2019, animator and YouTube personality Vivian Medrano directed the 30-minute pilot for Hazbin Hotel, an animated musical comedy about a rehabilitation program that helps repentant demons from Hell reintegrate into society. We celebrated the milestone of release. heaven.
Produced and directed by Medrano and brought to life by a team of dozens of independent animators, the pilot was self-funded with donations from Medrano’s Patreon subscribers and was developed over the episode’s two-plus years. , supported her and the project with monthly donations. process. When she finally uploaded it to YouTube, Medrano was both relieved and excited. This felt like the culmination of something I had been working on for a long time, and I was eager to show my work to a small but dedicated group of fans.
She wasn’t ready for what happened next. Almost immediately, the video went viral, captivating fans of adult girlfriend cartoons, Broadway musicals, and raunchy comedies. Based on comments and other online reactions, people were drawn to the project’s original voice and punky, carefree style. Within a few months, Medrano’s Patreon subscriber count skyrocketed, garnering tens of millions of views. Admirers have formed a passionate fandom, spawning fan fiction, tribute art, and elaborate costumes. (As of late January, it had nearly 95 million views.)
“I’ve been an online artist and audience basically all my life,” Medrano said in a phone interview earlier this month. “But once the pilot came out, it exploded. It came to so many people, so quickly, so suddenly. It became a huge hit in a way I never expected.”
Medrano just celebrated another milestone last week with the release of “Hazbin Hotel” on Amazon Prime Video. Produced by A24 and animation studio Bento Box Entertainment, the show’s eight-episode first season continues the familiar tone and spirit of the original YouTube pilot and scales up to the primetime animated series. Expanding.
“There was so much hype and so much anticipation,” Medrano said. “At this point, I’m like, ‘Oh, I hope it works out.'”
The new “Hazbin Hotel”, like the pilot, is a story about Charlie Morningstar (voiced by Erika Henningsen), the princess of hell and the proprietress of the eponymous establishment, and who is a demon. I intend to rehabilitate them so that someday they can see the pearly gates. . A kind of fire-and-brimstone sitcom with a tone somewhere between the dark wit of “BoJack Horseman” and the sarcastic, whimsical misanthropy of “Don’t Trust His B____ in Apartment 23.” This series is dark, hilarious, and heart-pounding. We tackle turbulent issues with upbeat energy.
In one episode, Angel Dust (Blake Roman), an adult film star prone to sordid innuendos, tearfully confesses that she was abused by her sadistic boss. In another, he surprises his friends by showing and talking about adult films. The other characters start singing without any warning. The series is a full-fledged musical full of comic book show tunes, reminiscent of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode “Once More with a Feeling” and the movie “South Park.” Bigger, longer and uncut. ”
Medrano first began fantasizing about “Hazbin Hotel” in middle school, when she began drawing the basic illustrations of these characters and their worlds. Ms. Medrano said her first work was Alastor, a “fun pseudo-villain and mysterious Cheshire Cat character” voiced in the series by Amir Tarai, she said. Medrano’s younger fans seem particularly drawn to Alastor, she said. She added: “I’m glad he’s been loved by the same kind of audience he was created for.”
While attending the School of Visual Arts in New York City, Medrano began thinking more seriously about how to bring the world of “Hazbin Hotel” to life. “That’s when I realized this would be a really great TV show, and all these characters would work really well together,” she said.
She said the original concept was a “simple, raunchy comedy” that might fit into the world of adult animation, which at the time was dominated by series like “Family Guy.” However, towards the end of her college years, the genre opened up, with new shows that were “much more adult, not only in vulgarity, but also in emotion.”
“I felt like I was kind of woken up,” she said. “Wait, can you tell a story like this in an adult anime?” That really opened the door for me. The success of shows like “BoJack” and “Rick and Morty” showed her that there were audiences who liked complex animated stories with evolving but not necessarily interesting characters. Ta. That was the beginning of a creative journey that led to the “Hazbin” pilot.
Following the pilot’s release and viral success, Medrano considered using Kickstarter to raise funds to produce another episode or an entire season. She worked on comics and music for her videos, fleshing out the universe and creating an outline for how the longer story would unfold.
Then A24 got the hang of it. “We watched the pilot and were very impressed with how she built this on her own and essentially made it herself,” said Ravi Nandan, head of television at A24. said in an interview. “We fell in love with this. It’s unconventional for A24, but what really struck us was the voice.” The company funded the pilot and proposed turning it into a series. And Medrano agreed.
When Melissa Wolfe, head of animation at Amazon MGM Studios, heard that A24 was producing a season of the show, she was already familiar with “Hazbin” and Medrano and was looking for it. She asked to see it, and within minutes, she said, “I got goosebumps when I realized it was a great show.” Amazon acquired the series and has already commissioned another season.
Medrano isn’t the first artist to incorporate a viral hit into the professional television business. Shows such as “Adventure Time,” “Insecure,” and “Broad City” also emerged from his YouTube, and awards have also been given to other creators with proven online audiences. I played to prove myself on the big stage. (Remember the “$#*! My Dad Says” series?)
But what’s remarkable about “Hazbin Hotel” is how much of Medrano’s vision has been preserved in the transition from YouTube to Amazon. The pilot for “Hazbin” was weird and quirky, with quirky humor and adult themes, and so was the series, which felt bigger, shinier, and more expensive.
There is one big difference. None of the voice actors in the pilot play the same roles. Medrano chose to hold new auditions for each character, but none of the original cast members were selected.
The recast didn’t go particularly well, at least initially.in Twitter posts in 2021Gabriel C. Brown, the voice actor who voiced Alastor in the pilot, wrote, “I’d rather be involved in a small project that values me than a big project that doesn’t value me.” Michael Kovacs was the voice of Angel Dust in the pilot. wrote on Twitter: “The former voice actors have not been given any information and there is an NDA, so those who know probably won’t be able to talk about it.”
Medrano said he chose to recast because “the challenge of this show is that it’s a musical,” adding, “We need performers who can sing and also voice the characters.”I heard Mr. Medrano’s honest opinion. Fans were alarmed when they heard about the change in voice actors, wondering if it meant the series would move away from the pilot. But aside from the audio, Amazon’s “Hazbin” is otherwise the same.
“I know there are many other creators who have had to sacrifice their vision, but that didn’t happen here,” Medrano said. She said scripts that she thought might be too dark or weird, even for A24’s marginal standards, were approved.
Whatever its shortcomings and advantages, ‘Hazbin Hotel’ is Medrano’s unique vision. Her release of this show on Amazon is just the latest step in a journey that began in her childhood imagination.
“I had to prove myself on YouTube, then I had to prove myself on A24, and then I had to prove myself on Amazon,” she said. “I hope this time we can prove it to the world.”
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