Christopher Holliday is Senior Lecturer in Liberal Arts and Visual Cultures Education at King’s College London (UK).
Alexander Sergeant is a Lecturer in Digital Media Production at the University of Westminster (UK), specialising in the history and theory of fantasy cinema.
Each episode, they look in detail at a film or television show, taking listeners on a journey through the intersection between fantasy cinema and the medium of animation.
To coincide with the recent big-screen release of The Odyssey (Christopher Nolan, 2026), the final Fantasy/Animation archive episode of the summer looks back the filmmaker’s science-fiction blockbuster Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010) that featured as its special guest Todd McGowan, Professor of Film Studies in the Film and Television Studies Department at the University of Vermont. Todd is the author of a number of books on psychoanalytic film theory, film comedy and popular media, including The Real Gaze: Film Theory after Lacan (2007) and The Fictional Christopher Nolan (2012), and joined Chris and Alex back in 2021 to discuss the fantasy of dreams, Inception’s rhizomatic, mazelike narrative structure, and Nolan’s commitment to puzzling plotlines, the reconstitution of beginnings, and practical effects imagery.
**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**
**As featured on Feedspot’s 25 Best London Education Podcasts**
**As featured on MillionPodcast’s Best 10 UK Animation Podcasts and Best 60 Movie Podcasts in the UK**
The next archive episode of the Fantasy/Animation podcast goes all the way back to Episode 24 and the discussion of the celebrated animated documentary Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008) which featured a conversation with special guest Dr Bella Honess Roe, author of the influential book Animated Documentary (2013). Listen as the trio discuss the recent industrial and scholarly turn towards animated documentary and the medium’s capabilities for representing the real; discourses of trauma and what it means to ‘animate’ dreams and a national-cultural memory; combinations of the factual and the fantastical that are weaved throughout Ari Folman’s autobiographical narrative; and how Waltz with Bashir illustrates animation’s status as a creative medium of catharsis.
**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**
**As featured on Feedspot’s 25 Best London Education Podcasts**
**As featured on MillionPodcast’s Best 10 UK Animation Podcasts and Best 60 Movie Podcasts in the UK**
22 Jun 2026
Archive Episode - Toy Story (1995) (with Lucy Fife Donaldson)
For this second archive episode, Chris and Alex revisit Episode 138 of the podcast that gave listeners their first taste of Pixar’s Toy Story (1995-) franchise thanks to this look at the 1995 original. The discussion of Pixar’s debut feature featured as its special guest Lucy Fife Donaldson, who is now Professor of Film Studies at the University of St Andrews and whose work focuses on film and television style, audiovisual design and 'below-the-line' labour, performance and the body. Topics in this episode included a closer look at the textures, surfaces, and scuff marks of Toy Story and its peripheral detail rendered in pristine computer graphics; worldhood and the toys’ own journey through digital space; play and plasticity; and the stylistic potential of registers of miniaturisation and magnification.
**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**
**As featured on Feedspot’s 25 Best London Education Podcasts**
**As featured on MillionPodcast’s Best 10 UK Animation Podcasts and Best 60 Movie Podcasts in the UK**
Who has been a guest on Fantasy/Animation
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Eric Herhuth
Paula Callus
Paul Wells
Cynthia Erivo
Ariana Grande
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
13,728
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
4.2 / 5
5 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
20 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 53 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
42
Social presence
0
YouTube
72
Engagement
85
Contact Fantasy/Animation
Guest appearances
Does not typically book guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Questions about Fantasy/Animation
Who hosts Fantasy/Animation?
Alex and Chris host the show. Published by Fantasy/Animation.
How often do new episodes come out?
The show publishes monthly, based on its RSS feed.
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The show does not typically feature guests, based on episode analyses.
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