American animated by base, right? (5)
I believe the answer is:
homer
'american animated by base right?' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both acts as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'by base right?' is the wordplay.
'by' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'base' becomes 'home' (home is a kind of base**).
'right?' becomes 'r' (common abbreviation).
'home' next to 'r' is 'HOMER'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for homer that I've seen before include "Bird" , "Type of pigeon" , "trained to get back to house" , "Great Greek who was known to nod" , "Great Greek who wrote The Iliad" .)