Episode 161 - Tee Collins (with Robby Gilbert)
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!
Episode 161 of the podcast features an examination of the animated career of Tee Collins, a pioneer of the medium whose place within received histories has tended to sideline, rather than celebrate, his contribution to the industry and aesthetics of the animated craft. Joining Chris and Alex to situate Collins within the trajectory of U.S. animation is animator, artist, and historian of animation and moving images Robby Gilbert. Robby has worked as an animator for several studios and has illustrated numerous works for children, including The Adventures of Ranger Rick for the National Wildlife Federation. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Animation at Rowan University and is the author of the recently released City in Motion: Animation in New York 1966-1999 (Palgrave, 2025). Topics for this episode include the emergence of Harlem’s early Black animators against the backdrop of institutional and representational racism; Collins’ early work on Sesame Street (Jim Henson, 1969-) with the Wanda the Witch and Nancy the Nanny Goat shorts as well as his later animated feature The Songhai Princess (Tee Collins, 1990); his signature Afro-Cubist style and links to the adult animation of Ralph Bakshi; ‘fast’ animation, movement, motion studies, and basketball (!); and what Collins’ forgotten place within global animation history tells us about the necessity of historical recovery.
**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**
**As featured on Feedspot’s 25 Best London Education Podcasts**
Suggested Readings
Cohen, Karl F. 1997. Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America. North Carolina: McFarland & Company.
Gladwell, Malcolm. 2000. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Little, Brown & Company.
Lehman, Christopher P. 2007. The Colored Cartoon: Black Representation in American Animated Short Films, 1907–1954. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Sammond, Nicholas. 2015. The Birth of an Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation. Durham: Duke University Press.
Santucci, Walter, and Kelly J. Madison. 2015. The Cultural Politics of Race and Ethnicity in Animation. London: Bloomsbury Academic.