Archive Episode - Space Jam (Joe Pytka, 1996) (with Paul Wells)
Space Jam (Joe Pytka, 1996).
The Fantasy/Animation podcast takes listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation. Available via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many of your favourite podcast hosting platforms!
To mark the return of the Fantasy/Animation archive instalments, Chris and Alex once more delve into the podcast’s back catalogue for this relisten of Episode 70 and their discussion of Space Jam (Joe Pytka, 1996), which featured very special guest Professor Paul Wells, Director of the Animation Academy at Loughborough University. Listen again at their analysis of Space Jam as emblematic of animation’s longstanding relationship with sport; the nostalgic callbacks that the film makes to Golden Age Hollywood stardom; sport, drama, metaphor, and society; Space Jam’s soundtrack and negotiation of black celebrity identities; and how Joe Pytka’s film provides the spectacle of stylistic hybridity through the lens of NBA basketball.
**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**
**As featured on Feedspot’s 25 Best London Education Podcasts**
Suggested Readings
Brown, Tom, and Belén Vidal, eds. 2013. The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture. London: Routledge.
Wells, Paul. 1998. Understanding Animation. London: Routledge.
Wells, Paul. 2002. Animation and America. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
Wells, Paul. 2008. The Animated Bestiary: Animals, Cartoons and Culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Wells, Paul. 2014. Animation, Sport and Culture. London: Palgrave Macmillan.