Let’s get one thing straight: There is no other show quite like “Hazbin Hotel.” The indie animation sensation from creator Vivienne Medrano, aka VivziePop, exploded in online circles and launched a pilot on YouTube back in 2019 before being ordered to series at Prime Video. The show’s eclectic mix of R-rated subject matter, early 2000s-inspired animation, Biblical-adjacent worldbuilding, and Broadway showtunes has attracted a large audience, all of whom are now waiting patiently for “Hazbin Hotel” Season 3 to arrive.
In the meantime, we have some suggestions. Though nothing else has quite the same combo, there are a lot of great animated series out there for anyone looking for something a bit hellish, a bit musical, or downright blasphemous. “Hazbin Hotel” has been officially renewed through Season 5, which means that this won’t be our only waiting period. Without further ado, here are some great shows to check out if you love “Hazbin Hotel.”
Metalocalypse
Zany animation, hellish subject matter, and a seemingly endless string of bumpin’ original songs all combine in Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha’s Adult Swim classic “Metalocalypse.” The exact style and tone may be a bit on the sillier side, lacking some of the more serious storylines that underpin “Hazbin Hotel,” but there’s a lot here that fans of the Prime Video series will likely love.
The crew is Dethklok, a death metal band so popular that, in the show’s own words, they have become the world’s seventh-largest economy. All five members of the band — frontman Nathan Explosion, Scandinailliam Murderface, and drummer Pickles — are voiced by either Small or Blacha. A real-life version of the band even tours, fronted by Small
As you might expect from an animated heavy metal band with more money than God, Dethklok gets into a series of misadventures, from summoning demons to battling secret cults, inadvertently sparking political uprisings and generally causing mass death and destruction anywhere they go. It’s a loud, ridiculous, lovable show built by and for lovers of heavy metal, though anyone who appreciates a darker kind of absurdist humor can find something to enjoy here. In short, it’s one of the best Adult Swim shows ever, and the music, if you’re into that kind of thing, absolutely slaps.
Inside Job
The American adult animated comedy is a well-worn genre at this point, and there are a number of shows in that mold that we could put on this list — Danny DeVito’s “Little Demon,” for instance, about the family of Satan, or Netflix’s “Haunted Hotel.” But while some would lump all animated series together, “Hazbin Hotel” has very little in common with those shows, save for a certain brand of irreverent supernatural humor. The closest of the bunch, in our opinion, is “Inside Job,” which ran for two seasons on Netflix from 2021-2022.
Series creator Shion Takeuchi cut her teeth on shows like “Gravity Falls,” “Regular Show,” “We Bare Bears,” and “Disenchantment” before helming her own show, which also has executive producer credits from “Gravity Falls” showrunner Alex Hirsch and “BoJack Horseman” supervising director Mike Hollingsworth. There’s a lot of animation pedigree behind the scenes of “Inside Job,” and the subject matter runs parallel to many of the genre inspirations for Vivienne Medrano’s work.
The focus here is conspiracy theories — Illuminati, lizard people, Area 51 aliens, secret societies, etc. — all explored through a shadowy government organization called Cognito, Inc. It’s a different sort of genre spin than the one in “Hazbin Hotel,” but there’s still a lot of shared DNA. Plus, lead protagonist Reagan Ridley (Lizzy Caplan) has a similar role in this bizarre world as that of Charlie Morningstar (Erika Henningsen) in “Hazbin Hotel” — an incurable optimist in a world gone downright absurd.
Helluva Boss
If you’re a diehard fan of “Hazbin Hotel,” you’ve likely already watched VivziePop’s other big show, “Helluva Boss.” But on the off chance there are some stragglers out there yet to catch up, it seemed only right to include it here. Set in the same universe as “Hazbin Hotel,” “Helluva Boss” focuses on a different corner of Hell: The contract killers of Immediate Murder Professionals, or I.M.P. for short, who carry out assassinations in the human realm for clients in the underworld.
Part workplace dramedy, part hyper-violent genre parody, part sincere character study, the show carries all of the bloody, somber, cathartic contradictions that make Vivienne Medrano’s work so distinctive. And while the two shows have stayed in their own respective lanes thus far, there are some Easter eggs that fans of both will notice.
The first two seasons of “Helluva Boss” released on YouTube before the show followed in the footsteps of “Hazbin Hotel” and got picked up by Amazon. Both are now among the top animated series on Prime Video, and they naturally complement each other. If you love one and haven’t yet watched the other, it’s the easiest possible recommendation.
Knights of Guinevere
When you list off the top names working in American animation right now, you have to put Dana Terrace right up there alongside names like VivziePop. Terrace created “The Owl House,” one of the greatest animated Disney shows ever and a solid recommendation in its own right for “Hazbin Hotel” fans. Now, she is building a new indie series produced by Glitch and released on YouTube: “Knights of Guinevere.”
Where “The Owl House” explored a macabre world of demons and witches, embracing a similar aesthetic sentiment to “Hazbin Hotel,” “Knights of Guinevere” is more science fiction, though it still features plenty of the same gorgeous grotesquerie that Terrace has become known for. The story takes place in an interstellar theme park where android mascots are forced to work and the lower class lives amid the refuse of the park’s relentless consumerism.
It’s hardly subtle in its criticism of the Disney corporation’s own business practices and treatment of artists — something that Terrace has extensive experience with. “The Owl House,” after all, was truncated from its planned three full seasons. “At the end of the day, there are a few business people who oversee what fits into the Disney brand and one day one of those guys decided ‘TOH’ didn’t fit that ‘brand,'” Terrace wrote on Reddit in 2021.
“Knights of Guinevere” is already a great show, with stunning imagery and a lot of textured layers to the story. The two episodes that have been released so far have accrued over 38 million views on YouTube. If you only discovered “Hazbin Hotel” after the Prime Video pickup, this is a great opportunity to support indie animation early, outside of the corporate infrastructure that “Knights of Guinevere” itself is railing against.
Steven Universe
Every list like this needs a heavy-hitter, and while the Venn diagram of “Hazbin Hotel” and “Steven Universe” fans is likely pretty close to a circle, the gap in time between the two surely means that some have never watched the Cartoon Network sci-fi masterpiece. You want beautiful animation? You got it. You want goofy comedy mixed with genuinely heartbreaking stories about found family, redemption, and embracing your true self? “Steven Universe” has it. And then, of course, there are the original songs — not quite as showtune-y as the ones in “Hazbin Hotel,” but just as catchy.
As a Cartoon Network series, “Steven Universe” has a very different target demographic. The grotesquerie intrinsic to the Vivienne Medrano house style is absent, but don’t mistake this for a show that only kids can enjoy. Like “Hazbin Hotel,” “Steven Universe” has a ton of deep worldbuilding and a core story that sees its characters genuinely change in fundamental ways. And, like “Hazbin Hotel,” “Steven Universe” features queer representation.
A new “Steven Universe” series was announced back in 2025, ordered by Prime Video. If you missed this one on the first go-around, or you just had to wait a few years after all of your fellow animation fans kept telling you that you had to watch it, maybe now is the time.
