I want to spend my golden years painting. Beautiful wall art. And this is what I've decided is going to make me happiest. I feel happy when I start painting. And I sort of lose myself in it. I will start painting on one of these paintings at maybe eight o'clock in the morning. And they'll be like four o'clock in the afternoon. I've forgotten to eat. I haven't had a drink of water. I haven't even gotten up from the chair because I'm so focused. Having such a good time. Even right now, even this interview right now is keeping me from my painting. And all I keep thinking is, oh, I can't wait to finish this painting behind me. Really? But my whole life has sort of been like that. This is Mike Mozart of the Toy Channel and Geekers Media on YouTube. And boy, do I have a goofy one today? Ah! I mean, really? I mean, really. I mean, really. But I'll bet you never knew that I was an artist. What was I thinking? Well, I'm known in the art world as Mimo. Mimo is short for Mike Mozart. So it's the M-I and the M-O to create Mimo. In the early days, I liked being out doing graffiti art in street art. Back then, it wasn't the crime it is now. Back then, nobody cared. There were so many abandoned buildings where I grew up. I grew up in an old factory town that was dying. You know, police would just drive by. No one ran to hide because nobody cared. And I did something different. When everyone else was graffitiing, I was doing art. I would take out paintbrushes and actually paint art on the walls. So early on, I was approached by someone from the town that said, how would I take to paint walls? Well, pay $50. Yeah, that's great. $50. You know, over a kid that's like 14 years old, they had $50. And I probably did $50 over three or four years. There's a lot of walls. And they were up for years. And it made me happy to put artworks up that a lot of people could enjoy. I had an unusual thing happen to me that changed my life is that this beard started growing early. I was the only kid in school that was 13 years old that had a beard. So when I got my learners permit to drive when I was 16 years old, I thought, you know what, I'm going to go to New York City. I'm going to go to BIPPOP Publishers and try to see if I can get any artwork job. And one of the reasons that I thought I could do it is I looked a lot older than I was. So I went to Western Publishing. And I went there and I got my first project to ever do. It was a Mickey and Minis Day at the beach, probably about 1977. And I was worried because my family didn't have any means. I'd have to put myself through college. Instantly, I had a way to go to college. My life turned around so much from that. Early on, I learned a lot. My struggle was growing up, not growing up with any money, not growing up with any means, taking initiative to do something that was crazy. People thought I was crazy. You got your learners permit. You're going to drive to the train station in Stanford, Connecticut. You're going to take a train into New York City by yourself. And I was picking up up jobs. And it gave me a lot of satisfaction to know that I was creating something that other kids would be coloring in. And it made me happy and I was earning a lot of money. And I've helped a lot of other artists along the way the same way. I encourage them. I take them to publishers. I introduce them to the right people. And it makes me feel so good to do that. But it was fun. It was fun to create beautiful artwork that other people would enjoy. Wow. Funny looking back on that. I haven't really thought about the early days. I've always loved drawing pictures. That was what I did all the time. A five spare time as a child. I love to draw pictures. As it turns out, my whole career has been mostly doing cute artwork. But I like things that make me smile. Doing care bears and wuzzles and my little pony. I did everything. It made me happy to do that artwork. How could you be unhappy to look at all those little smiling faces all day? That's why I do it. I mean, really still to this day. I am trying to communicate something. But it's not a popular thing to say if you're a street artist graffiti artist. If you're a street artist graffiti artist, you're supposed to be against the machine. You know, against Wall Street, against the man up there oppressing you. And that wealth has been. And the work I've been doing, particularly this work is, I believe that success is something that shouldn't be an evil thing. You should be happy. A lot of people are successful didn't get there by treading on the, you know, the movers to people. They got there because they worked hard. So what's wrong with having artwork that rejoices in your success? Where you could buy a painting and hang out on your wall and see it and make you smile that you worked hard and you're successful and you, you've earned a lot of money, but you've had a lot of fun doing it. If you look at my paintings and not just about money, it's about fun. It's about enjoying what you have earned, what you actually worked hard towards. I didn't get in the position I am in art by sitting at home and thinking about what I might do someday. Everything I have gone into, I've wanted to be a big success at. And I want my artwork to have that feeling of be successful and enjoy it. I want to tell the world that it's okay to be successful. Not only is it okay, you should enjoy it and you should be happy that you're successful.