Chris Hardwick on Capturing Disney Magic Through ‘Up for Auction’

Fans of Chris Hardwick usually know him as the guy who gets us through those emotional moments from The Walking Dead universe on Talking Dead. Maybe by making audiences laugh with a standup comedy set or while hosting his “Id10T” podcast. Beyond all that The Wall host is also an avid collector and a big Disney fanatic, which makes him the perfect choice to helm the new series Up For Auction, which streams on the CW app.

Throughout the eight episodes, Hardwick connects with Mike and Janeen Van Eaton of Van Eaton Galleries. The couple and their team are preparing an auction for “Toy Scout” Joel Magee, who has amassed the largest privately owned Disney Park memorabilia collection. Over three days, the magic number he is hoping for is a $5 million return from obsessed Disneyana collectors.

There are some high-priced ticket items up to the highest bidder including the Disney Global Van Lines truck, Peter Pan and Dumbo ride cars, park maps, and a wealth of Haunted Mansion items like a Doom Buggy and those iconic stretch paintings. The season also sees Hardwick give some historical context and stories with appearances by Mickey Mouse voice Bret Iwan and legendary Imagineer Bob Gurr. Here the comedian takes us through the making of the show and reveals his prized possessions.

Up for Auction

You’ve been a collector and Disney fanatic for so long. What would you say surprised or struck you while shooting? 

Chris Hardwick: I was really struck by how beautifully Joel McGee preserved and presented all the items. You take the Hitchhiking Ghosts figures which were life-size…Those figures he was able to get those, but they were just the figures. He had this custom display built where he put them in there. You push a button and the theme songs play and they animate. What I was blown away by was not just that he collected all these things, but the fact you could tell he really cared about them. He took such great care in preserving and restoring these things. Also, he presented these things in a way that honored the works of art they were.

I’ve seen and taken part in a lot of auctions. It may have just been those ghosts not attached to anything, not working. It still would have sold. Someone would have wanted them. Someone would have bought them individually. It’s possible he would have made more selling them individually. I think the fact he put them all together because they should be together. The fact he put them in this display. He says in the show he doesn’t have any idea how much he has spent restoring these things. There is a little bit of Indiana Jones with him, but also he was a restoration artist. He had all these things meticulously restored and brought back to life.

And who knows where they were before he got them? 

I’m sure a lot of stuff was in a dumpster somewhere decades ago. He breathed life back into it. I think it’s what underscores the whole tone of the show. Yes, it’s about people buying things, but it’s really about the care and preservation and stories and memories and the human aspects that make the show what it is. I don’t know anything about the guy. Then I saw all the work he put into it. Not only is he a collector but he appreciates these things and wants people to appreciate them too.

The Haunted Mansion is my favorite Disney ride too. So I loved the time and care you put into that special episode. I even joked in my head that you may have spent your entire budget on this one episode. 

I love that you love that. You didn’t see it in the episode, but I was really wrestling with what is the art of the stretching portrait. Is it the piece that is intended to be seen in the ride or is it the edges of the frame where you see the artist’s strokes and the pencil lines? To me, the fact the first few years the ride was open all of those were handpainted. Meaning there are no two that are exactly alike. So, what you’re also seeing is the story of the Imagineer who decided where the edges were. I defaulted to I want to see the edges. I want to see the imagineer’s work where they interpreted where they should end it.

The show really makes you think about the details. Seeing the little things that maybe we miss when we go on the rides. You give such a fun history lesson about a lot of those favorites. 

That’s where the Nacelle Company shines. They were so amazing to work with. I could not have asked for a better partner on this project. What [EP] Brian Volk-Weiss and the whole team did was just such a feat. Steve Hoffman, showrunner and executive producer, was so meticulous in making sure all the details were there. They did such great work with Behind the Attraction and The Toys That Made Us, The Movies That Made Us, and brought great stories out. Things I didn’t even know. When they brought out their Ghostbusters episode, I thought I knew everything about Ghostbusters, and even I was blown away by it. They were able to take that experience and infuse those info-minutes that anchor around different pieces of the park. That was something they brought to the table I’m so grateful for.

What is your prized possession within your own Disney collection? 

We have stuff from teh Haunted Mansion that is pretty cool from some of The Nightmare Before Christmas overlay that they do. I have a limited edition Haunted Mansion chess set that I love. I have a stack of animation cells for every major Disney film. Then of course the stretching Haunted Mansion portraits. I guess they are the ultimate prized possession because that will never be done again. I don’t know how many there are in the world left that were handpainted. It can’t be many. To me, that’s about as special as can be because as amazing as the poster art is and the stuff you see from teh different attractions, those portraits are painted on that canvas. An imagineer touched the canvas I have and created that art. It’s relatively unique to all the other ones. It’s where I get really into the weeds of details on it.

Collector Joel Magee admiring some of his items up for auction. (Up for Auction)

Did you spend the most on those stretch paintings? 

Without a doubt! Not just getting them but the framing, the moving them, and the hanging. The hanging of it was Joel says this in the show. It’s not just the acquisition of the piece. It’s the care, restoration, storage. There are a lot of other things involved.

I’m picturing the two you show getting framed in your living room right now. 

Yeah, they are over a fireplace. It looks great. It’s tall. It’s almost 10 feet tall. But because there are not a ton of pop culture museums the way there are history museums, you really do appreciate these things. For me, it’s not what can I own. I feel we don’t have ownership over these things. I feel we are temporary caretakers on the timestream, and we preserve these thighs. Not only art but historical pieces of pop culture. My wife and I are preserving these things so they can be passed down to someone else, whether it’s our child or another collector who will care for them. That’s what I see our role as with this stuff.

You look at the vastness of the collection. It’s like once in a lifetime to have all these Disney items in one place, Knowing you were able to chronicle that, which we may not have had. Knowing the show exists also preserves history. That might mean a lot. 

I appreciate you saying that because, yeah. You never know. With the Hitchhiking Ghosts, who knows if those will ever come up for auction again? We may never see something like that again. Ride cars are a little more ubiquitous, but those little bat stanchions for example…Those brass bats. People do moulds of them and try to sculpt them, but the very cool heavy brass piece was something I had my eye on. I was immediately outbid out of the gate.

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If there was an Up For Auction Season 2, what would it focus on? 

That is such a fantastic question, and the answer is we’ve talked a lot about it. Would it be a broader movie memorabilia auction? Brian for example has a huge Star Trek collection. Would it be a singular theme property like Star Trek or Star Wars? I think it would be finding the right auction. We got very lucky the Van Eaton just so happened to be putting up the largest collection in the world of Disney memorabilia. That worked out. It depends on what the auction is as to what Season 2 would be.

Up For Auction is now streaming on The CW app.