“The show prides itself on being the podcasting world’s number one authority on all things sculptured, painted, drawn and designed within the world of popular entertainment. This podcast delivers on its promise in spades. Not only is it well produced, the sheer level of expertise on offer is unrivalled. ”
As featured on Feedspot’s Top 10 “Best Animation History Podcasts”!
The final episode of the current series of the podcast addresses the phenomenon of KPop Demon Hunters (Maggie Kang & Chris Appelhans, 2025), the most watched original animated film of all time on Netflix whose global reach, critical and commercial success, and intensified fandom has positioned it as central to the contemporary ‘Korean Wave’ marked by the international visibility and popularity of cultural exports produced by South Korea.
Read MoreFor Episode 173, Chris and Alex introduce the films of Michel Ocelot with this close look at the filmmaker’s successful animated adventure film - loosely based on a West African folktale - Kirikou and the Sorceress (Michel Ocelot, 1998). The discussion into the film’s articulation of magical realism, power, and struggle features special guest Lewis C. Seifert, who is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Brown University. Lewis’ research interests encompass early Modern France, gender and sexuality studies, folk narratives, and the environmental humanities, and he is the author of Fairy Tales, Sexuality, and Gender in France, 1690-1715: Nostalgic Utopias (Cambridge University Press, 1996) and Manning the Margins: Masculinity and Writing in Seventeenth-Century France (University of Michigan Press, 2009).
Read MoreEpisode 166 of the Fantasy/Animation podcast high kicks its way into the world of DreamWorks’ successful Kung Fu Panda franchise (2008-) with this look at the series’ first big-screen instalment, Kung Fu Panda (John Stevenson & Mark Osborne, 2008), with very special guest John Yorke. John is a television producer, screenwriter, editor, and author, who was Head of Channel 4 Drama (2003–2005), controller of BBC drama production (2006–2012) where he founded the BBC Writers Academy, and more recently managing director of Company Pictures (2013–2015). He is now teaching screenwriting via his own company, John Yorke Story, and is the author of Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them (Penguin, 2014) and Trip to the Moon: Understanding the True Power of Story (Penguin, 2026).
Read MoreJust as it did to kick off 2025, the Fantasy/Animation podcast returns once again following the festive break to celebrate the New Year with another visit to Oz, with Chris and Alex reflecting on movie musical Wicked: For Good (John M. Chu, 2025) that as with the first instalment released in 2024 discussed a year ago adapts Stephen Schwartz’s successful 2003 theatre production.
Read MoreChris and Alex welcomed Oscar-winning visual effects artist Andrew Whitehurst to the Fantasy/Animation podcast back in November 2019 for this reflection on the posthumanism of science-fiction parable Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2014). Andrew kindly spoke with us about his role as Visual Effects Supervisor on the film (for which he received an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 2015), and navigated through Ex Machina’s technologised construction of bodies and the hybrid performance of humanoid robot Ava.
Read MoreEpisode 97 of the podcast takes on the intergalactic conflicts and rebel alliances of Rogue One (Gareth Edwards, 2016), an anthology feature film and prequel to Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977) that tells the origin story of the ‘Rogue One’ starfighter squadron and the creation of the Death Star. Special guest for this episode is Dr Jonathan Wroot, who is Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader for Film Studies at the University of Greenwich.
Read MoreIn an alternate 1985, Chris and Alex sit down to watch the recent comic book feature film Watchmen (Zach Snyder, 2009), a neo-noir/superhero blockbuster that adapts the popular DC Comics series for the big screen. They are joined in this Cold War-era tale of Soviet Union-United States relations by Dr Drew Morton, Associate Professor of Mass Communication at Texas A&M University, Texarkana, and author of Panel to the Screen: Style, American Film, and Comic Books During the Blockbuster Era (University Press of Mississippi, 2016), as well as a number of articles and chapters on motion comics, media convergence and comic book adaptation.
Read MoreEpisodes 17 and 18 come to you live from the 2019 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, held in Seattle, Washington, USA! Hear Chris and Alex report on the ins and outs of attending the largest academic media conference in the world, providing you with insights into the various panels, delegates and procedures of the event through a series of interviews with the best and brightest from the worlds of fantasy and animation.
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