Art by Matthew Fleming.
This episode was written and produced by Galen Beebe.
In the forty years since The Joy of Painting first started airing, Bob Ross has become a cultural icon. His gentle, soothing voice is instantly recognizable, and still gives comfort to millions of people around the world. But despite his unshakably cheery demeanor, Bob’s life wasn’t always easy. This is his story. Featuring Sarah Strohl, Executive Assistant at Bob Ross Inc., and Kristin Congdon, author of Happy Clouds, Happy Trees: The Bob Ross Phenomenon.
MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE
Original Music by Wesley Slover
Little Secret Shelf by River Foxcroft
A Winter to Remember by Trevor Kowalski
Pangur Ban by Steven Gutheinz
Kindred Spirit by Howard Harper Barnes
Once You Choose Hope by Saruyi Hiyashi Egnell
Stars Are Out by Sound of Picture
Triste by Sound of Picture
Alpha Lyra by Svvn
Without Illusion by Madron
Costa Mesa by Chris Mazuera
Follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, & Reddit.
Subscribe to our Youtube channel here.
Become a monthly contributor at 20k.org/donate.
If you know what this week's mystery sound is, tell us at mystery.20k.org.
Hiring? Sign up at Indeed.com/Hertz and get a $75 credit to sponsor your first job post for better visibility, more applications, and quicker hiring times.
Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp online therapy at betterhelp.com/20k.
Find coupon codes on over 30,000 sites with Honey. Sign up for free at joinhoney.com/20k.
Get 83% off Surfshark VPN plus an extra 3 months free at surfshark.deals/20k, or use promo code 20K.
Watch The Sounds of Space, a collaboration between Twenty Thousand Hertz and melodysheep.
View Transcript ▶︎
[music in]
You’re listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz.
Bob Ross: Hi, welcome back. Certainly glad you could join me today. You ready to do a fantastic little painting with me? Good.
Terry: Bob Ross’s voice is like a natural antidepressant or sedative. You just start listening to his voice and you just relax and all the stress just leaves you. And watching him paint is like almost a religious experience.
Pepper: Watching him and listening to his voice is like hearing your grandpa’s rumbly but reliable car coming up the driveway on a sunny afternoon. You just automatically know that it’s going to be a really nice, wholesome time, and that you’re gonna feel better after it.
Nathan: My favorite thing about Bob Ross’s voice has to be the way he pronounces the word white … with the h in front of the w… “white”.
Bob Ross: Take your same old brush and go right into some titanium white.
Vicky: It’s really soft and gentle, and then he’s got these little phrases and idiosyncrasies that you can pretty much guarantee he's going to say every time you watch.
Bob Ross: We don't make mistakes we have happy accidents.
Bob Ross: You have absolutely unlimited power on this canvas.
Bob Ross: Just believe in yourself. Believe that you can do it. Because you can.
Vicky: It kind of makes his voice predictable in a way that is relaxing and gives me the feeling of calmness and security.
Kristaps: Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night, I'll put on an old episode of The Joy of Painting and let Bob Ross talk me back to sleep.
Craig: Bob Ross has become synonymous with relaxation in our house. We get to hear him wax lyrical on the nature of life, the universe, and kind of just the tenants of being? I carry Bob's hypnotic prose with me now on a day-to-day way, so whenever I feel like I'm under a cloud, I resolve to make that cloud my friend because, as we all know.
Bob Ross: Everybody needs a friend
[music transition]
Bob Ross’s show The Joy of Painting, first aired almost forty years ago. Since then, Bob Ross has become a cultural icon. And as you heard in those messages from our listeners, Bob’s unique voice still resonates with lots of people today. But as famous as he is, there’s a lot about Bob’s life that even his biggest fans probably don’t know. Bob was a complex man, and his life wasn’t always easy.
[music out]
Sarah: So, Bob was a very private person.
That’s Sarah Strohl, who works at Bob Ross Inc. That’s the company that owns the rights to The Joy of Painting. They also train instructors in Bob’s signature style.
Sarah: So most of what we know about Bob is actually from what he just says on the show.
Sarah: But he was a very private man. So he didn't share too, too much.
[music in]
What we do know is this: Robert Norman Ross was born in the early forties. He grew up in Florida, and he spent a lot of time outdoors.
Sarah: He talks a lot about being raised in the woods.
Bob Ross: We lived so far back in the woods they used to have to pipe sunlight in to us.
Sarah: He talks a lot about having an affinity with animals growing up.
Bob Ross: I think when I was a kid I must have had every kind of pet imaginable.
Sarah: In one episode, mentions keeping an alligator in his bathtub.
Bob Ross: As a kid I had a pet alligator and I fed him every day. And everyday, he bit me [chuckle].
He also developed a love of iced tea.
Bob Ross: I'm an iced tea freak. I was raised in the south, and everybody there likes iced tea.
[music out]
In ninth grade, Bob dropped out of school to become a carpenter like his dad. But at one point while working with a saw, Bob had an accident.
Sarah: And that's how he actually lost the tip of one of his fingers that is covered by the palette in the show, so you don't see it very often.
As soon as Bob turned 18, he enlisted in the Air Force. But at 6 foot 2, Bob was too tall to train as a pilot, so he was given a desk job. A few years later, he was transferred to Fairbanks, Alaska. The landscapes there were totally different from the swamps of Florida.
[music in]
Sarah: It was the first time he saw mountains, it was the first time he saw snow. And it really inspired a lot of the paintings that you see throughout The Joy of Painting.
Bob Ross: It reminds me a great deal of my home in Alaska.
Bob Ross: Alaska's one of the most beautiful countries in the world. You have so many fantastic things to look at.
In Alaska, Bob married a woman named Vivian Ridge, and had a son named Steve. Around that time, he started taking painting classes. A popular style that was being taught back then was called abstract expressionism.
Kristin: That was sort of the movement of the day. It was the first major movement in the United States.
That’s Kristin Congdon. She’s the author of the book Happy Clouds, Happy Trees: The Bob Ross Phenomenon.
Kristin: It was about not being personal. It was more universal expressions, and it wasn't realistic.
[music out]
Bob loved painting, but he didn’t really connect with this abstract style.
Kristin: He had very uncomfortable feelings about that. And he very much wanted to paint what he termed as realism.
Essentially, he wanted to paint what he saw around him.
Kristin: So he started painting these landscapes, these Alaska landscapes, on the tins that people used to search for gold.
It’s sort of like those paintings on the big old fashioned saws that loggers used to use.
Kristin: So, sort of saying something about a tool that functioned in a particular place.
These tin paintings actually look pretty similar to the ones that Bob Ross fans would recognize today. They include mighty mountains, lazy rivers, and happy snow-topped evergreens.
Kristin: So, that's where he started, but he was also working at a bar in Alaska. And he started watching Bill Alexander.
[sfx clip: Bill Alexander - Love you, love you and a hug. Isn’t it wonderful? I feel like that.]
[music clip: Magic of Painting theme music]
Bill Alexander was a German-born painter who hosted a PBS show called The Magic of Oil Painting. What you’re hearing right now is that show’s theme song.
[music clip: Magic of Painting theme music out]
If you’ve seen The Joy of Painting, then The Magic of Oil Painting will look pretty familiar. At the beginning of every episode, the shot opens with Bill standing in front of a black backdrop. He has a palette of paints in his hand, and a blank canvas to his left. The first thing Bill does is explain what he’s going to paint that day.
[sfx clip: Bill Alexander - And I will show you really a mountain scene today, where you really see the ruggedness of the mountain.]
After that, the camera zooms in on his palette, while he gets the colors ready. It’s pretty clear where Bob got his inspiration.
[sfx clip: Bill Alexander - So I have to put myself in that almighty mood. It’s the afternoon, it’s lazy and the mountain is vibrating there. It’s very peaceful.]
[music in]
In each 30-minute episode, Bill would paint a landscape using a technique called wet-on-wet. It’s an old style of painting that’s been used on and off since the Renaissance.
Kristin: The wet-on-wet technique goes back to the 14th or 15th century.
Kristin: When you work with oil paints, you can do like a wash on the background, and then create into that wash. It's almost like I'm mixing a color on the canvas.
Kristin: This really appealed to Bob because you could go back in and fix certain areas because the paint didn't dry. It just was there for you to manipulate, change, play with, make thinner. You could just do so many different things with it.
With the wet-on-wet technique, any mistake could be painted away.
[sfx clip: Bill Alexander - And I show the looseness, and how easy it is. Even if you think you make mistakes, there is no mistake. You see, now all of a sudden I got the nicest sky in the world, which starts as an almighty mistake.]
Bill’s show was often on TV at the bar where Bob worked. [sfx: fade in bar ambience] There, polishing glasses behind the bar, is where Bob first heard about happy trees and almighty mountains.
[sfx: fade bar ambience and morph into Bill TV clip]
[sfx clip: Bill Alexander - Nice and loose. That makes a nice happy tree.]
[sfx clip: Bill Alexander - Ah! I want to paint that almighty mountain. With the almighty color!]
[music out]
By the late 70s, Bob had gotten divorced, and married his second wife, Jane. Like Bob, Jane shared a love of the Alaskan wilderness.
Bob Ross: We used to go out at night, Jane and I did, and we would watch the Northern Lights and they are one of the most gorgeous sights imaginable.
When Bob was off duty, he could paint, spend time with his family, and enjoy the Alaskan wilderness. But at the airforce base where he worked, Bob was increasingly unhappy.
[music in]
Sarah: Bob said that he had to be very stern and strict with people when he was in the Air Force. He had to be the guy that yells at you to get stuff done.
Supposedly, his subordinates called him Bust ‘Em Up Bob. And that reputation really started to wear on him.
Kristin: And he said, "When I leave the military, I'm not going to yell at anyone anymore."
Sarah: He didn’t want to do that anymore, which kind of inspires the persona that you see on the show and how he kind of lived his life once he left the military. He wanted to be softer, for lack of a better word.
Bob Ross: I spent half my life in the military, and there I had to live in somebody else's world all the time. Painting offered me freedom. I'd come home after all day of playing soldier and I'd paint a picture, and I could paint the kind of world that I wanted. It was clean, it was sparkling, shiny, beautiful, no pollution… nobody upset, everybody was happy in this world, because I could find freedom on this canvas.
[music out]
Eventually, Bob decided to repaint the canvas of his own life. So at age 40, he retired from the airforce, and took a job as a traveling instructor for Bill Alexander’s Magic Art Supply company.
[music in]
Kristin: He traveled the country and taught the wet-on-wet technique on these gatherings to various people, teaching the Bill Alexander method.
Sarah: And there's a story about how his wife stayed in Alaska and was like, “You have one year to figure out what you're doing and make it work.”
While he was on the road in Florida, Bob met the person who would change his career forever. That’s coming up, after the break.
[music out]
MIDROLL 1
[music in]
In the early 80s, Bob Ross was traveling the country, working as an instructor for Bill Alexander’s art supply company. At one point, he ended up back in his home state of Florida. There, he met a couple that would have a huge impact on his career.
Sarah: Being a traveling instructor and teaching in Florida is when he met Walter and Annette Kowalski.
[music out]
Sadly, the thing that brought them together wasn’t just a shared love of painting.
Sarah: It's one of those moments where tragedy inspires something that becomes wonderful, because very sadly, the catalyst for Annette meeting Bob was that one of her sons died in a car crash.
[music in]
Kristin: She had lost her 24-year-old son in a car accident. And she was grieving terribly. Sarah: She was absolutely devastated. Could not get up off of the couch.
Annette looked for comfort in her favorite TV painter, Bill Alexander.
Kristin: And so, she was on the sofa listening to Bill Alexander. [sfx clip: Bill Alexander - That cloud is hanging right on top of that almighty mountain there. Maybe here a happy little valley there. Happy little valley there.]
Kristin: Bill Alexander was calming her and she was intrigued by this, and it sort of helped her refocus into something else. [sfx clip: Bill Alexander: It is kind of a loose loose movement. Very loose and flat. Let it roll along. Let it roll along.]
[music out]
Annette’s husband Walt decided to look for a workshop where Annette could learn from Bill in person.
Sarah: He called around, tried to get a class with Bill Alexander. Bill was not teaching at the time, but there was this guy in Florida teaching Bill Alexander classes. So, it's the next best thing.
Kristin: So, Walt puts Annette in the car and they drive 14 hours down to Clearwater.
Sarah: She goes to Florida to take the class, and it's Bob Ross.
[music in]
Bob Ross: Hi, I’m certainly glad you could join me today. You ready to do a fantastic little painting with me? Super.
Kristin: And it's this life-changing experience for her. She felt calm. She felt like she had purpose again.
Sarah: Annette says that she doesn't even think she painted. She was just so enraptured with Bob, with how he taught because, people that knew Bob will tell you that the Bob you see on TV is the Bob that he was in real life, just that very soft, gentle voice. And she was mesmerized.
Bob Ross: You have to have a little dark to make the light show. That's just like in life. If you never had any sadness in your life, then you wouldn't know the happy times when they came.
After the class, Annette and Walt took Bob to dinner.
Kristin: She and Walt took him out to a meal and discussed him leaving Bill Alexander.
Sarah: And they said, "You need to teach more. Let's try taking your classes up the East Coast."
Bob accepted their offer. He quit teaching for Bill’s company, and formed a partnership with the Kowalski’s.
Kristin: Bob and his wife Jane, and Walt and Annette put all their money together and started this company.
Sarah: Bob Ross Incorporated, which is still in business today.
[music out]
In the beginning, Bob had a hard time booking many classes, and the money was so tight that he and his family actually moved in with the Kowalski’s. After all, Bill Alexander was famous. And Bob Ross… was not.
Sarah: Walt was calling around to all these different malls trying to arrange for Bob to be able to do, like, demonstration paintings in the mall, so hopefully they can entice people to take classes but it just wasn't really hitting it off as well as the Kowalskis knew that Bob should be doing.
To attract more customers, they decided to make a TV commercial. And Bob got his mentor Bill Alexander to help. Here’s a clip from that commercial, from the documentary Bob Ross: The Happy Painter. In it, Bill passes the torch to Bob… or in this case, the paintbrush.
[sfx clip: Early Commercial - Bill: I hand over that almighty brush to our mighty man, Bob.
Bob: Thank you very much, Bill. We've had so many cards requesting classes in this area that we've decided to set one up here and we will have a class going in the near future. We'll produce some almighty painters.]
To get their commercial on the air, they took it to a local public access station in Virginia. But when the station managers saw the tape, they immediately knew that Bob had something special. They decided to build a whole show around Bob that would be similar to The Magic of Oil Painting.
[music in]
In 1983, The Joy of Painting hit the airwaves.
[sfx clip: Episode 1 - Hi, I’m Bob Ross, and for the next 13 weeks, I’ll be your host as we experience the joy of painting. I think each of us, sometime during our life, has wanted to paint a picture. I think there’s an artist hidden in the bottom of every single one of us. And here, we will show you how to bring that artist out. To put it on canvas. Because you, too, can paint almighty pictures.]
At first, the show only aired on a few local PBS channels up and down the East Coast. But after the first season, The Joy of Painting was picked up by a channel in Muncie Indiana.
Kristin: It was really the PBS station show in Muncie that gave him this international reputation, allowed him to become a household name, because people were watching him and becoming so enamored by his ability to make a painting in less than 30 minutes, which was really pretty extraordinary when you think about it.
Gradually, the show started airing on more channels across the country, and Bob’s following grew with it.
Sarah: So it's just a matter of more stations realizing this is popular, more people requesting to see the show, and it kind of slowly spreading to the phenomena that we know.
[music out]
Bob’s fanbase included aspiring artists, nature lovers, and apparently… even some teenage metalheads.
Lee: It wasn’t really cool for 14-year-old boys to be mesmerized by watching Bob create and by listening to his voice, but I think we all secretly did so when we weren’t listening to the likes of Ratt and Queensryche. We just didn't talk about it.
The success of Bob’s show is pretty amazing when you think about how simple it was. Every single episode looked exactly the same.
[music in]
Sarah: Black curtain in the background, a canvas, and then a man with big fuzzy hair, a very soft voice, a giant palette, a big two inch paintbrush, and just a very plain buttoned up shirt and jeans.
But this barebones approach was very intentional.
Sarah: Bob wanted the show to be timeless, and to feel like it could have been made at any point in time, to feel like it could continue to be enjoyed for forever. So he wanted it very minimalistic. And that setup really worked in his favor, I think. Kind of like Bob floating in a void and painting for you.
In his button-down shirt and plain jeans, Bob achieved a timeless look. Well… almost timeless.
Sarah: Now of course, the hair kind of dates it.
Spoiler alert: Bob’s famous poofy hair… wasn’t natural.
Sarah: He didn't really have a lot of money when he left the military to spend on frivolities. And one of those things that he tried to scrimp on was haircuts. And he thought, “Well, if I perm my hair, then I won't have to get it cut as much because people won't notice the growth.” Unfortunately for him, it became his signature look. It was so recognizable, so notable, it was on all of the Bob Ross products. He was stuck with it.
[music out]
Bob began each episode with a casual introduction...
Bob Ross: Hello! I’m certainly glad you could join us today, ‘cause I thought today, we’d just have a fantastic time. So I tell you what, let’s start out today and have them run all the colors across the screen that you need to paint along with us.
At this point, the names of the paint colors would appear on screen: Alizarin Crimson, Titanium White, Phthalo Green, and so on.
Bob Ross: Let’s have some fun today. Shoot, we’ll take the old two inch brush and let’s start out with some titanium white.
As he painted, Bob would explain his technique.
Bob Ross: And really really push that paint right into the fabric. You can probably hear how hard I'm scraping and pushing.
But he would also talk about… whatever came to mind.
[music in]
Bob Ross: My wife Jane. She hangs in there. It's hard to live with a crazy old painter, I'll tell you that.
Sarah: He did make a choice when filming the show that he wanted to film it like he was just talking to one person.
Bob Ross: I like to fish. But I’m not a very good fisherman, because I catch them, and take them out of the water, and take the hook out, and put a bandaid on them, give them a little CPR, pat them on the tutu, and put them back in there, so they’ll be there the next time I come.
Sarah: So he wanted it to feel intimate, like he's just giving you a lesson. And I think that really comes across in the show with how gently he's speaking and how just kind of natural everything seems, like he's just kind of rambling, stream of consciousness, to a friend as he paints.
Bob Ross: And we need to take care of these little creatures because they're sort of the barometer to tell you how the ecology is doing and how we're taking care of this old world. The animals disappear, guess who's next?
By the end of each episode, Bob had made a complete painting.
Sarah: One thing that Bob did that was quite unique was that he filmed everything in one sitting. He wanted to do it all at once, and to really give you the feeling that you can do this and you don't have to have huge amounts of time set aside, or a large amount of materials.
Bob Ross: You can make a sky full of clouds in just a few minutes. Doesn’t take long.
Bob Ross: With very little practice, you'll amaze yourself in just a few days at what you can do. Just a few days, it doesn't take long, doesn't take long.
[music out]
In many ways, Bob’s show followed the same format that Bill Alexander’s did. But there were a few differences. The biggest one was Bob’s delivery. Bill Alexander could sometimes be a little forceful on his show...
[sfx clip: Bill Alexander - And watch what happen! Watch what happen! ...It is quite hard to get that almighty paint on the canvas!]
[sfx clip: Bill Alexander - Clean that almighty brush! Clean that almighty brush!]
On the other hand, Bob was always gentle. He spoke about painting with a sort of reverence. Along with his slight southern drawl, it made for a soothing sonic experience.
[music in]
Antonio: There is one thing that separates him from everyone else, which is, of course, his voice. It just massages your mind in a way that nothing else does.
Brooks: A voice like Bob Ross’, and I think anyone who’s watched the show can agree that his voice produces peace, relaxation, kind of a melting away of stress, and you feel close to Bob Ross.
Sabrina: Bob Ross’s voice makes me feel so incredibly calm, and it’s just like the most peaceful thing I could listen to, but also it just genuinely makes me feel happy.
Bob Ross: Because painting is fun, it does nice things to you, and it doesn't hurt anybody, everybody's happy. It brings a lot of joy to people, whether you're doing the painting or whether you give your paintings or sell your paintings to other people that makes them happy and we need more of that.
Andy: For me, it’s less about his voice, which is gentle and soothing for sure, and more about the sounds of his brushstrokes sfx] and his knife scraping the canvas [sfx] and when he hits his brush back and forth to dry it [sfx].
Todd Richard: I think our favorite part is when he dries his brush and “beats the devil out of it” by slapping the brush quickly against the leg of his easel. It creates this kind of woodpecker-like sound, like ratatatatat [sfx], and that sound, and the energy of it, and of course Bob’s chuckle when he’s done, just brings this momentary burst of a different kind of joy in every episode. [sfx]
[music out]
The idea behind the show was that the viewer would set up their own easel, buy their own set of Bob Ross brand paints, and paint along at home. But that didn’t always happen.
Emily Burke (vox): The funny thing about watching Bob Ross is that I have absolutely no intention to replicate any of his paintings. I don’t have much talent in that kind of artistic field, nor do I have any of the materials to do that. But it is so calming just to watch him paint those happy little trees. He’s relaxed me, and he’s just something to take my mind off. Especially in 2020, when there was so much chaos going on, just throwing an episode of Bob Ross painting calmed me down and put me in a happy little space.
Kristin: Really a small proportion of people actually painted with him. Most people just wanted to listen to him. What they were hearing was his lessons about life, about being able to create your own world, about not making mistakes, but just having happy accidents.
[music in]
Bob Ross: Cause as you know, we don’t make mistakes. In our world, we only have happy accidents. And very quickly—very quickly—you learn to work with anything that happens on this canvas. Anything.
Kristin: And he would tell people over and over again that they had unlimited power to create their own worlds.
Bob Ross: This is your world, so let your imagination go crazy. Whatever makes you happy, you put in your world.
Bob Ross: And that’s what’s so fantastic about painting like this. Right in the middle of the painting, you can change your mind. You have total and complete freedom.
Kristin: Those are extraordinary kinds of things to teach people who are lonely or feeling that they don't have any creative power, or feel that they don't have the ability to move forward in their life.
Bob Ross: We don’t try to teach you how to copy here. We try to teach you to be creative in your own right.
Kristin: We found people who said that they were so depressed they couldn't get out of bed, and all of a sudden, there was this calming voice who spoke to them.
Fred: My story of Bob Ross starts with my ex-wife’s mom dying of cancer. Me and her, and then her sisters and their partners as well as her dad, all went through the process of sitting with her as she passed. And after it happened, there was just this big, eventful moment of someone’s death, and at the same time, like right after, there's no purpose. You’re kind of reckoning with this end of life, and the chaos that you felt before has no reason to feel that way. So we ordered takeout and came back to her dad’s house, and we turned on Bob Ross and watched as he very calmly and peacefully explained what he was doing.
Bob Ross: Just use the corner of the fan brush. And there we go, back and forth. There.
Fred: Listened to the brushstrokes. [sfx] It’s beautiful that someone was able to put their peacefulness, their happiness of existence into such a simple format that can be consumed and in a lot of ways comforted many people, especially myself.
Over the years, Bob’s soothing voice and cheerful attitude brought lots of people comfort during difficult times. But just because Bob was always smiling doesn’t mean that he was immune to tragedies of his own. That’s coming up after this.
[music out]
MIDROLL 2
[music in]
By the early 90s, Bob Ross had become a true celebrity. Each week, millions of people would watch him whip up another scenic landscape. Occasionally, he would bring on a guest artist, like his son Steve.
Bob Ross: Today I have a special treat for you. I'd like to introduce you to my son Steve. So I'm gonna turn it over to Steve and I'll be back at the end of the show. Steve?
Steve: Thanks a lot, dad.
In another episode, Annette Kowalski demonstrated how to paint flowers.
Bob Ross: I've asked a very dear friend to come in today and help us with a little floral painting. I'd like to introduce you to my partner and longtime friend Annette Kowalski. Annette, welcome to the show.
Annette: Thanks, Bob.
Once, Bob did a special, live painting session in Central Park. Thousands of people showed up. Here’s Bob talking about it afterwards.
Bob Ross: As I say, our day at Central Park was one of the most fantastic days of my life. Shoot, we had a fantastic time there. We met some of the most beautiful people in the world.
Kristin: There was something about his engagement with people, that he not only spoke about, but he modeled. So when people would make fun of him or do parodies on him, he would just enjoy it. He would laugh with them.
Sarah: He had a sense of humor about himself. You know, he knew that people thought he was a little bit funny, a little bit hokey. He was willing to play into that a little bit, and he had fun with it.
Bob Ross: Since these are natural bristle brushes, sometimes a little hair just falls out. Just like my hair, it’s sort of wild and unruly [chuckle].
[music out]
At one point, Bob was interviewed by talk show host Phil Donahue. Here’s Phil giving Bob flack for saying that his work would probably never hang in the Smithsonian.
[sfx: an old crt tv turning on]
[sfx clip: Phil Donahue: You say out loud your work will never hang in a museum! Bob!?
Bob: Well maybe it will, but probably not the Smithsonian.
Phil: Because why, Bob? What's the deal here? What are you telling us?
Bob: Well I'm trying to teach people a form of art that anybody can do. This is art for anyone who's ever wanted to put a dream on canvas.]
[sfx: an old crt tv turning off]
Bob’s career was at its peak, but behind the scenes, things weren’t as rosy as they seemed.
[music in]
In 1992, his wife Jane was diagnosed with cancer. In one of his episodes, Bob thanked Jane for always believing in him.
Bob Ross: My wife Jane. A super, super lady that has believed in me for the last 24 series and she's helped make all this possible. Jane, thank you very much for all you've done.
That summer, Jane passed away. Afterwards, hundreds of his fans sent him cards expressing their condolences.
Bob Ross: In the last series I happened to mention that I had lost my wife. I have received hundreds and hundreds of cards from people all over the country expressing their sympathy and support. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for sharing my grief, and for making my wife a very special person in your life, too.
Kristin: I'm sure it was very difficult for him because she helped him build the business, and that was his long-term spouse, his long-term partner.
Shortly after Jane’s death, Bob’s own health took a turn for the worse, and he was diagnosed with lymphoma. But as usual, he kept his problems private. After he lost his hair to chemotherapy, he started wearing a custom wig. But you could tell his energy was waning. After 11 years and over 400 episodes, Bob finally brought The Joy of Painting to a close. This is from the show’s final episode:
[sfx clip: Final Episode - Shoot, I think with that, we about have a finished painting. The old clock on the wall tells me it’s about time to bring this show, and this series, to a close. I’ve really enjoyed being with you for the past 13 shows, and I hope to see you again very soon. If you get a chance, stop by Branson, Missouri, say hello to us. Until next time, I’d like to wish each and every one of you, Happy painting, God bless, and we’ll see you soon.]
[music out]
Despite his diagnosis, Bob still wanted to share his love of art and nature—this time, with children. He started working on a kid’s show called The Adventures of Elmer and Friends. Unfortunately, he was only well enough to appear in the very first episode.
[sfx clip: Kids: Wait a minute… How are we going to get there?
Bob: The same as always Chris. Just hop aboard the train of your imagination.]
[fade out]
In 1995, Bob married Lynda Brown, a nurse who had helped care for him in the hospital. But just two months after the wedding, Bob passed away. He was only 52 years old.
[music in]
Throughout his life, Bob’s message was clear, and that was that anyone can be an artist. And that idea flew in the face of the art world.
Kristin: Modernism taught us somehow that the artist was a genius, and that was elevated above everyone else, and that you shouldn't try to do that, or to be that brilliant. And what Bob said was, "Everyone can be an artist. Everyone can enjoy making a painting. Everyone can do something that they create and feel good about to put on their wall.”
Bob Ross: We’ve been taught that you had to be blessed by Michelangelo at birth or you couldn't paint. Now you may not be able to paint like he did, but you can sure paint this way.
Kristin: This was somebody who the art world had condemned, and Bob would just joke about it. He would say, "Oh, this isn't museum paintings. This is something else. This is just something to make you happy, to have a great day." And that kind of resonated, you know, that some people could come into the world of creating without having to think that they had to someday be so great, or be in a museum.
Bob never considered himself an especially great artist. But since his death, he’s gotten more recognition from the art world.
Sarah: Currently, his paintings are available to view in Museum MORE in the Netherlands, and at The Bob Ross Experience, which is a museum dedicated to Bob Ross in the building where he filmed the show. He said his paintings would never hang in the Smithsonian, but four of his paintings are actually in the Smithsonian's permanent collection now.
Of course, Bob’s legacy is about so much more than painting.
Kristin: It reverberates, it goes out by your contribution, the lovingness that you learned from him, the ability to have agency, the way that you embrace other people in terms of their differences. All of those were like life lessons that I think people may not have even consciously understood when they tuned in to hear him talk to them one-on-one like that. It was like a preaching.
The joy of painting is really about the joy of living. It doesn’t matter if you ever pick up a paintbrush. We can all learn something from Bob. He taught us to slow down, to speak calmly, and to appreciate the beauty of our everyday experiences. And maybe most importantly of all, he taught us that the final, finished product isn’t really what matters. It’s about finding the joy in the journey.
Bob Ross: We let our imagination take us to worlds we never knew existed, and in those worlds we find peace, we find happiness. Good things happen here.
[music out]
We’ll end the show with one final work inspired by the happy painter. This is a lovingly made remix of Bob created by one of my favorite composers, John Boswell, also known as Melodysheep. Enjoy.
[music in: Melodysheep song]
[transition to music in]
Twenty Thousand Hertz is hosted by me, Dallas Taylor, and produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. For more, visit Defacto Sound dot com.
This episode was written and produced by Galen Beebe, Casey Emmerling, and Andrew Anderson, with help from Sam Rinebold. It was sound edited by Soren Begin. It was sound designed and mixed by Colin DeVarney, with original music by Wesley Slover.
Thanks to our guests, Kristin Congdon and Sarah Strohl. To learn more about Bob’s life, check out Kristin’s book Happy Clouds, Happy Trees: The Bob Ross Phenomenon. To find a Bob Ross painting workshop in your area, go to Experience dot Bob Ross dot com. Thanks again to Melodysheep for letting us use that awesome track. If you haven’t already, go check out the collaboration I did with melodysheep on his youtube channel. It’s called “The Sound of Space” and you can find a link to it in the description.
A special thanks to all of our listeners who sent in messages telling us how they feel about Bob. That’s Andy, Antonio, Barbara, Brooks, Craig, Collin, Emily, Evan, Fred, Kristaps, Lee, Nathan, Pepper, Raja, Sabrina, Terri, Todd, and Vicky. We couldn’t have made this episode without you.
Finally, thanks to Brian, George, Jason, and Ken, who all helped to name this episode through our Facebook & Twitter accounts. To help us name episodes, get behind the scenes content, and to stay up to date with what’s new at Twenty Thousand Hertz, be sure to follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, or Reddit.
Thanks for listening.
[music out]
