Need Felix the cat? Early Popeye? Talk to the king of silent animation.

The network contracted Mr. Stathes to produce a program in 2012, for which he provided an hour of silent animation that he recently restored. Then, a few years later, he was interviewed on air by the network’s great host, Robert Osborne, as the network’s expert on vintage cartoons. Mr. Stathes knew then that he had arrived.

It’s a far cry from his early days, when he showed strange cartoons in strange little pop-up places that normally wouldn’t show movies. His very first show, when he wasn’t even old enough to drink, took place in a bar full of vintage junk in Bushwick, Brooklyn, called Goodbye Blue Monday. From that success he bounced around various community centers (including the Queens Public Library, where he had a yearlong stint) and shopping arcades, such as Shoelace press in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

This calling can be traced back to an obscure Boerenalfalfa cartoon his father once showed him. From there he expanded to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Felix the Cat, and began hunting for scrolls at local antique stores and flea markets. He soon moved on to eBay, where he eventually piled up a six-figure investment in the archive.

His dedication to silent cartooning – the birth of the form – is unparalleled. He even helped the Library of Congress identify part of its own collection. George Willemanwho oversees the nitrate film vaults for the library, remembers being amazed when Mr. Stathes, then in his 20s, took a seat in the archives and identified reel after reel of unidentified cartoons made decades before he was even born.

“As far as I know,” Mr. Willeman said, “Tommy is the king of silent animation.”

Mr. Stathes does not dare to guess what his archive is worth today. “Movies do not have standardized valuations like coins or other regularly traded collectibles,” he said. “It’s a very niche, specialized field that deals with objects that are more utilitarian than anything else.”