Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Many people go their entire lives on a
Speaker 1: single track. They go to school, find a comfortable career,
Speaker 1: and stay in that career until it's time to retire.
Speaker 1: But every once in a while, someone gets tired of
Speaker 1: their daily grind. They yearn for something else, something more
Speaker 1: fulfilling than what they were trained to do, like Robert Norman.
Speaker 1: Robert was born in Daytona Beach, Florida. In His father
Speaker 1: was a opener while his mother worked as a waitress.
Speaker 1: Robert loved animals, and when faced with an injured squirrel
Speaker 1: or a snake, he wouldn't hesitate to take them in
Speaker 1: and nurse them back to health. He once kept a
Speaker 1: baby alligator in his bathtub until it was healthy enough
Speaker 1: to release back into the wild. Robert dropped out of
Speaker 1: school once he reached the ninth grade and went to
Speaker 1: work with his father as a carpenter. A mishap with
Speaker 1: one of his tools, though, resulted in the partial loss
Speaker 1: of his left index finger, but the injury didn't keep
Speaker 1: him from joining the Air Force when he was eighteen.
Speaker 1: Robert served as a medical records technician and was even
Speaker 1: stationed at Ailson Air Force Base in Alaska. His time
Speaker 1: there seemed to transform him to living in Florida. He
Speaker 1: had never seen mountains or snow before, and the majesty
Speaker 1: of the Alaskan landscape stayed with him for the rest
Speaker 1: of his life, but he eventually realized the military just
Speaker 1: wasn't for him for one. Aside from his duties as
Speaker 1: a records technician, Robert also served as a basic training instructor,
Speaker 1: the guy whose job it was to yell at new
Speaker 1: recruits about making their beds or cleaning the latrines. He
Speaker 1: hated it, and he swore if he ever left the
Speaker 1: military he would never raise his voice toward another person again.
Speaker 1: But instead of dwelling on the negative, Robert channeled his
Speaker 1: energy into something more creative. When he found out that
Speaker 1: the Anchorage USO Club was holding art classes, he decided
Speaker 1: to attend one. However, despite his newfound love of painting.
Speaker 1: He took issue with the way his instructors taught him.
Speaker 1: They were more interested in abstract art rather than showing
Speaker 1: students how to paint what they saw around them. The
Speaker 1: way he put it, they tell you what makes a tree,
Speaker 1: but they wouldn't tell you how to paint a tree.
Speaker 1: Robert eventually got a job as a bartender, but he
Speaker 1: continued to pursue his art. While bartending, he came across
Speaker 1: a television program hosted by a German painter named Bill Alexander.
Speaker 1: Now Alexander worked in oil, using an old technique known
Speaker 1: as wet on wet, in which he would apply wet
Speaker 1: paint on top of wet paint instead of letting the
Speaker 1: different layers dry first. Unlike the other methods that took
Speaker 1: hours to complete, this technique allowed him to finish a
Speaker 1: paint teen in just half an hour. Robert adopted Alexander's
Speaker 1: style for himself and began painting on his lunch breaks.
Speaker 1: Some of his earliest landscapes were painting on old gold
Speaker 1: mining pans, which he was able to complete in a
Speaker 1: matter of minutes. He then sold them for twenty five
Speaker 1: dollars a piece, before moving on to canvases. Robert eventually
Speaker 1: sold so many paintings that he out earned his Air
Speaker 1: Force salary. After twenty years in the service, he retired
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one with the rank of Master sergeant.
Speaker 1: He left Alaska for the warm sands of his home
Speaker 1: state of Florida, where he connected with his TV teacher
Speaker 1: Bill Alexander. Alexander hired him to work with his art
Speaker 1: supply company as an instructor and traveling salesman, and sometime
Speaker 1: during his travels, Robert met a woman naming net Kowalski
Speaker 1: who also attended one of his classes and gave him
Speaker 1: some advice. She believed that he could do much better
Speaker 1: working on his own rather than for someone else, so Annette,
Speaker 1: along with Robert and his wife, put their money together
Speaker 1: to build a new company. It almost didn't re vibe,
Speaker 1: but Robert managed to turn things around with a television
Speaker 1: show of his own, which launched on PBS. Through it,
Speaker 1: Robert breathed life into thousands of blank canvasses over eleven years,
Speaker 1: from happy little trees to happy little mountains. Robert Norman Ross,
Speaker 1: simply Bob Ross the viewers of the Joy of Painting,
Speaker 1: was the quiet artist with the perfect perm and he
Speaker 1: was true to his word too. After leaving the Air Force,
Speaker 1: he almost never raised his voice against another person. But
Speaker 1: the military wasn't all that bad after all. It helped
Speaker 1: him find his true passion. I guess you could call
Speaker 1: that a happy accident. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Speaker 1: When we want to see change in our own lives,
Speaker 1: we tend to make it happen for ourselves rather than
Speaker 1: wait for someone else to come along and do it
Speaker 1: for us. And even if someone beats us to it,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean we can't try and do it better
Speaker 1: than them. Those who come first often become the rungs
Speaker 1: on the ladder for the people climbing up. James Moray
Speaker 1: was not the first in his field, nor would he
Speaker 1: be the last, but in his short time on Earth,
Speaker 1: he changed the game for everyone by doing things his way.
Speaker 1: James was born in Greenville, Mississippi, in nineteen thirty six.
Speaker 1: His mother and father raised him in Mississippi until the
Speaker 1: late forties when they moved north to Maryland. James had
Speaker 1: a simple childhood, but it turned upside down once the
Speaker 1: family bought their first television set. It was a life
Speaker 1: changing moment for young James. As he came face to
Speaker 1: face with the people in programs that would influence him
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life. He gravitated toward performers
Speaker 1: who entertained with their hands and used funny voices to
Speaker 1: create different characters, in other words, ventriloquists, people like Edgar
Speaker 1: Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy. James began following in
Speaker 1: their footsteps from a young age, performing shows for his
Speaker 1: clubs out Troop with homemade puppets. As he got older,
Speaker 1: he branched out into other mediums. His teenage years, for example,
Speaker 1: were spent in his school's theater department building sets. He
Speaker 1: even drew a comic strip for his high school yearbook.
Speaker 1: And it was during his senior year when James was
Speaker 1: given a great opportunity. His local television station had come
Speaker 1: up with an idea for a new show. It would
Speaker 1: be produced by kids four kids, with young people acting
Speaker 1: as on air talent and as the puppeteers behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: He didn't quite know what he was doing just yet,
Speaker 1: but he got a job building and creating puppets for
Speaker 1: the show. Sadly, it only lasted for two episodes before
Speaker 1: getting pulled, but James had learned a lot while working
Speaker 1: on it. He'd also made important industry connections that would
Speaker 1: come in handy later in life. He eventually graduated high
Speaker 1: school and moved on to college, attending the University of Maryland,
Speaker 1: where he studied graphic arts, textiles, and home economics. However,
Speaker 1: while many college students take their time in finding out
Speaker 1: what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives,
Speaker 1: James fell into his future pretty quickly. It all started
Speaker 1: with a single class. He enrolled in a puppetry class
Speaker 1: where he met a senior named Jane Nevill, a young
Speaker 1: woman who would eventually become his wife. The two became
Speaker 1: fast friends and got to work on a project for
Speaker 1: local television affiliate w r C TV. James came up
Speaker 1: with lots of ideas for the show, ideas that went
Speaker 1: on to define how televised puppet shows would be performed
Speaker 1: for generations to come. Unlike the Wooden Charlie McCarthy dummies
Speaker 1: of his use, he made his puppets out of foam.
Speaker 1: He also oriented the camera so that the puppets and
Speaker 1: the sets were the only things in the frame. This way,
Speaker 1: it looked like the characters were moving on their own
Speaker 1: while the puppeteers were crouched down out of the shot
Speaker 1: to preserve the illusion. He called his show Sam and Friends,
Speaker 1: a character's program about a human puppet named Sam and
Speaker 1: his many companions like Harry the Hipster, Professor Madcliffe, and
Speaker 1: a curious green lizard. This lizard was instructed from an
Speaker 1: old coat that had belonged to James's mother. He'd cut
Speaker 1: it up and stitched it back together, giving this creature
Speaker 1: a kind of tube shaped body with a pointed, expressive mouth.
Speaker 1: His eyes were made from two halves of a ping
Speaker 1: pong ball attached on top. He didn't know it at
Speaker 1: the time, but James's character was going to leap off
Speaker 1: the screen and into the hearts of children and adults
Speaker 1: around the world. You see. He originally started out as
Speaker 1: a generic lizard, but over time the creature evolved, as
Speaker 1: most creatures do. Subsequent iterations added a pointy color around
Speaker 1: his neck, and the pale green of the coat was
Speaker 1: replaced with the fabric of a more verdant hue. He
Speaker 1: also changed species. The character was now clearly labeled as
Speaker 1: being a frog. So what two things did James Murray
Speaker 1: Henson keep from his original design. First there were the
Speaker 1: friendly white ping pong ball eyes and second the characters
Speaker 1: soon to be iconic name Kermit the Frog. I hope
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,