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An adorable devil
Hot Stuff the Little Devil is a comic book character created by Warren Kremer who first appeared in Hot Stuff #1 (October 1957), published by Harvey Comics. Imbued with a mischievous personality and able to produce fire, Hot Stuff is friends with Casper the Friendly Ghost. However, he appears only as a supporting character in the Casper books, never having been given a cartoon of his own.

After Casper the Friendly Ghost and Wendy the Good Little Witch, Harvey Comics created another character based on childhood fears and settled on a devil character named Hot Stuff. As with all Harvey kid characters, most of the “bad” characters are merely mischievous at heart, and usually have good intentions, despite being a little bit rascally. Harvey had such high hopes for Hot Stuff, so much so that it didn't even debut as a supporting feature or in the Harvey Hits tryout series before going to its own series. It turned out to be a wise choice since Hot Stuff ranks as one of the most popular characters to come out of Harvey after Casper and Richie Rich.

DreamWorks Animation has announced in 2014 a live-action/animated film adaptation featuring the character; however, nothing happened since the announcement.


Hot Stuff the Little Devil provides the following tropes:

  • Animate Inanimate Object: Hot Stuff has run into living musical instruments twice: Once when he journeyed to the Land Of Music, and again when he met the Hootes and the Nannies, two feuding instrument families.
  • Art Evolution: From the art style of Warren Kremer to the modern character design from Casper and the Spectrals.
  • Badass Adorable: Hot Stuff himself is a good example of this trope.
  • Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: As a devil, Hot Stuff is supposed to cause mischief, and good deeds are considered wrong behavior. Even though Hot Stuff loves mischief, there are stories about him being punished for having a heart of gold.
  • Band Land: Hot Stuff visits a world populated by sentient musical instruments (and literally named "The Land Of Music") in Issue #17. The visit doesn't go very well for him.
  • Batman Can Breathe in Space: Hot Stuff can survive in the vacuum of outer space. Apparently, he doesn't need oxygen to survive since he has been seen taking naps in the bottom of the sea.
  • Become a Real Boy: In one story Hot Stuff asked a witch to turn him into a human, because he wanted to play with human boys.
  • Big Red Devil: Heavily downplayed; he's impish, not malicious. But you still need to Beware the Nice Ones.
  • Bully Hunter: Hot Stuff in many stories punishes big bullies, especially ogres and trolls, but also occasionally human bullies.
  • Calling Your Attacks: According to Hot Stuff #17, the little devil's most powerful attack is called "Super-Ultra-Colossal Heat Wave".
  • Clothing Damage: The story "Hot Stuff's new clothes" revolves about Hot Stuff getting new outfits that he disliked from Aunt Mushy, and Hot Stuff "Accidentally" ripping them apart by walking in lava, thorns etc.
  • Covers Always Lie: Nearly every cover features jokes about Hot Stuff's body temperature, but the stories rarely relate to it.
  • Crossover: Hot Stuff has had encounters with other Harvey characters.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Despite being a devil, Hot Stuff looks kind of harmless. But most people are scared of him.
  • Devil's Pitchfork: Most of the devils from the comic books wield tridents. Hot Stuff calls it "his trusty trident" or sometimes "Tridey".
  • Disappeared Dad: Hot Stuff's father appeared in only a few of his early comics.
  • Dub Name Change: The little devil is called "Flamita" (which means little Flame) in the spanish translations of his comic books, interestingly the original comics acknowledge this fact, as he is called by that name by mexican characters.
  • Elemental Rivalry: In one issue of Hot Stuff The Little Devil, Hot Stuff gets in a fight with Jack Frost's little brother, who has been causing mischief by making ice in the middle of summer, Also Freeze the ice devil is portrayed as a evil character that fights Hot Stuff in one issue.
  • Extreme Omnivore: Hot Stuff to some degree, since he is able to eat fire, molten metal and even lava.
  • Family-Friendly Firearms: In Devil Kids starring Hot Stuff # 29, Uncle Vulcan gave Hot stuff a small pistol, but the weapon shot fire instead of actual bullets. Oddly there were actual firearms in some early comics published by Harvey.
  • For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: In one story Hot Stuff attended a Costume party with one of his devil friends. Human kids didn't realize they were real devils until Hot stuff accidentally breathed fire.
  • Four-Fingered Hands: Hot Stuff and every other devil in the comics oddly human characters are often drawn with five-fingered hands.
  • Friendly Ghost: Casper, the trope's namer, made several appearances in the comics.
  • Hidden Heart of Gold: Despite his mischievous and short tempered behaviour, Hot stuff has a good and caring personality, even being able to sacrifice himself to save his friends.
  • Horned Humanoid: All the devils in the comics.
  • I Just Want to Have Friends: Hot Stuff in some stories, But people often mistook him for the devil.
  • Inexplicably Identical Individuals: Norman Neptune and Freezy the ice devil are identical to Hot Stuff, but they are green and blue respectively.
  • Interspecies Friendship: Hot Stuff is friends with Casper, Wendy and Spooky, despite being different creatures.
  • Interspecies Romance: Princess Charma is a fairy and Hot Stuff's main love interest. Evidently, in the future they are married.
  • Living Weapon: Hot Stuff's trident is actually a sentient being, even able to talk, in fact sometimes it disagrees with Hot stuff to the point of striking.
  • Meaningful Name: Hot Stuff's name is pretty much self-explanatory.
  • Monochrome Apparition: All the ghosts from the comics are are transparent, pale and white-ish and not detailed.
  • Named Weapons: Hot Stuff calls his fork tridey.
  • Older Than They Look: Despite his appearance, according to most of the comics Hot Stuff is at least several hundred years old, and according to one comic he is at least 2,000 years old. He is still young compared to others of his species, although in some comics his age seems to be portrayed inconsistently.
  • Our Demons Are Different: That applies to all the demons from Harvey comics. Hot Stuff may be mischievous, short-tempered, and even aggressive but he isn't actually evil.
  • Our Fairies Are Different: Princess Charma is just as big as a regular human.
  • Parental Abandonment: In the classic comics, Hot Stuff lives with his uncles and grandfather. But his parents never appeared until Casper and the Spectrals.
  • Parental Substitute: Aunt Clinker and Hot Stuff's uncles.
  • Playing with Fire: In most, if not all the comics, Hot Stuff uses his pyrokinesis and he is immune to extreme heat, even lava. According to some comics, Hot Stuff has a heat-dependent healing factor.
  • Pointy Ears: Hot Stuff, along with every other devil.
  • Prehensile Tail: Hot stuff can use his tail to hold and manipulate objects.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Hot Stuff is at least several hundreds of years old, and one comic stated he is 2000 years old.
  • Red Is Violent: Seriously, do not push his buttons, or there will be, ahem, hell to pay.
  • Running Gag: The jokes about Hot Stuff's body temperature that appear in nearly every comic book cover.
  • Science Is Bad: There are about a pair of stories about it in the comics, one of which concerns a devil scientist giving Hot Stuff a new power only to mess with Him.
  • Shared Universe: All the characters of Harvey comics live in the same world and Casper, Wendy, Spooky, and Hot Stuff live in a place called the Enchanted Forest.
  • Sir Swears-a-Lot: Hot Stuff's Grampa Blaze is always casually Symbol Swearing.
  • Symbol Swearing: Hot Stuff's Grampa Blaze swears all the time, which is represented by symbols.
  • Talking Animal: In most stories all the animals from the Enchanted Forest are able to talk and they serve as minor characters. Oddly in some other comics they are just regular animals.
  • Time to Move: There is a story about Hot Stuff being really unhappy living in his cave and he moves several times in the story, just to realize his old cave was better than he thought.
  • The Prankster: Hot Stuff loves pranks and mischief, but he is a little angel compared to his cousin Burnie, a little devil who Hot Stuff can't stand.
  • Trapped in the Past: The story "The time machine" (Hot Stuff Creepy Caves #5) revolves about the titular character stuck in the prehistoric times, after Freezy the ice devil stole his time machine, leaving him trapped in the past.

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