Western Animation / Hazbin Hotel

Yes, it's one of a kind
Right here in Hell
Catering to a specific clientele
^note  From the bottom left to right: Vaggie, Charlie, Angel Dust, Niffty, Husk, Alastor, Sir Pentious along with his Egg Bois, Katie Killjoy, Tom Trench, and Cherri Bomb.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm opening the first of its kind: a hotel that rehabilitates sinners!"

— Charlie

Hazbin Hotel is a 2024 adult animated musical Black Dramedy series created by Vivienne Medrano. It stars Erika Henningsen, Stephanie Beatriz, Amir Talai, Blake Roman, Keith David, Kimiko Glenn, Alex Brightman, Christian Borle, and Joel Perez.

You know that old line of "when Hell is full" and all that? Well, Heaven has a solution to that little problem: annual purges of the population. It's not pretty (then again, nothing in Hell usually is), but it gets the job done. That is until one day when Charlie Morningstar, the princess of Hell, proposes an alternative: sick and tired of losing so many of her people, she has set up a project to reduce the population of Hell by reforming damned souls and sending them to Heaven.

Of course, this plan gets mocked as a pipe dream, but with a little support from a mysterious and extremely powerful demon named Alastor, known throughout Hell as the "Radio Demon", her dream may yet become a reality. The show is centered on the exploits and misadventures of Charlie, her girlfriend Vaggie, and their first client — a spider-like drag-queen mobster/pornstar named Angel Dust — as they try to reform the various types of demons that come into their hotel.

The pilot episode was released in October 28, 2019, and can be found here on YouTube. On August 7, 2020, the media company A24 announced that they had picked up Hazbin Hotel for a full series. The first full season of the main series is set to premiere on Prime Video in January 19, 2024, with a second already confirmed. Early access to the first two episodes can be purchased through the Hazbin Hotel website.

See also Helluva Boss, another show created by Vivienne Medrano set in the same universe, called the Hellaverse, but telling a mostly disconnected story starring Blitzo^note the 'o' is silent, a low-level imp of Hell who dreams of running his startup company... which happens to specialize in assassinating still-living humans who screwed over the residents of Hell during their mortal lives.

Trailers: Announcement, Happy Day in Hell

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Hazbin Hotel contains examples of the following:

A-I

• Accidental Suicide: In life, Angel Dust was an addict who overdosed on the drug he's named for in 1947, resulting in his death. In Hell, he continues to do drugs, though he can't die from them due to being a demon.
• Aerith and Bob: On one hand you have names like Angel Dust, Vaggie, and Crymini, and on the other you have names like Tom, Baxter, and Charlie.
• The Afterafterlife: Discussed by Angel Dust during the limo ride back to the hotel as he ponders and deconstructs Vaggie's threats (being Angel Dust, this likely means nothing to him in the long run).
  Vaggie: (flatly) I'm gonna kill him.
  Angel Dust: Too late, toots. Wait, would that make me double-dead?! (chuckles) And where exactly do I go, to double-hell?! (cackles) Sorry, you're stuck with me, bitch. Get used to it!
  Vaggie: (fuming) ...Come mierda, malparido...
• The Ageless: The damned don't age after they die and become demons, as Angel Dust and Alastor can attest to, having died decades ago.
• Alien Sky: Hell has a permanently red sky, and a large floating pentagram looms over the aptly named Pentagram City. Hell also appears to have a moon with a pentagram on it.
• Alliterative Name: The titular Hazbin Hotel, as well as its original name the Happy Hotel.
• All There in the Manual: The characters' Instagram accounts provide a lot of supplemental insights into them. It is clarified by Vivziepop that they are Loose Canon.
• All There in the Script: Valentino's arm candy in the "ADDICT" music video aren't named in the video itself. Cécilia "Calis" Goncalves, the one who designed the characters, revealed in a tweet that she named them in her head Dia, the succubus, and Summer, the cat girl. Sara "Serval" Fisher, the lead compositor on the music video, in a behind the scenes video reconfirms Dia's name, though she also states that the cat girl is named Lulu. Despite this discrepancy over the cat girl's name, Calis however states in a number of tweets that her name is actually indeed Summer. It was originally Lulu but was changed to Summer due to sounding too similar to Loo Loo from Helluva Boss.
• Ambiguous Situation: Alastor claims he is simply helping out with the Hazbin Hotel for his own entertainment, as he thinks it will be more amusing than anything he's seen in decades, and watching the damned try to redeem themselves only to fail repeatedly would amuse him greatly. Vaggie believes he has some sort of hidden agenda and calls him on it at spearpoint within seconds of finding out he'd entered the hotel (as well as explaining her point of view later on, albeit privately) to Charlie.
• Anachronistic Soundtrack: Alastor is frequently accompanied by old timey music and sound effects reminiscent of the 1920s and 1930s, as befits his nature as the Radio Demon. In particular, the two sounds that stand out the most are tube radio hums when he's in a calmer mood, and the crackling screech of static along with what sounds like a futile attempt to change the station when all bets are off and he's getting ready to annihilate whatever's in his path.
• Anarcho-Tyranny: How Hell appears to be run. Lucifer stays hands-off and lets the sinners torment themselves with endless indulgence of their sins and constant gang warfare.
• Animal Motifs: In conjunction with the above, many of the demons have this.
  • Vaggie's is moths.
  • Angel's is spiders.
  • Sir Pentious' is snakes.
  • Alastor's is deer.
  • Niffty's is cockroaches.
• Animated Musical: An adult animated series set in Hell that has musical numbers.
• Apple of Discord: In A Day in the After Life, this appears to be one of Alastor's favored tricks. He tosses food to just one of two crow-like creatures, and later throws his hat to just one of several ladies fawning over him.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: A series of signs at the 666 News TV station read "Murder! Sex! Weather!"
• Art Evolution: As evidenced by the Happy Day in Hell clip, the character designs have been refined from the pilot. Charlie’s head is now rounder and she wears a red suit, Vaggie now wears a pink blouse, and so on.
• Ascended Demon: The whole purpose of the Hazbin Hotel is this: reforming demons so that they could then ascend into Heaven.
• Aside Glance: Tom Trench gives a brief one when Charlie starts singing.
• Author Appeal: It's Vivienne Medrano, so expect bright colors (and by her own admission, plenty of red), incredibly imaginative character designs, anthropomorphic animals, Noodle People, and musical numbers.
• Bad Guy Bar: There are multiple hangouts in Hell for damned souls to spend time in. They range from old-timey western pool halls, modern techno nightclubs, to all sorts of strip clubs and porn-related locales.
• Bad Guys Play Pool: One of the locations shown where Charlie's interview is broadcast to is an old-timey western pool hall where a bunch of stereotypical mustache twirling villain demons are seen playing.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment:
  • After Charlie tries to sell the crowd her idea (in song), one demon pops up with what appears to be a huge smile and genuine appreciation for her performance:
    Demon: (awed voice) Wow... That was shit!
  • When the man who stole his drugs is crushed by a giant boulder out of nowhere, Angel Dust gasps in horror.
    Angel Dust: Oh my god! (Beat) My drugs! Damn it!
• Beyond Redemption: One of the Central Themes of the series is an examination of this trope. Averting this is Charlie's whole goal with the hotel, since she believes that "inside of every demon is a rainbow" and that no one is irredeemable, even the sinners who have found themselves in Hell. However, next to none of the demons are willing to believe in Charlie's goal of rehabilitating damned souls, because no one believes sinners are willing to be good. Alastor even outright says that redemption is impossible for a demon, as everyone had their chance to be good on Earth, and the fact that they're in Hell means they've lost that chance. The only reason he goes along with it at all is because he thinks it'll be fun to watch everybody fail. Throughout it all, the heroes are portrayed as naïve but well-meaning, being at least willing to try in spite of all the obstacles thrown at them. The villains are the people who believe that redemption is impossible and/or actively try to sabotage the heroes' efforts out of the cynical belief that anyone trying to do better should be the subject of derision or hostility.
• Big Red Devil:
  • Among the various denizens of Hell, there are some that look more like the typical depiction of demons and devils. For example, Jeffrey Dahmer, on the poster for his cooking show, is depicted merely as himself but with devil horns and a devil tail.
  • Not so much big, but as befitting her status as Princess of Hell, Charlie's more demonic form has the traditional devilish red horns on her head and bright red eyes.
• Black Comedy: As befitting a show set primarily in Hell, there's black humor in spades. The jokes range from Alastor remarking he hasn't been that entertained since the Stock Market Crash of 1929 while joyfully reflecting that there were "so many orphans", to Angel Dust brushing off Vaggie's complaint of "committing territorial genocide" by cracking a joke about him not caring if anyone got hurt since there's "a bunch of fuckin' harlequin babies out there".
• Black Comedy Cannibalism:
  • 666 News has a "cannibal cooking segment" hosted by none other than infamous Serial Killer and cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer.
  • In his "Day In the Life" comic Alastor casually visits a cannibal colony and exchanges warm salutations with some demon ladies in the process of dismembering a guy. His later killing and eating of a butcher is not Played for Laughs though.
• Blessed with Suck: Sinners unlike the natural born inhabitants of Hell are immortal and will heal from any damage that's not inflicted by an angel's weapon. The downside is that it means they can be reduced to a state where they'd rather die, they can't reproduce, and can't leave the pride ring. Meaning they can't escape to the lower levels during the annual extermination.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Charlie's musical number lumps in "Cartoon porn addictions, Vegan rants, psychic predictions" in with Roman crucifixions.
• Brick Joke: During Sir Pentious's introduction, an Egg Boi wishes that his boss would shoot him with the latter's ray gun. Later, during The Stinger, as Sir Pentious climbs out of the crater, the very same Egg Boi is revealed to have survived as he asks his boss if the latter will now shoot him with the latter's ray gun.
• Brutal Honesty: Upon first meeting Angel Dust and pitching the Happy Hotel to him in his prequel comic, Charlie doesn't bother to sugarcoat her desire to see if rehabilitating a demon is possible.
  Charlie: We want you to be our first test subject!
  Angel Dust: Why me?
  Charlie: Because you seem like someone who regrets his life choices and would be interested in self reflection and bettering himself!
  Angel Dust: *awkward glance*
• Bullying a Dragon: It's apparently rather common for demons to only take first impressions into account when choosing bullying targets; Katie Killjoy openly mocks and tries to fight Charlie (who's Hell's princess and far stronger than Katie), and in the Alastor prequel, a meat shop-running demon tries to attack Alastor of all people, and Alastor has to dissuade him by flashing his Nightmare Face.
• The Cameo:
  • Maxwell Atoms, creator of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, provides the voice for a number of characters. He voices the thief who steals Angel Dust's drugs, the guy who announces that Charlie's interview is live, and the top hat-headed demon who insults Charlie's performance during her interview.
  • Multiple Tony Award-winning Broadway actor James Monroe Iglehart voices the big lizard guy who incredulously asks "Is this girl for real?" and makes fun of her while watching her live from a nightclub TV.
  • Don Darryl Rivera, who's known for originating the role of Iago in the Broadway musical adaption of Aladdin, voices Travis the john who Angel Dust just sold his services to in the pilot.
• Cast Full of Gay: The pilot introduces six characters who are meant to be the main cast as they run the hotel. Among them, Angel Dust and Vaggie are gay, Charlie is bisexual, Alastor is asexual, and Husk is pansexual with only Niffty being straight. Additionally, out of the main villain trio, Valentino is pansexual and Vox is bisexual.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Practically every character has a unique look to them. Even the background characters all have varied designs — in summation, nobody is alike in terms of appearance.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Fighting a brutal turf battle against Sir Pentious doesn't stop Angel Dust and Cherri Bomb from talking about the former's stay at the titular hotel, and how much it's bugging him.
• Central Theme: Redemption. Is it possible for truly bad people to change their ways? Should they be given a chance? And does wasting that chance mean that they shouldn't be given another shot?
• Changing Chorus: In the second appearance of "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow" the Radio Demon changes the titular chorus to "Inside of Every Demon is a Lost Cause".
• Circles of Hell: Hell is divided into Seven Rings, seemingly after the Seven Deadly Sins, as opposed to the Nine Circles of Hell from The Divine Comedy. Interestingly though, is that Sinners cannot traverse between the Rings; they are forever trapped in the top-most Ring of Pride. However, Hellborn Demons such as Imps or Charlie can traverse between all the Rings.
• City of the Damned: Pentagram City is the Capital of Hell, portrayed as a literal Urban Hellscape full of runaway drugs, crime, pornography and general debauchery.
• Cluster F-Bomb:
  • Many of the characters curse frequently, but Katie Killjoy and Husk are the most foul-mouthed we've seen so far.
  • Alastor of the entire main cast, the one character not seen using any profanity in the pilot, has a small showdown with Vox in his Day In the Afterlife comic, and then when out of earshot, unleashes the floodgates on his profanity filter while walking through town. Yes, that is exactly how much he hates Vox — he'll keep the smile on his face during the encounter so as not to appear weak and likewise while walking off, but the sheer sight of the Overlord is enough to make the Radio Demon falter.
• Color Wash: Hell is depicted as quite red, with some yellow, white, and black tints.
• Combat Sadomasochist: Angel Dust, keeping with his Too Kinky to Torture nature, displays this in his fight with Sir Pentious. It backfires from his intent as Pentious is too thick to get the innuendos Angel Dust is intentionally throwing and he's unintentionally saying.
• Combat Tentacles: Alastor summons a mass of huge, inky black tentacles to smash up Sir Pentious's blimp from what appear to be portals to some sort of eldritch dimension.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Charlie's method of "curing addiction" in her song includes forcibly ripping drugs out of an addict's hands and burning them in front of him while still singing.
• Comically Missing the Point: Angel Dust takes in a hefty chunk of criticism from Vaggie on the limo ride back to the hotel. His response?
  Angel Dust: Does that mean I don't have a free room anymore?
  Vaggie: *makes a "the hell do you think?" gesture*
  Angel Dust: *snaps fingers* Ah, well, shucks...
• Content Warning: While the pilot, "That's Entertainment", only has the content warning in its description ("Be warned, this project is aimed at older audiences. Badwords and Innuendo galore!!") to invoked deter children, the beginning of its music video "ADDICT" begins with a flat-out content warning for the same purpose:
  WARNING
  This video contains graphic language, adult content, flashing lights, depictions of sexual assault, abuse, and addiction.
  This content is intended for mature audiences only (18+)
  Viewer discretion advised.
• Contrived Coincidence: Angel Dust decides to participate in a turf war around the same time as Charlie's news pitch for her hotel. This results in Alastor's interest and kicks off the rest of the plot.
• Crapsack World: It's Hell, what do you expect? Almost every denizen is an unrepentant jerk and every year, the population is culled to hinder overpopulation. Charlie is the only demon who wants to find a more humane way of dealing with Hell's overpopulation. Meanwhile, Heaven is willing to enact these culls, makes no effort to help Charlie's efforts, allows people to be damned for things as minor as watching porn and being a screaming baby, and there's a group of imps who use a grimoire that allows access to the mortal world (and do this on a frequent enough basis that a small startup company can be made from it) to do horrible things to innocent people at the behest of damned souls and nothing is done about it.
• Crawl: During the news report covering the turf war between Sir Pentious and Cherri Bomb, the crawl below starts off by recapping the events but then gets off topic with the writer complaining about his personal life.
• Creator Cameo: A number of patrons of Angel Dust's show in the "ADDICT" music video are actually cameos of the staff that worked on it according to some tweets, a behind the scenes video, and an Instagram post.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The fight between Alastor and Sir Pentious at the end of the pilot is over within seconds, after Alastor effortlessly brings down Pentious's ship with tentacles from a void realm.
• Curse Cut Short: Katie telling Tom to "suck it up, you little bitch" after dumping hot coffee in his lap is censored by the "off air" signal.
• Cute Monster Girl: Charlie and Vaggie would count, as would some other female demons like Niffty.
• Dark Reprise: The appropiately named "Alastor's Reprise" is Alastor singing a more cynical rendition of Charlie's song, "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow". Given that Alastor actually saw Charlie singing it, it's possible that this was intended in-universe.
• Dastardly Whiplash: Seen in a pool hall during Charlie's interview, there's a number of Hell denizens who are the stereotypical mustache twirling villain type.
• Deader than Dead: Angel Dust jokes about going to "double hell" if he's killed, but Word Of God in a podcast as well as in a couple of Q&A streams is that death in the afterlife is considered final, comparing it to the "Final Death" in Coco. Characters in Hell or Heaven don't know what happens when they die so death is pretty much treated as final. Death furthermore is somewhere between Cessation of Existence and Death of Personality wherein the dead stop being as people. For the demons in Hell in particular, their dark and evil energy seeps into the ground after they die and becomes part of the fabric and foundation of Hell, which is also why Hell is almost kinda alive with everything such as buildings having eyes and the like.
• Deadly Euphemism: After describing Alastor, Vaggie says they should not get involved with him lest they get "erased". Considering most people in Hell are sinners from Earth who already died once, and that Demons have no idea where they go if they're exorcised, "erased" is more accurate than "death".
• Deadpan Door Shut: In the trailer for the first full season, Husk sees the moaning Niffty lying before an angry Vaggie who wants to kick her and throw her off the roof. He looks shocked and silently closes the door.
• Deal with the Devil: Invoked, then Defied. Alastor tries to make one with Charlie to help with the hotel (complete with a bright green glowing light in his hand and gusts of wind fluttering through the room), but she manages to completely shut him down with a "Nope! No shaking, no deals!" before getting his help by ordering him to by her authority as heiress to the throne with the option for him to leave whenever he feels like it.
• Deconstructive Parody: The whole show is basically an animated Disney Princess musical — complete with colorful characters, saccharine musical numbers, and an idealistic message — except that said princess just happens to rule over Hell, and her kingdom is straining under all the violence, drugs, and sexuality that comes with being a realm of damned souls.
• Demon of Human Origin: All of the main characters (except Charlie) are sinful humans who died in the mortal world and became demons in Hell. It's implied — and later confirmed by Helluva Boss — that many of the most powerful demons are not this trope (i.e. Vaggie saying about Alastor, "That kind of raw power had never been harnessed by a mortal soul before," implying that Alastor is the only powerful demon who was previously human), but the vast majority of demons were once human.
• Description Cut: To legitimize her hotel, Charlie confidently brings up how her patron Angel Dust has been clean for two weeks. Immediately after, the news station receives and cuts to footage broadcasting Angel participating in the violent turf war, yelling "I'm so baaaaad!" amidst gunfire.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Sir Pentious violates this rule with Alastor, which results in a Curb-Stomp Battle courtesy of tentacles through otherworldly portals.
• Don't Explain the Joke: After Charlie announces her goal to open a hotel to rehabilitate sinners, she's met with a long silence. She awkwardly explains that she chose a hotel because hotels are for people to temporarily stay at while on their way to their destination. She's met with even more silence and at least one demon laughing at her vision.
• Dragons Are Demonic: A few of the background demons have vaguely draconic designs. One such example is a dragon-like demon in a leather jacket seen watching Charlie's interview in a bar.
• Dread Zeppelin: Sir Pentious has a giant zeppelin that he flies around in as an airship, complete with multiple weapons and servants to man it. Cherri Bomb's turf gets invaded by this zeppelin in the pilot episode, which she (and Angel Dust) are more than eager to defend. It's later shown damaged from the fight towards the end of the pilot, and whatever Cherri and Angel didn't already do to it, Alastor finishes off in seconds.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • In the pilot, multiple characters that have been revealed for the series in promotional material, but have yet to be properly introduced at that point in the show proper, make some cameos:
    • Baxter can be seen among the silhouetted falling demons in the shadow puppet-like part of "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows".
    • Vox, Velvet, Valentino, and Rosie are among the inhabitants seen during the rest of the intro song.
    • Crymini is seen in the crowd watching Charlie's interview from the Radio Hack store alongside Alastor.
    • Lastly, Helsa and Mimzy appear during parts of "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow".
  • An early-design version of Blitzo can be seen in the crowd when Charlie is pitching the Happy Hotel to 666 News, a silhouette of Moxxie can be seen in the crowd of the "Booing Section", an early design of Loona is seen early into Charlie's song, and another couple of Hellhounds are in the Radio Hack crowd.
  • More than one pumpkin-headed demon similar to Jangle from Holidaze appears throughout the pilot.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Charlie begins the first episode with an "I Want" Song, setting her up as a Princess Classic but with a very different kind of kingdom.
  • The first thing we see Angel Dust do is casually brushing off one of his clients insulting him and then buying some drugs from a vending machine. When a random passerby snatches his drugs and runs off with them, Angel Dust freaks out — not because the guy was immediately crushed by a giant boulder that came out of nowhere, but because his drugs were crushed too.
  • Vaggie's introduction shows her assisting and nurturing Charlie right before she goes on TV, punching a cameraman who insulted Charlie shortly after the interview goes live, and then facepalming when she realizes Charlie's about to start singing against her advice.
  • Alastor introducing himself to Charlie by telling her that her performance was more entertaining than anything he'd seen since the Great Depression. When Vaggie threatens him with a spear, he casually pushes it aside with one finger and tells her (while showing brief flashes of his real face) that if he wanted to hurt anyone there, he would have already done so.
    • Even before Charlie actually lets him into the hotel, Alastor lets you know exactly what kind of guy he is by knocking on the door with a booming, ominous knock... to the tune of "Shave and a Haircut".
  • Tom Trench making a crude sexual remark about Cherri Bomb and Katie Killjoy pouring hot coffee in his lap, live on the air.
  • The first we see of Sir Pentious is him doing some Evil Gloating about how impressive his plans are and how great he is, abusing his minions, and working some complex machinery.
  • Niffty shows off her energy and tendency to talk a mile a minute almost as soon as Alastor summons her, and then proceeds to start running around cleaning up every mess that she can find.
• Everyone Has Standards: In the full release of "Happy Day in Hell", Charlie is incredibly idealistic about the goodness within the Sinners, but even she's disgusted by the cannibals.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Charlie gives Angel Dust a large stack of cash as an investment in himself very shortly after he agrees to be a patron at the Happy Hotel in his prequel comic. His confusion betrays him to the point where he declares the gesture to be "a trick", which Charlie quickly reassures him that she thinks there's a lot more to Angel than he does, and she simply wishes to nourish that. Angel, not used to such kindness, simply takes the money with an awkward response and a promise to keep in touch.
• Expy: One of the background characters is a plant demon that looks very similar to Audrey II.
• Face Palm: Vaggie's reaction to Charlie's overtly saccharine song.
• Fallen Hero: Among those Charlie mentions her hotel would help out in her song, "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow", are "fallen superheroes". She sings this in a shot wherein she appears alongside two demons, one of which wears an obvious superhero costume, cape and all.
• The Fatalist: Angel's attitude as revealed in the "ADDICT" video (well, at least until the last verse) seems to be that his world is going to shit anyway, so he might not make a serious effort to be redeemed due to what he's done and will likely continue to do to numb the pain and just keep up his drug-abusing, gangster, porn star persona with a free place to crash while he's at it.
• Fire and Brimstone Hell: Although presented as a sprawling, densely-packed city for the most part, what areas in Hell that aren't covered in buildings are depicted with volcanoes and general volcanic terrain.
• Fluffy Cloud Heaven: Apparently this is what Charlie thinks Heaven is like, as seen in "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow". However, what few glimpses of angels are seen implies they're not quite as nice as Charlie thinks they are, with the angels holding spears, glaring at demons with murderous smiles.
• Foreign Cuss Word: Vaggie has lapsed into Spanish twice while angry — once while muttering "come mierda, malparido" in response to Angel Dust being... Angel Dust, and again when Alastor shows his face at the hotel when she refers to him with the phrase "cabron hijo de perra", which roughly translate to "eat shit, motherfucker" and "jackass son of a bitch", respectively.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: When Alastor shows of his Game Face the screen goes staticy.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • During Charlie's melancholy opening number, when the shadow/puppet show about the extermination ends and we switch to the scene in Hell, one of the first things appearing is a "Fuck you, Heaven" graffiti.
  • During Charlie's opening song when it cuts to the demon overlords in the Porn Studio, a chat message between Angel Dust and Valentino demanding money of him can be seen, explaining what he was doing with the john he left before he got his drugs.
  • The billboard behind Angel Dust when he reacts to a thug who stole his drugs getting crushed by a boulder reads We couldn't think for a pun for our shop but we sell hard DRUGS!
  • The crawl during Katie Killjoy and Tom Trench's news report starts out relevant but rapidly goes off the rails into the writer complaining about his poor marriage and an orangutan at the zoo that he thought made a weird face at him.
  • In the Official Trailer, whenever it cuts to the scene showing Charlie's interview being broadcast on several TVs, there's always one playing The Dover Boys instead of the interview. In the actual pilot itself, the cartoon is instead seen playing on a TV in the nightclub scene.
  • The words "Radio sounds = stay away!" and "Do not fuck with him!", among others, are written on posters warning others of Alastor's reputation directly behind Alastor while he's watching Charlie sing. There's also a "for a good time" number in the same frame. Unsurprisingly, Hell's area code is 666.
  • In addition to his pupils briefly turning to radio dials when Vaggie threatens him, there's a single frame of Alastor with a Nightmare Face even more horrifying◊ than he normally looks.
  • One of the axe-wielding maniacs during Charlie's song is a chubby woman in a old-fashioned dress, possibly Lizzie Borden.
  • In one shot during Alastor destroying Sir Pentious's airship, you can spot a pristine white sphere surrounded by clouds in the sky. It looks suspiciously clean compared to the rest of Hell.
  • The background goes through several changes in art style in "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow", including a change to 1930s-style black and white animation a la Fleischer Studios and Steamboat Willie.
  • At the beginning of "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow", Charlie walks by an arrow with the words Musical Logic on it.
  • When singing about the "puppy dog kisses, and cotton candy dreams", Charlie then throws the puppy off the Puffy Wuffy Clouds as she mentions them, its legs feebly waving to try to get back on.
  • When Alastor kicks a skull during his Villain Song, Niffty can be seen cleaning it up when the pieces land.
  • During Alastor's, ahem, counterattack on Sir Pentious, before one of his Egg Bois gets cracked harder than Humpty Dumpty, the word "#OUCH" can be read on their backside.
  • Charlie's cell phone is labeled "Hellphone Hah, get it?"
  • Hidden on the donut Razzle was about to eat is the "Loss" meme in the white sprinkles.
  • During the section of "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow" where Charlie pushes over the crucifixes, a signpost can be seen with Selina Kyle's neon "Hello There/Hell Here" sign from Batman Returns , complete with the O and T burnt out.
  • There's even an audio Freeze-Frame Bonus, too: when Alastor is looking at the portrait of Charlie with her parents, you can hear what sounds an awful lot like a tiny snippet of "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow", suggesting he's consciously composing the Dark Reprise he will bust out shortly.
• From Bad to Worse: Charlie's interview on 666 News starts out on a low note with Katie Killjoy being upfront about her contempt for the Princess of Hell, and only worsens from there. First Charlie's speech describing her project fails to impress anyone. Then her song makes her a laughingstock. Then her attempt to salvage the situation by naming Angel Dust as her first patron goes up in smoke when news breaks out that he's participating in the latest turf war. Finally, violence breaks out between Charlie and the news anchor, and the situation descends into chaos from there.
• Funny Background Event:
  • Katie Killjoy falls asleep and drools during Charlie's speech and wakes up abruptly (with a car alarm chirp at that) when Charlie bangs her fist on the table.
  • When Charlie finishes her song (standing on the news anchors' desk), Katie and Tom are leaning as far away from her as they can.
  • The crawl for 666 News quickly devolves into the writer complaining about his relationship problems and how mad his wife got when he banged their cleaning lady.
  • When Alastor kicks a skull aside during his song, Niffty can be seen rushing to clean it up behind him.
  • In the "ADDICT" music video, one of the demons seen lusting over Angel Dust during his show is Travis, the same demon whom Angel was seen dealing with at the beginning of the pilot. As he's singing, Angel kicks Travis in the face.
• Gilligan Cut: When Cherri Bomb and Angel Dust are discussing whether Angel Dust will get into trouble over taking part in the turf war, Angel asks what one little brawl is going to cause. Cut back to the studio; all hell's broken loose. There are alarm sirens blaring and warning lights flashing, Katie and Charlie are wrestling back and forth and Tom is somehow set on fire.
  Trench: WHY WON'T ANYBODY HELP ME?!
• Glamour Failure:
  • During her song on the news, Charlie's appearance occasionally shifts to a more demonic one, with red eyes, jagged teeth, and even horns. Alastor's own appearance shifts sometimes when people aren't looking at him, such as when Charlie turns her back on him, as well as during Vaggie's backstory description of him, though sometimes Alastor also appears to use these transformations intentionally in order to intimidate people or show off his power without actually needing to resort to violence.
  • Shortly before resorting to violence, Alastor has this. Interestingly, this time he has a very different appearance which is more akin to the warning posters located behind him while watching Charlie's song in the pilot, meaning that he has a true form hiding behind an Affably Evil mask.
• Groin Attack: Katie Killjoy dumps scalding hot coffee in her co-anchor's lap when he makes a crude comment.
• HA HA HA—No: Alastor's response to the first thing Angel Dust says to him is to immediately turn him down.
  Alastor: And what can you do, my effeminate fellow?
  Angel Dust: I can suck your dick.
  Alastor: HA! No.
• Hammerspace: Not only can Angel Dust "hide" his other 4 arms, but he can pull out entire Tommy Guns from seemingly nowhere too.
• Handshake of Doom: Defied. Charlie knows better than to make a deal with Alastor, so when the Radio Demon holds out his hand to shake and make a deal, Charlie swats it away and tells him that there won't be any shaking or deals.
• Have We Met?: When Sir Pentious turns up to attack the Hazbin Hotel:
  Sir Pentious: Hah! Well, well, well. Look who it is harboring the striped freak! We meet yet again, Alastor!
  Alastor: Do I know you?
• Heaven: Although it has not been seen in detail, Heaven can briefly be seen in the skyline as a large white orb with a white halo-shaped ring when Alastor is destroying Sir Pentious's airship.
• Hell: The main setting takes place in the infernal domain where sinners end up after death. It's the City of the Damned variety, as Hell is depicted as a massive sprawling urban metropolis that's under the constant effects of turf wars, open corruption, and Blood Knights who do evil things just for kicks.
• Hell Hotel: Inverted, as the Hazbin Hotel is the only hotel in Hell that tries to reform their clientele so they can ascend up to Heaven.
• Hell Is War: Hell is overflowing and demons and sinners are constantly being purged by Heaven. Turf wars and "territorial genocide" promptly ensue to take over newly vacated territory.
• A Hell of a Time: Aside from all the things that make it a Crapsack World, Hell caters to every vice and fetish you can imagine, and most of the background buildings are bars, brothels, casinos or nightclubs. You can even buy drugs from a vending machine.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Vaggie was a prostitute in life, and post-damnation, has a stronger moral compass than Angel Dust. Angel Dust himself works in the Adult Film industry although probably not entirely consensually and despite his crude behavior, is the first demon to step up for the redemption program. In secret, of course; he still needs to protect his hardcore gangster persona.
• Hope Spot:
  • Right after the opening, a recently deceased human soul "drops" into Hell. He has just enough time to exclaim "I'm alive. I'm alive!" before getting run over by a car.
  • After telling Charlie that he wishes to help with the hotel, even for his own personal reasons, she asks Alastor for his opinion on rehabilitating demons:
    Charlie: So does this mean that you think it's possible to rehabilitate a demon?
    Alastor: (laughs) Of course not! That's wacky nonsense!
• Horrifying the Horror:
  • While singing "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow", Charlie's face suddenly shifts into a demonic-looking one with glowing eyes and horns, which causes onlooking demons to back away with looks of shock.
  • Charlie herself (who is Hell's princess just to remind you) is frightened by Alastor when he comes knocking.
  • The Exorcist angels are feared by the entirety of Hell's demons due to their ability to inflict permanent death on them. The opening shows the powerful overlords Vox and Valentino hiding out from them during the purge.
• Housepet Pig: Angel Dust has an adorable pig-like demon named Fat Nuggets as a pet. He's literally Angel's Morality Pet.
• Historical Domain Character: The serial killer and cannibal Jeffery Dahmer hosts a cannibal cooking show in Hell.
• Humans Are Bastards: The reason Hell has an overpopulation problem in the first place is because it's an Easy Road to Hell for sinners.
• If I Wanted You Dead...: After being threatened upon arrival at the hotel, Alastor makes sure the staff at the hotel (Vaggie especially) know for damn sure that had he arrived with malicious intent, they wouldn't have been speaking to him at the moment. He undergoes a Glamour Failure with voodoo symbols appearing behind him, as well as an in-universe Ominous Visual Glitch with static and radio feedback.
• I'm a Humanitarian:
  • Real life Serial Killer Jeffrey Dahmer the infamous Milwaukee Cannibal is understandably in Hell. He has a cannibal cooking segment on 666 News called the "It's Dahm Good! cooking show" and it's advertised as being "Guaranteed Cannibalicious!".
  • Zombie-like cannibals are featured when Charlie mentions cannibals in "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow".
  • During the aftermath of the most recent extermination, demons can be seen devouring the recently deceased and a meat vendor can be seen scavenging carcasses for product to sell. Nobody seems to notice or care.
  • In the short webcomic A Day in the After Life, there is a whole district of them, but two are notable: The first is a butcher who appears to chop up and serve any of his potential customers incapable of defending themselves. The second is Alastor himself, who takes exception to the butcher targeting a cute female demon and turns the tables on him, donning a Game Face and then ripping him to shreds... which he then proceeds to snack on.
• Impossible Task: The rehabilitation project is frequently viewed and mocked as this, either because many sinners don't care or because their chance has already passed the moment they are damned.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: On the ride back to the hotel from the disastrous interview on TV, Angel Dust starts ripping into the hotel and its success/failure hard enough to make himself get bummed out, so he starts to search for some form of liquor inside the limo.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: On live news, Charlie declares that her redemptive hotel idea will work, because their first client, Angel Dust, has already turned his ways around. Almost immediately, Breaking News ensues that the very same spider demon is engaging in a Hell turf war and gleefully slaying dozens.
  Angel Dust: (offscreen and over the sounds of gunfire) I'm a BAAAAAAAD person!
  Charlie: Oh shit.
  Katie Killjoy: Oh shit indeed!
• Insult to Rocks: After Vaggie accuses him of making her, Charlie, and their whole operation look like a joke, Angel Dust counters by telling her exactly why that's wrong:
  Angel Dust: No, no, no, babe. Jokes are funny. I made you look, uh...sad! And pathetic! Like an orphan...with no arms...or legs...uh...oh, with progeria! Great, now I'm bummed thinking about it!
• Interrupted Intimacy: In the Happy Day in Hell clip, there is a moment where Charlie catches two demons having kinky bondage sex through a window with no curtains drawn.

J-R

• Jerkass Has a Point: When Angel Dust pisses off Vaggie, she declares that she's going to kill him. However, Angel Dust asks how exactly that would work, seeing as how he's already dead and in Hell. Vaggie's eye turning into a skull show that, as mad as she might be, Angel Dust is right.
• Karmic Reform Hell: The Hotel was designed to be this; a place in Hell where willing wayward souls become worthy of Heaven.
• Kent Brockman News: The 666 News has Tom Trench who makes blatant sexual cracks, Katie Killjoy who regularly assaults her co-newscaster, and a news crawl that focuses more on the writer's personal problems than actual news.
• Killed Off for Real: Normally, since everyone's already dead, nothing can kill you in Hell. You can be horribly mutilated, but you'll pull yourself back together eventually. But weapons forged in Heaven can permanently kill the denizens of Hell, which is how the annual purge is conducted.
• Laugh Track: Alastor, befitting his status as the Radio Demon, is constantly followed in-universe by canned laughter, applause, etc.
• Little "No": Alastor's answer to being offered a blowjob by Angel Dust is a hearty, single laugh and a softer 'no'.
• Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: The cast of characters includes a myriad of demons. Along with the more typical demonic looking ones, there are demons that could pass off as regular humans to varying degrees and demons that are more animal-like. The animal demons range from those that look a Little Bit Beastly, Funny Animals, to Animalistic Abominations. Then there are also demons that are just plain bizarre such as one that's an anthropomorphic chair and one that's an anthropomorphic jigsaw puzzle.
• Little Bit Beastly: Many of the demons. Charlie has Cute Little Fangs and a small black-dot nose, somewhat like a dog's, and Alastor is mostly human except for his antlers which grow when he's enraged or about to kill somebody.
• Listing the Forms of Degenerates: "Inside of every demon is a rainbow" offers an unusual example: Charlie sings a list of all the horrible people in Hell, but she does so to mention that all of them still have good inside and can be redeemed.
  So all you junkies, freaks and weirdos, creepers, fuck-ups, crooks and zeroes, and the fallen super heroes, help is here!
  All of you cretins, sluts and losers, sexual deviants and boozers, and prescription drugs abusers, need not fear!
• Lyrical Dissonance: The song "ADDICT" is full of this, with a hint of Soundtrack Dissonance as well. It sounds like a peppy and cheery song with some silly sex and violence going on, but listening and looking a little closer (doubly so for the video, which sugarcoats nothing) tells an incredibly depressing story about Angel and Cherri being "addicted" to their lifestyles, using sex, drugs, murder, and mayhem in an attempt to ignore their pain and sadness.
• Malicious Misnaming:
  • The original name for Charlie's project is the Happy Hotel. It's Alastor, who doesn't believe in the hotel's mission, who rebrands it with the less flattering title.
  • Katie Killjoy refers to Charlie by her real name, "Charlotte". Charlie objects and tries to correct Katie, but the newscaster's response demonstrates that she doesn't care.
• Match Cut: In the "ADDICT" music video, a puddle of Angel's tears on the floor cuts to a puddle of rainwater on the ground outside, in which the reflection of Cherri's former associate can be seen for a second before she runs through it.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Katie Killjoy the news anchor demon is a general jerk who kills others' joy such as putting down Charlie's plans and pouring hot coffee on her co-newscaster's lap.
  • It takes a while to realize it, but it's certainly fitting that the first demon to opt for being redeemed and sent to Heaven is named Angel Dust. (Angel Dust is also a slang term for the drug PCP, so it's meaningful on multiple levels.)
• Meaningful Rename: One of the things Alastor does to Charlie's project as part of his help is (forcibly) renaming her Happy Hotel to the titular Hazbin Hotel. The most popular interpretation is that Hazbin stands for "Has Been", befitting for what is basically a rehabilitation clinic.
• Misplaced Sorrow: After Angel Dust gets his drugs stolen and the thief is squashed by a piece of falling rubble:
  Angel Dust: Oh my God! [picks up torn bag] My drugs! Damn it!
• Monstrous Humanoid: Some of the demons who aren't Little Bit Beastly or outright Funny Animals are these. Some of these may be concealing something even worse.
• Mood Whiplash: The Radio Demon's arrival at the hotel goes from eerie and ominous to to straight-up comedy to a brief Oh, Crap! moment from those paying attention (in-universe) and then back to straightforward comedy in less than a minute.
• Musical Number Annoyance: As Charlie prepares for her television interview, she suggests singing a song, only for Vaggie to shoot her suggestion down, saying "Life isn't a musical, hon". Despite Vaggie insisting her not to sing, Charlie does so anyway on live TV, much to Vaggie's displeasure.
• Musicalis Interruptus: Just as Alastor finishing his reprise of Charlie's song, the hotel doors behind him are suddenly blasted off. As everyone steps out to see what caused this, it's then revealed that Sir Pentious was responsible for ruining Al's number.
• New Technology Is Evil: Downplayed. While not a direct personification, Alastor appeared in Hell decades ago (having lived as a radio talk host, dying in 1933) and quickly toppled overlords who had reigned for centuries, then used the fairly new radio technology (radio was invented in 1895, but made widely available in the 20s/30s and probably took some time to reach Hell) to broadcast his carnage for all to listen.
  • Also played with in that Alastor doesn't like modern technology, and hates Vox, who is more up-to-date with such things.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Angel Dust's involvement with Cherri Bomb's turf war results in the hotel's already shaky name being dragged in the mud even further.
• Nightmare Face: Shows up on a number of characters, most notably Alastor, who switches between a normal face and several nightmarish faces, sometimes deliberately to frighten people, but at times it may also be a case of Glamour Failure.
• Non-Human Head:
  • There's a background demon seen among the newsroom audience who has a television screen for a head like Vox.
  • The demon who calls Charlie's song "shit" has a hat for a head.
• Not the Fall That Kills You…: New souls apparently arrive in Hell by literally falling out of the sky onto the ground, which doesn't seem to hurt them at all, even when taking into account demonic resilience. One new demon is surprised to find himself unhurt after arriving in Hell this was, only to get run over by a car.
• Number of the Beast: Being set in Hell, the number 666 often pops up in one form or another.
• Offscreen Crash: When Angel's client speeds away, we hear a car crash as soon as he disappears over the first hill.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Practically painted on Charlie and Vaggie's faces when Alastor turns up at their doorstep.
  • Sir Pentious reacts this way twice — once when he sees that Cherri Bomb lodged a bomb straight through the window of his zeppelin, and again when she cracks open an Egg Boi, puts a bomb in his shell, and lobs the whole thing back his way.
  • Charlie reacts this way when the news shows Angel Dust taking part in the turf war — doubly so since this was after praising him for being the first demon to step up for the rehabilitation program:
    Charlie: Oh shit...
    Katie Killjoy: Oh shit indeed!
• Ominous Visual Glitch: Alastor's powers manifest as static and flickering, apparently in the world around him as well as for the viewer, when he notes that if he wanted to hurt anyone at the hotel, he would have done so when he first showed up.
• One-Winged Angel: Some demons are able to transform into a more monstrous and powerful form.
• Overly-Long Gag: The Crawl during the first 666 News segment. It starts off describing the story of the day, devolves into a furious rant at the writer's wife whom he cheated on, and runs for the entire length of the scene.
• Overpopulation Crisis: You know it's bad when Hell is facing this problem. It's usually solved by annual purges, but Charlie wants to try to reform demons to send them to Heaven to solve the problem instead.
  Sign: Welcome to Hell, Population: A Fuckton.
• Pictorial Letter Substitution: The "Hazbin Hotel" logo title has the "t" replaced by a key.
• Pink Is Erotic:
  • Angel Dust is a promiscuous sinner demon who has bright pink spots throughout the white fur on his body. His suit also features a white/pink color scheme.
  • Valentino, Angel's boss, is a pimp Demon Lord who keeps sex slaves for his sex club, he wears bright pink shades and his alluring smoke is bright pink.
• Pointless Band-Aid: After the fight with Angel Dust and Cherri Bomb, Sir Pentious' flying machine is covered in these; they seem to do nothing other than show how damaged and haphazardly repaired it is.
• Precision F-Strike:
  • Charlie swears far less than most of the rest of the cast. When she does swear, it usually has a pretty big impact. She considers Alastor "sketchy as fuck" and, from what she and Vaggie have heard about him, rightfully so.
  • Alastor gets a Precision F Carpet Bombing in his featured comic — all because he saw Vox on a passing set of television screens with his face on it glaring back at him.
  • The Happy Day in Hell clip ends with Charlie declaring that today will be a “FUCKING happy day in Hell!” In the full "Happy Day in Hell" song, when she gets to the cannibal town in Hell, she says "Holy shit" in a disgusted tone.
• Punny Name:
  • Sir Pentious the Snake Demon and his Egg Bois.
  • Angel Dust and his sister, Molly; both are slang names for drugs. As an added bonus, Molly's eyes have noticeably large pupils, an actual side effect of MDMA.
• The Purge: To deal with Hell's overpopulation problem, Heaven sends angels once every year to kill off a portion of the populace. Charlie's intentions with the hotel are to make demons into Ascended Demons to avoid being purged.
• Rapid-Fire Comedy: Not only in the traditional "if one joke fails, another is coming up in five seconds" sense, but the editing is comically breakneck-fast, with some cuts lasting as short as half a second.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: All over the place given that this is Hell, but it's especially prominent with Alastor. During a moment where he notes that he would have hurt people if he wanted to, his eyes start glowing a blood red color. Also, his eyes occasionally light up like red light bulbs, such as when first appearing at the hotel.
• Red Sky, Take Warning: Along with an ominous-looking pentagram floating up above, the entire sky of Hell is completely blood red. It's one of the things which indicate the setting is an infernal realm.
• Regularly Scheduled Evil: The exterminations apparently happen yearly, with a large clock tower counting down the days between them.
• Rule of Symbolism: The reason Charlie's rehabilitation center is a hotel. As she puts it, hotels are for people passing through temporarily. Her goal being that demons spend a short time at the hotel before moving on to Heaven.
• Rule of Three: Vaggie tells Charlie not to sing during her news segment three times when they chat about it backstage. It doesn't get through to her, because Charlie eventually breaks into song anyway.

S-Z

• The Shadow Knows: Angel Dust and Alastor's shadows have given hints to what their true selves are actually like — in the former's case, revealing a hidden set of arms; in the latter's case, if you can see the demonic deer entity after his mask drops, you're probably already screwed, as one butcher found out the hard way.
• Shave and a Haircut: Alastor's introduction starts with him knocking this tune on the hotel's door, a natural choice as both are from the same time period.
• Shout-Out:
  • The drugs vending machine sells Bojack and SQUIP.
  • The picture of Sir Pentious looking "Totally Radical" in the news report is a blatant reference to the 30 Rock scene involving Steve Buscemi as an undercover cop which has gained memetic status.
  • In the Official Trailer, The Dover Boys can be seen playing on a TV whenever it cuts to the scene showing Charlie's interview being broadcasted to the denizens of Hell. In the actual pilot, the cartoon is instead seen playing on a TV during the bar scene.
  • The clock that Niffty dusts◊ looks very similar to Doc Scratch's God Tier clock.
  • There are actually two references to songs from Annie:
    • The "You'll be on Easy Street!" line and scene◊ in "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow" is a reference to the song "Easy Street". There's a nameplate that reads "Miss Hannigan" and the three demons that Charlie sings to are clearly meant to represent the three characters who sang the song, with Daniel "Rooster" Hannigan represented by a literal rooster demon, Lily St. Regis represented by the bird demon in the dress and fur scarf, and Miss Hannigan herself represented by an early-bird cameoing Mimzy.
    • Later, Alastor tells Vaggie to "Smile, my dear! You know, you're never fully dressed without one!" He then hums the first few notes of the song "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile" (which, in Annie, is played on a radio show).
  • Angel Dust has a pet pig called Fat Nuggets, whom he loves very much, and Charlie's real first name is Charlotte. Now, what other story have we heard of that features a spider being close friends with a pig, with one of the characters being named Charlotte?
  • One of the demons occasionally shown, such as in this shot, on the left◊, looks strikingly like Omnitraxus Prime from Star vs. the Forces of Evil.
  • In Angel Dust's prequel comic, when Vaggie asks Charlie if he's really the demon she wants to talk to, Charlie replies "Yes. He's good. I can tell."
  • In "A Day in the After Life", Alastor comes across a TV store with several commercials by Vox playing on the screens of the various sets. The products being advertised include Voot Floop◊ which is a parody of Froot Loops, Vogitek◊ which is a parody of Logitech, V&V's◊ which is a parody of M&M's, and the Valkyrie Speaker 2.0◊ which is a reference to an actual loudspeaker with the same name. The Vogitek commercial is also a shout out to Hannah Montana via looking like one of the series's covers◊.
  • Alastor's Reprise brings "Friends on the Other Side" to mind, from its color scheme to his Vooodoo background. Plus, he summons a few Living Shadows during the song.
  • During "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow," there is a pink neon sign that says "Hell Here" that resembles the one in Catwoman's apartment in Batman Returns.
  • In the Happy Day in Hell clip, there is a brief shot of a couple recreating the spaghetti scene from Lady and the Tramp… with intestinal tract as the spaghetti.
• Shown Their Work: The sigils◊ that Alastor produces are actual representations of the symbols of the Haitian Vodun deities Loko, Kalfou, Santa Muerte, and Papa Legba.
  • In addition, the radio distortion on his voice varies between the English and Japanese dubs, based primarily on the kind of radio technology available in the respective region during the period Alastor was alive.
• Show Within a Show: A poster is visible in Katie Killjoy's TV studio for a cooking show hosted by Jeffrey Dahmer.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: No one really believes Charlie's plan will work. Most people are of the mind that it's not going to work, so they won't even try, or that the people in Hell aren't worth redeeming anymore. When Charlie announces her plan for the hotel, everyone in the news room literally laughs at her.
  Katie Killjoy: What in the nine circles makes you think a single denizen of Hell would give two shits about becoming a better person?
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Inverted. Alastor is a notable exception to all of the cursing going on, as befits his nature as a 1920s radio personality and a Wicked Cultured man. Everyone else — including Charlie, who is depicted as an out-of-place Disney princess-style character — curses quite often; Alastor never curses... unless he engages in a staring match between himself and Vox while both attempt to get into each other's heads. Alastor will unleash a river of profanity after that.
• Sitting Sexy on a Piano: Charlie does this at the beginning of "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow".
• Skull for a Head: A few of the background demons in the crowd scenes are depicted with skulls for heads.
• Slapstick: Male or female? It doesn't matter when it comes to farcical, cartoonish violence.
  • Charlie in particular has to deal with the hordes of Hell after her song about the Happy Hotel gets shot down and leads to a riot after Angel Dust's turf war is broadcast during the middle of the bit on the hotel.
  • Vaggie gets her fair share too, mostly from being shoved offscreen or getting slapped on the ass by Alastor during his musical number.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Charlie's opening song in the pilot is beautiful and befitting a Princess Classic as she cries over the death of her people. However it's juxtaposed with images of how little the surviving denizens of Hell actually care about it.
• Stealth Pun:
  • Charlie's full name in the pilot is Charlie Magne — a reference to the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne. In the series, it's Charlie Morningstar — a reference to the morning star used to guide people's way in the darkness. With the star, it's literal; with Charlie, it's metaphorical.
  • The eponymous rehabilitation center being referred to as a "hotel" is itself a Stealth Pun — hotels are for people who are "just passing through", as the patrons will have come to Hell from Earth and will be departing for Heaven. Of course, in the pilot Charlie ruins the stealth part by explaining it to fill an awkward silence.
  • During "Alastor's Reprise", Alastor states that, "here below the ground / I'm sure [Charlie's] plan is sound", or in other words, he thinks Charlie's plan literally only has a chance in Hell.
  • One of Alastor's black Combat Tentacles drags Sir Pentious along the ground, accompanied by a squeegee sound effect: Al is literally "wiping the floor with" the unfortunate snake demon.
• Steel Ear Drums:
  • Played With subtly during Cherri Bomb and Angel Dust's assault on Sir Pentious and his Egg Bois: while they have no problem communicating with each other at a normal speaking level over what should be deafening gunfire and explosives going off around them, they do both cover their ears when a particularly large bomb is set to go off near them. And even then, they continue to speak normally as if said large explosion hadn't happened anywhere near them.
  • Judging by the cast's lack of reaction when Sir Pentious blows the door off the Happy Hotel (other than peeking out of the hole where the door used to be, wondering what the cause of the destruction was), this trope may be played straight in Hell.
• Tall Poppy Syndrome: Implied to be part of the reason why Angel Dust doesn't want to be seen as penitent and taking the Hotel seriously other than for its free room and board/protection from other demons. If he's seen as being weak or trying to better himself, that not only puts his "credibility" and "persona" on the line, but it might also give other gangsters a tacit green light to walk all over him — and Valentino is bad enough on his own — and make life that much worse for him.
• The Stinger:
  • After the pilot's credits, a hilariously injured but still alive Sir Pentious is shown climbing out of the crater left in the aftermath of Alastor's curb-stomp handling of him. He's then asked by a surviving Egg Boi if he will now shoot the minion with his ray gun just before collapsing.
  • The music video of "ADDICT" has a last verse after the credits with a different tune that averts the rest of the song's Lyrical Dissonance and in fact, brings it (and a glimmer of a Hope Spot) to the forefront. The video itself simply shows Angel at the hotel coming down from his high and shoving away/flipping off a hurt-looking Charlie when she attempts to comfort him.
• Tempting Fate: Charlie name drops Angel Dust as the hotel's first client to a skeptical audience at 666 News and then praises his good behavior over the past two weeks. Seconds later, the news cuts to a shot of Angel Dust fighting a turf war with Cherri Bomb.
• Theme Naming: The various preview clips of the pilot are all named after something to do with musicals, the majority of which follow a Shout-Out Theme Naming. "The Spider in the Kinky Boots" clip is named after the Kinky Boots musical, the "Your Fault" clip is named after a song from Into the Woods, the "Let's Misbehave" clip is named after a song from Anything Goes, the "Morning Report" clip is named after a song from The Lion King musical, the "Something Rotten" clip is named after Something Rotten!, the "Biggest Blame Fool" clip is named after a song from Seussical, and the "A Cautionary Tale" clip is named after a song from the Mean Girls musical. The "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow" clip is the only one that isn't named as a Shout-Out to any other musical but instead follows suit by being named after an original song from the very pilot itself which showcases that it's going to be a musical in its own right.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!:
  • Charlie's Lame Comeback to Katie Killjoy's scorn goes as such: "Yeah, well, how does it feel that I got your pen, huh...bitch?" Unfortunately, it turns out that just so happens to be Katie's Berserk Button.
  • Angel Dust drops the word to troll Vaggie on the limo ride back home.
    Angel Dust: Sorry, you're stuck with me, bitch. Get used to it!"
• This Just In!: Just as Charlie announces on 666 News that Angel Dust has cleaned up his act for two weeks straight, Katie Killjoy gets "Breaking news!" over her earpiece. She then reports that a new combatant had just joined the ongoing turf war in the city and the live feed reveals it to be Angel Dust, to Charlie's dismay.
• This Is Gonna Suck: In the Happy Day in Hell clip, Vaggie's reaction of Charlie singing her song in the streets of Hell scream this trope.
• Title Drop: Alastor starts to refer to the hotel by the series name before Pentious shows up and interrupts him, and the pilot ends with him apparently changing the hotel's sign from "Happy" Hotel to "Hazbin" Hotel.
• Understatement: When Vaggie is lambasting Angel for his atrocious spectacle that made them look bad, Charlie tries to chew him out in a more polite way. Vaggie is not amused by this downplaying of Angel's actions:
  Charlie: That was really uncool, Angel.
  Vaggie: (incredulous) "Uncool"?! After THAT train wreck, there is no way ANYONE is gonna want to stay at the hotel! All thanks to you (points at Angel Dust), and your selfish BULLSHIT!
• Un-Paused: Alastor the Radio Demon shows up at the titular hotel◊ because he wants to help Charlie run it. Since Alastor is The Dreaded, Charlie makes an Oh, Crap! expression when she sees it's him. Alastor then says "Hel-" before Charlie slams the door in his face. After a moment, Charlie opens the door back up and he says "-lo!" before she slams the door in his face again. After deciding to let him in, Charlie opens the door for a third time, prompting this bit of dialogue:
  Alastor: May I speak now?
  Charlie: You may...
• Vice City: Pentagram City, the main location in Hell where the show takes place, is presented as a metropolis where sex, violence, drugs, and any other vice is rampant and all on display without any shame.
• Villain Song: Alastor sings a Dark Reprise of "Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow".
• Wicked Cultured: Alastor is this, a former radio host in life who wears a sharp suit and speaks with a very formal, classy tone in all of his conversations. He wants to spruce up the Hazbin Hotel because he thinks it'll be fun to watch the sinners fail, but also because he has an eye for talent. Or so he claims.
• Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: The rest of the Hotel staff after witnessing Alastor taking out Sir Pentious.
• Who Writes This Crap?!: The advertisement for It's Dahm Good!, a cooking show featuring serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, has a sticky note that says "who approved this show?"
• World of Jerkass: The show takes place in Hell, so it's pretty hard to find a character who is a decent person, to say the least. The turf wars are between people who are fighting for territory without caring about who gets hurt, the news media is run by terrible people who are only superficially nice in front of the camera (and that's more like a Mask of Sanity than actually being nice), and Charlie's earnest attempt to redeem sinners gets vicious mockery from everybody.

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"Stay tuned, folks. Hah hah hah hah hah..."

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