An invitation to check out “the most happening thing in town next to George Clinton” is not apt to go unanswered by anyone whose sense of funk is intact. Factor in that you can visit anytime, admission is free and you won’t be turned away if you show up late or with an un-funky companion, and the prospect becomes still more irresistible. At least that is the hope of Pamela Thomas and Loreen Williamson, co-founders of the Museum of Uncut Funk and the issuers of that public invitation.

“More established museums are ramping up their online presence. We’re groundbreaking in that we’re one step ahead of them,” says Thomas, AKA Sista ToFunky, of her museum, which is not a brick-and-mortar establishment but an internet outpost for all things retro, black and funky. “We’re always here, and we’re always funky, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Thomas and Williamson launched their museum of 70s-era black cultural artifacts like Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids cartoon cels and blaxploitation movie posters in 2007 from somewhere in New Jersey. Where, exactly, is undisclosed because of the value of the stuff they exhibit, which lives with them. To date, they’ve shown hundreds of objects in more than 20 distinct online exhibitions. Standouts include a new When We Were Colored show, about vintage black glamour; a black Barbie exhibition; the Friday Foster Chronicles, a comic journey with a forgotten soul sister who was the second black female character to have her own comic strip; and The ’Fro Back Exhibition, in which the co-curators offer a tour of the funky hairstyle by way of an Afro Sheen commercial, an interview with the first New York news anchor to wear an afro and a slideshow featuring ’fros on everyone from Jesse Jackson to Jimi Hendrix. Titles and text panels accompany every exhibition, just as they would at a traditional museum.

‘A total revolution’: a frame from The Jackson Five’s groundbreaking cartoon show. Photograph: Supplied

“If you’re really stuck in the 70s and you just want to be somewhere you can put a pik in your hair and feel at home, we’ve got your back,” says Williamson. But serious students of black culture are also among the 40,000 visitors the museum generally attracts each month. Their interest might gravitate from a 1975 window card for Broadway’s The Wiz to a movie poster for Blacula, a 1972 blaxploitation horror film. The museum is also part of the Google Cultural Institute, a not-for-profit initiative that partners with major cultural organizations like MoMA and the Tate Modern to bring the world’s cultural heritage online.

“A big part of what we do is cartoons. And cartoons are supposed to be fun,” says Thomas. But she adds they’re also historically important. “The cartoons we collect are the first positive black characters ever to be shown in animated form. There was this evolution that happened, from these awful pre-1970s depictions of black characters, these old negative stereotypes, to real depictions of black people with real lives, real dialect and real humanity.

“I always think about black children who grew up before the 70s – what kind of psychological effect did it have on them, seeing themselves depicted in such a derogatory way? In the 70s, when I was a kid sitting in front of my TV with my bowl of cereal on Saturday mornings watching The Jackson 5, the characters were relatable. It was a total revolution.”

Wonder Woman No 206: when superheroes were funky. Photograph: Supplied

Thomas and Williamson started collecting 19 years ago, just after they met through a personal ad that had nothing to do with collecting. The idea to dip into funk germinated when Thomas got her peanut butter in Williamson’s chocolate, to use a not-so-funky 80s-era metaphor.

“My background is in African American history. When I saw that Loreen had a collection of animation art, I said, ‘Where are the black cartoons?’” says Thomas. Williamson was a hobbyist, focused on Looney Tunes character art at the time. She thought Thomas’s was a good question. They have since set their sights on 70s black artifacts exclusively, with a few detours into less funky decades to build a black coin and black stamp collection (there are over 5,000 objects currently in the collection).

Williamson calls herself “the nerdy brain, kind of the behind-the-scenes funky wizard” of the museum. She works full time on the site and, unlike Thomas, has not adopted a funky nickname. Thomas, the more visible curator, works as preschool teacher in addition to stocking and promoting the museum as Sista ToFunky.

An Italian poster for Black Caesar, 1973. Photograph: Supplied

It’s a self-funded enterprise, but not a non-profit one. To keep expanding their collection and, they hope, eventually make a living from the museum, they offer a typical museum way to spend money – an onsite gift shop. There, visitors can buy a SuperBad Soulware line of T-shirts and accessories. There’s also an onsite cafe, though nothing in it is for sale. Instead it features articles like an illustrated history of soul food by James Beard Award-winning author and soul food scholar Adrian E Miller, as well as recipes like Sista ToFunky’s Smoked Pork Butt and Things.

Infrequently launched traveling shows help fund it, too. A Funky Turns 40: Black Character Revolution exhibition that hit the road in 2012 and is still running has made seven stops so far, including one at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York.

That show includes animation art from Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, the beloved cartoon created, produced and hosted by Bill Cosby that aired from 1972 to 1985. Though anything Cosby-related may now rightfully turn stomachs due to the sex abuse allegations, Williamson and Thomas feel they need to keep the art circulating.

The Amazing Spiderman No583 celebrating President Obama’s inauguration. Photograph: Supplied

“You can’t accurately tell the story of how barrier-breaking 1970s cartoons were without including Fat Albert,” says Williamson. “You also have to acknowledge that Bill Cosby broke the color barrier in animation with his revolutionary 1969 Hey, Hey, Hey It’s Fat Albert cartoon special. However, our exhibition is not about Bill Cosby,” Williamson said. Anger at Cosby is understandable, she adds. But “nobody’s hating on the cartoon”.

Nobody’s hating on the funk museum, either. Its virtual guestbook is expanding. Williamson and Thomas hope curators at the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture will be next to throw on dashikis and take a tour.

“More than any of the black museums in the country, they offer the entire African American experience,” Williamson said. “We’d love to collaborate with them on a funky show.”