#allistor

Hazbin Hotel:

I couldn’t find hardly any behind the scenes stuff for either. I know a BIT about why Helluva Boss was made i’ll get into later, but I have nothing on what the inspiration behind these series was, just that she’d already come up with this hell for a webcomic that’s now been scrubbed for the internet, and it eventually evolved into this show, which later lead to Helluva Boss. The reason this show is only at pilot is because it got picked up by A24, and so far we haven’t heard anything since because animation is all secretive and shit. But needless to say we’ll probably hear about it eventually so for now let’s enjoy what we got. 

So our pilot begins with an utterly gorgeous rendition of “I”m Always Chasing Rainbows” an old vaudville song, backed by some cool shadow art. I do love me some shadow puppet art. We then cut to Hell which has been horribly ravaged, looking even worse than normal, after the extermination. To save time the extermination is an annual culling of hell where a bunch of tv headed robot angels come down and kill as many people as possible to keep the population down. Needless to say Hell’s Princess and Lucifer, king of hell’s heir aparent, Charlie is horrified by this... and has a plan to fix it. 

Meanwhile we meet Angel Dust, a smart mouthed spider-like prostitute who just got done fucking a client and gets some drugs out of a vending machine because it’s hell, and ends up smack dab in the middle of an attack by Ser Pentous, a snake themed villian whose essentially what would happen if Doctor Robotnik went to hell and became a snake, complete with egg themed minons, one of which wishes his boss would shoot him. Eh we all have our own things. Mine is keith david riding a centaur. To each their own little egg, to each their own. 

Pentious is a lord of hell, something only explained from context here and was fleshed out more in what word of god I have heard, i.e. how hell’s heiarchy works. The Overlords are the lowest of the highest, essentially hell’s crime bosses. While there ARE higher authorities, the Goetia’s, the other owl beasts, the seven deadly sins who run the rings and Lucifer himself, they geniulley don’t give a shit what goes on unless it effects them directly. This is hell after all, it’s not a huge shock that only ONE of their highest class, Charlie, actually cares if people live or die. So the streets of hell are fair game for whoever wants to carve up territory and since the extermination cleared out some overlords, ther’es now a bunch of free territory to fight over. 

His opponent, despite not having an air ship or fried chicken fetuses though easily bests him with a simple bomb and enters, introducing us to Cherry Bomb

I got that GIF SPECIFICALLY for this very moment... it was worth it. She’s also just a fun character, not taking any shit and easily besting a guy with far more resources with simple skill and explosives. I mean even without those bombshell looks, pun VERY intended she’d be a winner. 

We’ll get back to why she’s important later, as we cut to the local news with Katie Killjoy, a demonic version of your standard fox news anchor and Tom Trench, a perverted guy in a Gas Mask who gets a coffee vasectomy for perving on cherry. Good. A lady that fine you gotta romance. Maybe take her out for an evening at the theater and then some light car bombing. Think it out tom. 

The reason we’re at the studio as we meet two of our other leads, Charlie, the princess of hell we saw breifly earlier who we now meet in full and Vaggie, her supportive latinx girlfriend with the unfortunate name. Charlie has finally got a spot on said news, and is going to pitch her big bold idea... and has to be talked down from using a musical number. Charlie is essentially what happens when you set a disney princess movie in hell and that concept alone could drive a series, but Vivianne smartly made her a layered character: She’s optimstic, naive and as we’ll see in a second fairly judgey... but she also is doing this big swing of a project because she dosen’t want to see hundreds die again and again for the rest of her days if she can help it and geninely believes in people.  Vaggie serves as a good counterpoint to that, being cynical and more reaslitic, if still willing to help and still fully beliving in her girl. 

One final note before we move on: one of the few proudction things I DO know is that the two were originally just best friends.. but the people workign on the pilot started shipping them, Vivianne caught on, realized it made sense, and the two became a couple. It’ snot overwhelmingly blatant, but enough hints were thrown in despite few script changes to make it obvious enough and the fact their relationship is low key is in itself a valid and noble form or reputation.

ONe of those hints is Katie, who refuses to shake Charlie’s hand despite Charlie being you know, princess of hell... and Charlie pointing out this kind of thing is why she’s in hell. Katie further talks down to her, and Lucifer would smite her for his insolence but he has better things to do. 

So Charlie has her interview where she gives her big idea: She wants to save demons from the purge, help them become better and get into heaven, saving their soulds and leaving hell less crowded so hopefully the killings stop. Her method? A hotel where sinners will stay and try to reform. During said appeal she also runs into a rather... familiar face with an unfamiliar look

This is indeed Blitzo. Not only did Vivianne confirm this was his prototype deisgn, with his eyes, suit and horns all very diffrent, but she’d later give a canon explination as to WHY Blitzo looks nothing like himself, an instagram host passing it off as a halloweeen costume. Though really you could tell just by the way he had the balls to check out the head of hell itsef’s ass on live television. But again her dad’s kinda busy. 

So now would be a good time to bring up WHY Blitzo’s in the pilot for a  diffrent show entirely. One could easily assume Viv simply really liked his design out of all those featured in the pilot. And suprisingly.. you’d be wrong. Like the main antagonists, Valentino, Vox and Velvet, his cameo here was to set him up for the series, with he and Moxxie already thought up. It also makes perfect sense when you think about it: Blitzo’s entire business model is actively going against Charlie’s goal by increasing hell’s population. It’s just with the main and recurring cast already full to burst and likely MORE characters only hinted at in the pilot or that we haven’t even heard a peep about to come, something had to give. But Blitzo clearly spoke to viv too much to just toss out, so we got one of the best shows in recent memory instead. Blizto woudln’t be the only one in the pilot either as while this cameo was likely less intentional we also see Loona briefly. 

her design had some changes itself, but not nearly as much, leading me to belivie she HADN’T had the idea for the character.. but the animation for Loony was so slick and her befuddled reaction to charlie so entertaining, she found a place for her in Helluva Boss. And I for one thank her for it as i’m sure does most of the furry community. So this ended up being one of the best kinds of cut content: the kind that’s just recycled for something even better and gives u something to gnaw on while we wait for A24 to fucking tell us what the plan is already. 

The Loona thing also brings me to another point: the deisgn work on this series is fucking amazing. It extends to helluva boss too: As word of god posts i’ve heard about have beared out, Viv put a LOT of thought into how hell works in this universe, as well as each species. But even with a general template every charcter in both shows feels unique. Family members may have some common traits, but each and every person FEELS like their own person from the smallest background character to our main cast, and while we see members of the same species like the imps or some hellhounds, even that’s full of contrast. Blitzo looks COMPLETELY diffrent from M and M, and both of them have notable differences despite looking far more similar. Every characters has subtle little touches to make them stand out and every single human, lost soul, hellspawn and what have you looks vibrant and unique. And about 80% of them look hot but it is hell, that’s kind of the standard. Few animated shows have this level of care, detail and creativity and it’s one of this universe’s most valuable features. 

So back to the plot how do the demons take this idea?

Unsuprisingly no one’s intertested. So Charlie tries the ace up her sleeve: a disney style song! Inside Every Demon in a Rainbow is a throughly enjoyable number, with too many amazing sight gags to announce (my faviorites being her scrambling a demon whose a massive puzzle and her foaming at the mouth at meeting a rabid possum lady. ). It’s bouncy, fits her personality.. and shows off both the best of her, her determination to save people and genuine belief theirs good in everyone.. and the things holding her back from actually achieving that. Her naivite has already been on display, thinking the people of hell genuinely care about their own salvation or doing anything but living it up before permadeath hits them some day. 

The bigger issue though is one that we first get to see in this song, an issue Vaggie shares with Charlie: Charlie and Vaggie.. are judgmental as all hell.  I went to the lyrics, since the part where she insults everyone is fast as hell and I applaud Charlie’s VA Elsie Lovelock for making it seem effortless, to see just WHAT horrible things she calls everyone and how many. Over the course of just one song she calls her subjects and the people she GENUINELY WANTS TO HELP junkies, freaks, weirdos, creepers, fuck-ups, zeroes, cretins, sluts, loosers, sexual deviants, boozers, perscrption drug abusers, monsters, theives, crazies, cannibals, and crying babies. She also insults people for cartoon porn addictions, vegan ranting and psychic predictions. 

Now it’s one thing to call people who REVEL in being terrible stuff like this or insult them. It’s another to call people who might GENINELY want to change and might WANT your help names, treat addictions like it’s the person’s own fault entirely instead of a crippling disease that isn’t easy to overcome just because a cheerful princess who, while clearly having some hardships given her cold relationship with her parents, still comes from a privileged and entitled background, and in general act like your better than them. And while she is probably better than MOST people in hell, it is hell after all, it dozen’t change the fact she’s painting EVERY sinner with the same brush. All crimes are equal , she can fix them the same way, your all terrible. This.. just isn’t true.  To use examples from this very universe, Mrs. Mayberry went to hell because she murdered one person and tried to murder another. In charlie’s estemation, she deserves hell because she killed, simple as that. She got overly angry, killed someone and worse did it, accidently or not, in front of children. The problem is it’s not that black and white.. because nothing is. She clearly had undiagnosed anger issues she never properly dealt with, and still has to a degree in the afterlife. She also clearly loved those kids and died because the sheer weight of her actions got to her and she took her own life. Even her calling a hit with our beloved I.M.P. was understandable as the person who fucked her husband lived, got lauded as a hero, and turned out to be a cannibal. She’s not a great person, she clearly has stuff to atone for and underlying issues to adress. .but there is a person worth saving there, the kind Charlie can work with. In constrast you have guys like Lyle, who is an unrepenant asshole who frankly deserves hell. By painting them as the same, Charlie is missing that if she wants the hotel to work she has to stop seeing EVERYONE as just the worst scum of the earth, and start seeing them as people, figuring out who WANTS to get better, who wants to deep down but won’t admit it and who she genuinely can’t save. I do feel that’s 100% intentional though and a great conflict for the series to have: our heroine has good intetnions and compassion but needs to learn empathy and actual methods of reformation instaed of just assuming staying clean and not having sex will automatically make someone better. 

And i’ts proven by the fact that we find out her only customer, her trial run is Angle Dust, whose there entirely for the free room.. and is currently helping his closest and as far as we know only friend Cherry with her turf war, leading to a succession of clever gags, with of course the “Harder Daddy” gag being the key.  Angel is sure things are fine with Charlie’s whole thing... when in fact she’s picked a fight with Katie and despite not transforming is clearly doing just fine. Also tom’s on fire for some reason. 

So after a big fakeout about seeing the big final pushes for both battles, we instead cut to the aftermath in the limo, as Vaggie is naturally pissed about this, and Angel instead takes this as an opportunity to piss her off repeatedly. It’s only when Charlie pipes in her gentle disapointment does Angel remotely seem to feel bad for humilating them like this. And it’s easy to see why: Charlie genuinely belivies in people, so even if Angel can’t admit he cares about her and values her as a friend, it’s easy to see why he does: She offered him a home, a safe refuge from his abuser, and a second chance out of the kindess of her heart.  He still DOES Sex Work, but for his own enjoyment and profit instead of Valentino’s. She gave him the keys to be free from the hell he’s been trapped in. 

Vaggie by contrast isn’t a bad person and unlike the rest of hell is at least TRYING to be better... but to Angel... she’s a hypocrite, insulated from the kind of hardships the rest of hell has to put up with by virtue of screwing the boss’; daughter.

Now granted he clearly pisses her off a bunch because i’ts fun, it’s who he is and one of the MANNNYYYY ways he gets off. But he’s not exactly wrong in it either as Vaggie takes an unearned high ground, going along with Charlie’s high standards and painting everyone with the same brush despite clearly having ended up here herself and being the poster child for “going to hell is way more complicated than Charlie seems to think for some people.”. And honestly character stuff like this.. is WHY this pilot’s so engaging. The characters all have layers and layers to peel apart once we finally get the series, reasons WHY they are this way we aren’t privy to yet.

So they head home, with Angel trying and failing to comfort Charlie. .before our heroes get a guest. Alistor, a dapper dressed smilling chap who earned the moniker the radio demon.. and scares the hell, pun intended, out of Charlie and Vaggie. It helps show off the guy’s scale instantly: Allistor, as we learn, is a dead soul, usually one of the lower rungs of hell’s hiearchy. Yet he scares one of hell’s own royals out of her mind. 

Charlie ends up letting him in and we get a sense of the man, sadistic, kind of an asshole, but deeply charming. We also find out from Vaggie, as Angel much like the audeince has no idea why this, as he put sit “Strawberry pimp” is such a big deal, why he’s so terrifying: Allistor is one of the most infamous souls in hell, having come seemingly out of nowhere with power the likes of which few had seen. What’s worse.. he had no clear goal but his own amusment, destroying warlords who’d held their territory for centuries with ease and broadcasting his carnage for all to hear, hence the whole Radio Demon moniker. He’s powerful, cunning, deeply terrifying.. and naturally Angel offers to suck his dick, something that actually give sthe demon pause. As we later learned Allistor is asexual. I mean it’s only ONE beat he misses but given the guy dominates pretty much every conversatoin, it’s very noticable the one time he actually shuts up for a second and let’s his guard down. 

As for why he’s here Allistor wants to help with the hotel. He dosen’t remotely belivie in it, beliving that people’s chance at redemption was up there.. but finds the whole idea deeply hilarious and wants to watch the shit show himself. Vaggie is naturally on her guard, and for once rightfully so, but Charlie assures her she can handle this. Her dad didn’t teach her much, but he taught her one thing: don’t take shit from other demons

Charlie frankly tells Allistor that she gets he sees this as a joke, outlines how seriously she takes this job.. but agrees to his help because they could use it. Allistor tries to offer a former demonic deal complete with a sickly horrifying glowing hand... but Charlie wisely refuses, simply ordering him to help her as long as he wants on her power as princess alone. And it’s VERY clear from her tone she knows this is all bravado: she can’t foce him to do any more than you can get a tornado to do gemoetry.. but it’s also very clear she knows Allistor WANTS to do this, and will likely help her anyway just for shits and giggles, and has nothing to loose by TRYING to get him to help without making a deal. And it works. Allistor agrees, and likely woudl’ve helped no matter what given his reasons for doing this. But you can’t blame him for not wanting to get some sort of horrifying contract on the princess of hell. He had to try.  Alllistor also brings up a good point when he relaizes Vaggie is the only staff member they have. This simply won’t do and if they want people to visit, their going to need to class it up and jazz up services. So he decides to give Charlie the employees she needs by calling in a few favors, since being who he is, he naturally has demons on standbye. First up is Nifty, who I love. Seriously I just love cyclopian characters. And in addition to being a cyclops she’s a 20 something 1950′s teeny booper and neat freak brought in as the maid, getting right to work, and impressing Charlie. 

Next up is everyone’s faviorite and my boy Husk, a weird winged cat thing who I’m convinced is what happened to Tom from tom and jerry when he died 80 years ago. His son has the part now.  Husk isn’t too pleased to be called form his gambling to work the front desk and the bar. Allistor then sweetens the pot with easily the best gag of the pilot. 

With the players set Allistor gives his own mocking rendtion of “Inside Every Demon is a Rainbow”. Allistor.. is easily one of the best parts of the pilot, having a sadistic sense of humor, a sense of style while being DEEPLY unsettling: from the ruin that show up, to his slasher grin to the fact somethi’ngs CLEARLY wrong with him we’re not privy to. Just an awesome character. 

So with that our heroes get one last visitor: Sir Pentious who shows up to get revenge on Angel.. only to pivot to Allistor who he sees as a bit rival he has a storied history with. Allistor.. dosen’t seem to remmeber him and is either mocking the guy for funzies or simply has made SO Many minor enemies who weren’t even worth killing and he simply keeps alive for sport that he’s lost count. My take?

Naturally.. Allistor takes him out in seconds, then takes everyone to get breakfast. The stage is set, the players have arrived... let the show begin... anytime now A24 any time now.

Hazbin Hotel’s pilot is one of the best i’ve seen. It’s vibrant, shows off the show well and was done on a miniscule budget with whoever the creator could scrounge up, but looks utterly gorgeous. When we finally do get the series it’s easily set to become one of the biggest of this decade, and it’s no wonder the show STILL has an active fanbase despite not having new content in some time, even ignoring the overlap with Helluva Boss. A truly excellent start to something that I can just tell is going to be great. 

Helluva Boss Pilot:

I have much less to say here, but I figured if i’m going to cover this show in the future, and I fully intend to, I should at least touch on the pilot. So consider this a ncie bonus to the hazbin hotel review. 

Helluva Boss’ pilot is far simplier: our heroes are all in office dealing with recent issues like Loona’s behavior, Blitzo spending all their money on a commerical, Bltizo stalking moxie and millie outside of work.  and having shot a child that turned out to apparently not be the target. It’s really more a loose framework for jokes than a solid plot. But it works, intorducing us to everyone excellently. The very FIRST line sets up Blitzo perfecty with him talking about how bad things are going, not wanting to name names.. then instantly blaming Moxxie. Moxxie is shown to be high strung and have conflict with the boss, Millie is shown to be a supportive wife but far more tolerant of her boss’s shenanigans, Loona to be moody and holding everyone including her dad at a distantce and Stolas thirsty as hell> Their set up well and the pilot is littered with iconic jokes that I could make an entire article on i’ts own listing: “Sorry it was spiders”, “Do you have any idea how expensive acting classes are?”, the ENTIRE bit with Blitzo stalking M and M, the phone gag, “You what?”, and my personal favoirite “sorry I fucked your husband. “ It’s just sparkling with creativity and great gags. 

The only real issue with it is that it’s missing the depth of both the hazbin pilot and this show itself. The characters aren’t as fleshed out yet and it’s clear Viv took crticisms of teh pilot to heart and thus did some deep work on them between pilot and series. EVERY character is diffrent and that’s not getting into the diffrent voices (For the record I think Stolas softer post-pilot voice fits him MUCH better while Millie is about the same). Blitzo is far less compitent at buisness here, which is more standard boss stuff. The series changing him to a guy who IS genuinely good at what he does and at juggling the books, even if he sometimes spends their profits on gem studed horses, works better, contrasting him actually being good at the job.. with him being a clingy, sad on the inside trainwreck in his personal life. 

In the same veign, Loona is far more of a dick, being mean to everyone more violently and less entertainingly if no less hotly. The series wisely made her more sardonic with her douchebaggery and also later gave her depths, showing she dosen’t have any friends or a personal life outside of IMP, as well as giving her some competence, being the only one with a human disguise. Moxxie and Millie are barely changed, with Moxxie just being a bit more openly defiant of blitzo, while he’s more professional about his issues with him in the series proper, but also far more submissive. Shippers take that as you will. Millie.. is almost exactly the same.

Finally we have Stolas whose a bit more.. uncomfortably predatory. While there are undertones of him being creepy with Blitzo in the series, it’s clear it’s more because he dosen’t have any idea how to properly interact with people or that he’s mistreating the guy. Here he comes off domenering and again pretty creepy and Blitzo is far less willing to participate in their deal.