An episode of the animated PBS Kids show “Molly of Denali” co-written by Juneau resident and Alaska Native language expert X̱’unei Lance Twitchell won the award for Writing for a Preschool Animated Series at the third annual 2025 Children’s and Family Emmy Awards on Saturday.
It is the first Emmy for the series that debuted in 2019 as the first U.S. children’s show featuring an Alaska Native as the lead character. The series won a Peabody Award in 2020, as well as other awards, and has been nominated for multiple Emmys over the years, including two this year.
The episode “Not a Mascot” that premiered March 27, 2024, as part of the series’ fourth season won the best writing award among five nominees.
“Molly learns that her basketball team is playing against the War Chiefs, whose mascot is a tomahawk-waving stereotype of an Indigenous person,” a PBS description of the episode notes. “Molly and her teammates set out to find a new mascot for them.”
It is the second half of a two-part show that begins with a story titled “Meteorite, Out of Sight,” that involves Molly and other characters setting out to find a meteorite.
Twitchell, a language professor at the University of Alaska Southeast, has long been involved in a multitude of projects to revive Native dialects and culture, from co-authoring the Lingít-language children’s book “Kuhaantí” as part of a youth-oriented series to serving as the chair of the Council for Alaska Native Languages. He was among nine recipients of the 2024 Governor’s Arts and Humanities Award presented last October.
This image released by PBS shows characters, from left, Tooey, voiced by Sequoia Janvier, Trini, voiced by Vienna Leacock and Molly, voiced by Sovereign Bill, in a scene from the animated series “Molly of Denali.” The animated show, which highlights the adventures of a 10-year-old Athabascan girl, Molly Mabray, has been nominated for two Emmys. (PBS)
The other co-writer of the Emmy-winning episode is Raye Lankford, a contributor for numerous other episodes as well as other children’s shows including “Sesame Street.”
Other Juneau tribal citizens involved in the writing and production of “Molly of Denali” include Frank Katasse, ‘Wáats’asdiyei Joe Yates and Vera Starbard, the latter of whom is the current Alaska State Writer Laureate.
“The Indigenous writers on Molly of Denali are the most talented, brave, and loving group of creatives I have ever had the honor to work with,” Twitchell said in a press release issued by UAS in January after the Emmy nominations were announced. “We have collaborated with non-Indigenous writers and many different peoples in production and administrative capacities to continue to create Molly of Denali. It has been life-changing to see an Indigenous woman as the lead character in a national series that has global reach. The many legacies of generations of Indigenous storytellers flow through the hands of the Indigenous storytellers today, and it is wonderful to see that groups like the Emmy Awards and PBS are including Indigenous voices and stories. As Molly says, ‘Mahsi’choo, letʼs go!’”
“Molly of Denali” also received a nomination this year for best Interactive Media. Previous Emmy nominations for the show include Outstanding Writing for a Preschool Animated Program in 2023, and Outstanding Writing for a Preschool Animated Program and Outstanding Preschool Animated Series in 2022.
In addition to winning a 2020 Peabody Award, the show was the 2020 winner of Outstanding Achievement in Youth Programming from the Television Critics Association, 2022 winner for Animation from the NAMIC Vision Awards, and 2022 winner for Best Performance in an Animation Series from the Leo Awards for Zane Jasper’s performance in the episode “Uqiquq,” according to the Internet Movie Database.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
