GUEST: I brought the picture that Chuck McKimson drew for me as a joke back in the '90s-- I was working at an animation art studio as their bookkeeper-- because I'm a Disney collector. I met Mr. McKimson, and my bosses then made a joke about... because I was wearing Mickey Mouse and he's a Warner Brothers guy. So we started a friendship and he drew me this picture making fun of... the Taz eating Mickey Mouse.
APPRAISER: Now, how many years did you correspond with him for?
GUEST: About four, five years. From 1992. That's when I met him. He and I wrote back and forth for a long time. When he traveled around the country and around the world with his animation art, he would write from different places and do a little cartoon on the bottom of the letter.
APPRAISER: You had so many amazing letters, and we could only choose just very, very few of them. Every letter has a handwritten dedication to you, has great little drawings of famous Warner Brothers and Disney characters, you being a Disney fan.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: It's kind of interesting that a Mickey Mouse fanatic would make friends with a Warner Brothers artist.
GUEST: I know. That was the joke in everybody, and that's the joke between him and I, also. He was really a nice, wonderful man. We really had a good friendship for being bicoastal friends.
APPRAISER: And animation enemies.
GUEST: Yeah, exactly. He and his brothers are the ones that came up with the Tasmanian Devil, so that's why he did that.
APPRAISER: Well, Charles McKimson, also known as Chuck McKimson, was the youngest of three brothers. He has a brother Robert and a brother Thomas. Chuck himself worked for Tex Avery before he left for the Army during World War II, but they've all worked mostly for Warner Brothers. After World War II, Rob McKimson was doing lots of great shorts for Warner Brother Studios, and his youngest brother Chuck came to work for him as lead animator. And Robert was famous for developing the Tasmanian Devil character, Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy Gonzales, and Charles worked on all of those short films with them. And this is much, much later in life. Most of these date from the early '90s. Right here, you can see a picture of you with Chuck McKimson. Now, when was this taken?
GUEST: In, like, '93 or '94, there was... we called it the animation ball, and it was in Atlanta, Georgia. All the proceeds went to SIDS. Tom McKimson and Chuck McKimson were there.
APPRAISER: Well, what I enjoyed the most about these is him basically having a little bit of fun with you. In each one of these, you've got Bugs, another great Warner Brothers character, basically messing with Mickey. (laughing) Have you ever had these looked at or evaluated?
GUEST: No, I never have mainly because I didn't figure there was any value because it has Mickey and the Warner Brothers together, which is not kosher.
APPRAISER: Well, that's actually what me and my colleagues found the most charming about it. We would estimate, at auction, each of these small Christmas and Easter cards would go for between $300 and $500 at auction.
GUEST: Are you serious?
APPRAISER: And the larger watercolor, at auction we estimate between $1,500 and $2,000.
GUEST: Wow, wow. Well, I would never sell them because, you know, they're very dear to me, but thank you. I'm excited.
