In the field of Animation Studies, there is a repeatedly held association between stop-motion and the uncanny. This thesis examines a range of stop-motion case studies, linked in their origin as high-profile commercial US films and television specials featuring stop-motion, using textual analysis to illustrate how the themes of these animations challenge these traditional associations between the uncanny and stop-motion. This is primarily accomplished through a delineation between the familiar and the unfamiliar, in effect undoing the ambiguous overlap between these two concepts that is necessary for the uncanny to be elicited and/or felt. The chapters of this thesis explore the nostalgia and unease of the Rankin/Bass holiday specials (1964-1985), the familiarisation of the monstrous in the special effects of Ray Harryhausen (1953-1981), the exchange between the familiar and the unfamiliar in the stop-motion films of Tim Burton and Henry Selick (1993-2009), and the construction of empathy towards the seemingly uncanny in LAIKA’s films (2012-2016/2019). Each chapter establishes the creative identity of each set of case studies, and pins down how the familiar and the unfamiliar is delineated in each of these groupings of case studies to arrive at a thematic destination that either bypasses or subverts the uncanny. Within my conclusion, I demonstrate what the aggregate effect of these numerous instances of defanging the uncanny qualities of stop-motion in these high-profile US stop-motion films entails; chiefly, it communicates themes of embracing what we may consider to be ‘the other’, and embraces the creative qualities of stop-motion in a manner that does not steer away from some of the uncanny qualities and characteristics of the medium, but renders them in narratives that illustrate the joys and human connectivity that arises when we do so.