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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of My Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show

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Speaker 1: that gives you the secret history and little known facts

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Speaker 1: behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows and more. We

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Speaker 1: are your two old masters of my new show. My

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Speaker 1: name is Jordan run Tug and I'm Alex Ogle. And folks,

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Speaker 1: I hope you had some coffee, because we're liable to

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Speaker 1: put you to sleep with the exceedingly chill vibes in

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Speaker 1: this episode. That's because we are talking about the patron

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Speaker 1: saint of PBS, the Buddha of the brush, the Confucius

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Speaker 1: of the canvas, key of happy trees and fluffy clouds,

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Speaker 1: and if you don't like him, we'll beat you just

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Speaker 1: like he beats his brushes. I'm talking about Mr Bob

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Speaker 1: Ross and the joy of painting. That is an all

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Speaker 1: time intro from you, Jordan. You're fired up, but he

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Speaker 1: deserves it. He is one of my all time favorites,

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Speaker 1: one of my few sources of joy in this god

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Speaker 1: forsaken world. I love him so much. The website Motherboard

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Speaker 1: has described him as quote the end to the Internet

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Speaker 1: hate machines Yang preaching the wonders of natural beauty and

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Speaker 1: artistic encouragement, a seemingly limitless belief in each and every

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Speaker 1: one of us that we could all create something beautiful.

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Speaker 1: And you know what, if we stumble along the way,

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Speaker 1: that's just fine, because, as Bob would say, we don't

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Speaker 1: make mistakes, we just have happy accidents. The show, it's

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Speaker 1: It's it's televisual ambient. I never missed it when it

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Speaker 1: was on as a kid. What was your relationship like

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Speaker 1: with the joint painting? I am ashamed to admit that

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Speaker 1: I came to it late in life. I was a Mr.

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Speaker 1: Rogers kid, not mutually exclusive, but I understand no. But then,

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Speaker 1: like basically, once I got into The Simpsons, that was it.

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Speaker 1: It was Simpsons, nothing but Simpson's, nothing but Simpson. He

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Speaker 1: must have been on the Simpsons at some point, I know,

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Speaker 1: I family guy probably yea. Yeah, painting regards, I got

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Speaker 1: into the let's paint and jog. Yeah, let's paint and

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Speaker 1: make blended fruit drinks like that was when I was

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Speaker 1: in college. I did spend some time, like during my

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Speaker 1: um my lost years as a marijuana addict, I did

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Speaker 1: spend some time with Mr Ross, but I never painted.

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Speaker 1: I'd never know, as we'll find out. I think something

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Speaker 1: like between three and five of viewers actually painted along

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Speaker 1: with it. The rest just watched and have it on

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Speaker 1: and zend out well. Bob has been back in the

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Speaker 1: zike ice in recent years, thanks in large part to

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Speaker 1: a marathon on the video streaming platform t which and

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Speaker 1: the two hundred hour event pulled in more than five

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Speaker 1: million viewers, which was enough to convince the powers that

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Speaker 1: be at Twitch to make it a regular event, and

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Speaker 1: since then he's been a hit on Netflix and YouTube,

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Speaker 1: where his channel has racked up close to a billion views.

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Speaker 1: And in a way, it makes sense that Bob Ross

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Speaker 1: would translate well to the streaming age, considering he's basedly

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Speaker 1: an early vlogger. He speaks directly to the camera, foraging

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Speaker 1: a close intimate connection with the viewer, talking to them

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Speaker 1: as if they were his friend. His painting lessons are

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Speaker 1: basically the fore runners of YouTube how to videos, with

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Speaker 1: Bob's own unique brand of positivity thrown in. He's recording

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Speaker 1: it in a stripped down TV set not dissimilar to

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Speaker 1: d I Y YouTuber studios and suburban basements, and he

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Speaker 1: was also a pioneer of the instant internet hack cute

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Speaker 1: animals Bob Ross was famous for bringing baby squirrels, notably

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Speaker 1: the adorable peepod onto the program, and of course we

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Speaker 1: can't forget how Bob is the king of SMR, the

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Speaker 1: blissed out translike head tingles phenomenon that occupies its own

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Speaker 1: special subsection of the Internet. Bob Ross is where the

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Speaker 1: ven diagram of vlogging, how two's a s MR and

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Speaker 1: cute animals becomes a circle? Uh, all wrapped up in

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Speaker 1: this idiosyncratic package of hilariously dated new wave platitudes and style,

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Speaker 1: but still deeply heartfelt words of encouragement. Are you what's

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Speaker 1: your a s m R? Take Jordan's Oh, but this

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Speaker 1: was the show that taught me that I had a SMR. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would watch this and zone out, not know I

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Speaker 1: mean SMRs we'll talk about as a fairly new label. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think I don't really think I get it. I

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Speaker 1: like drone music and like white noise. You know. I

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Speaker 1: have sleep machine with kids, so like anything that's just

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Speaker 1: just like whether it's like synthesizers or guitar, like, that's

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Speaker 1: what I'm into. I used to have. I had a

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Speaker 1: Magic set as a kid, and it had like a

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Speaker 1: fifteen minute instructional vhs that came with he would just

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Speaker 1: put that. I would I would just put that on

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Speaker 1: and they would do card tricks and they would show

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Speaker 1: you up close how to do and I was would

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Speaker 1: just be transfixed by and then we get to the end.

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Speaker 1: I rewind it over and over again and it would

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Speaker 1: just completely chill me out. And you know, this is

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Speaker 1: close to our fiftie episode of listeners might know. I

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Speaker 1: know I need to be chilled out on occasion. So

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Speaker 1: mine is like mineus like Japanese ambient from the eighties,

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Speaker 1: just like yeah, like soft synth sounds and like water burbling.

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Speaker 1: But Bob Ross, as we'll find out, wasn't always the

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Speaker 1: king of chill. You'll hear about his rough and ready

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Speaker 1: days as a loudmouth sergeant in the Air Force, his

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Speaker 1: vicious feud with his painting mentor, his bizarre connection to

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Speaker 1: the CIA, the mysterious reason you can't actually buy one

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Speaker 1: of his paintings, and the really quite bitter legal wranglings

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Speaker 1: that continued in the wake of his death. Here is

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Speaker 1: everything you didn't know about Bob Ross and the joy

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Speaker 1: of painting. When Bob Ross was a kid growing up

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Speaker 1: in Florida, he nursed an injured alligator back to health

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Speaker 1: in the family bathtub. He also took in numerous other animals,

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Speaker 1: including armadillos, squirrels, and snakes. One time, a snake got

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Speaker 1: loose in the house and was missing for days, only

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Speaker 1: to be discovered in the middle of the night when

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Speaker 1: his mother took a trip to the bathroom. I shared

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Speaker 1: this story first merely to set the tone. This is

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Speaker 1: the type of man we're dealing with. As with many

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Speaker 1: soft spoken people, Bob Ross is exceedingly chill. Nature was

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Speaker 1: a response to a somewhat tumultuous upbringing. He was born

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Speaker 1: in two to a carpenter named Jack Ross and his

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Speaker 1: wife Ali, who worked as a waitress. They divorced when

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Speaker 1: Bob was a kid, married other people, his mom and

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Speaker 1: a half brother with a new husband. Then Bob's divorced

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Speaker 1: parents split from their spouses and remarried each other, all

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Speaker 1: while Bob was in his teens. How many Christmas is

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Speaker 1: is that? I? Yeah, so that's confusing, um. And I'm

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Speaker 1: fairly certain that Bob's dad died not long after remarrying

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Speaker 1: Bob's mom, So that is definitely a tumultuous childhood and

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Speaker 1: to cope with these family upheavals. Bob took comfort in animals,

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Speaker 1: later saying, I spent a great deal of time in

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Speaker 1: the woods, and there weren't any other kids around, and

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Speaker 1: I had to learn to play with the creatures that

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Speaker 1: were in the woods. That's why I like animals and

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Speaker 1: little squirrels and raccoons and all those things so much,

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Speaker 1: because they're very special, very special. And when I got old,

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Speaker 1: I guess I didn't lose that, and he didn't. In

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Speaker 1: his adult life, Bob would care for animals and elaborate

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Speaker 1: homemade environments, including an epileptic squirrel that lived in his

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Speaker 1: empty jacuzzi. Right, squirrels. Squirrels were big for him. Friends

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Speaker 1: would recall that Bob would just dropped to his knees

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Speaker 1: and talk to squirrels whenever they went out for walks.

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Speaker 1: This is I mean, it's all they were all they

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Speaker 1: getting started, maybe, but it wouldn't all be adorable woodland creatures.

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Speaker 1: In Bob's teen years, he dropped out of high school

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Speaker 1: when he was in the ninth grade and took a

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Speaker 1: job working as a carpenter with his father. And it

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Speaker 1: was well doing this, and he accidentally cut off part

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Speaker 1: of his index finger like Margot tennenbomb Oh my God, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and Jerry. Jerry Garcia famously was derailed from his career

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Speaker 1: as a Blueger panjo player Yeah, from his wooden chopping accident,

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Speaker 1: lost the tip of his ring finger, but thankfully for

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Speaker 1: Bob Ross's future painting career, it was on his left hand,

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Speaker 1: which he just used to hold his palette. But eagle

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Speaker 1: eyed Joy of Painting fans have noticed this injury during

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Speaker 1: close ups of the palette on the show. In keeping

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Speaker 1: with the theme of his somewhat out of character early years,

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Speaker 1: in eighteen year old Bob enlisted in the Armed Forces,

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Speaker 1: beginning a twenty year career in the US Air Force,

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Speaker 1: where he rose to the rank of Master sergeant. He

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Speaker 1: worked as a medical records technician. But I guess this

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Speaker 1: job required him to be kind of a tough guy,

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Speaker 1: he would tell the Orlando Sentinel. I was the guy

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Speaker 1: who makes you scrub the latrine, the guy who makes

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Speaker 1: you make your bed, the guy who screams at you

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Speaker 1: for being late to work. The job required me to

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Speaker 1: be a mean, tough person, and I was fed up

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Speaker 1: with it. I promised myself that I ever got away

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Speaker 1: from it. I wasn't going to be that way anymore,

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Speaker 1: narrator voice. He did. If he subscribed in like multiverse theory,

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Speaker 1: then somewhere in the world there's like a version of

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Speaker 1: arle ermyst trading trading on his entire career as a

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Speaker 1: as a camp sergeant, got into painting instead, and you

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Speaker 1: could just see Arlie Army being like, we'll get these

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Speaker 1: happy little trees in there, maggot. I love that. Seriously,

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Speaker 1: Bob Ross was to kick your ass. Yeah, he this

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Speaker 1: is subordinance used to call him, bust him up, Bobby

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Speaker 1: behind his back due to his penchant for, in their words,

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Speaker 1: ball busting. In a tremendous, truly canonical really article about

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Speaker 1: Bob and The Daily Beast called Sex, Deceit and Scandal

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Speaker 1: The Ugly War over Bob Ross's Ghost, author Alston Ramsey

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Speaker 1: describes Bob in this period as quote a tall, lanky,

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Speaker 1: all American, red blooded military man who drove fast cars,

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Speaker 1: loved fast women, drank Scotch on the rocks, and smoked

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Speaker 1: Salem Greens and Marlborough reds. He was laser focused, detail

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Speaker 1: out oriented, and driven to excel. I'm a I'm a

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Speaker 1: little turned off right now. How dare you weaponized my

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Speaker 1: affection for tough mid century American men to your advantage?

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Speaker 1: This is hitting below the belt, Jordans. I mean his

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Speaker 1: early years are insane. He was deployed the Thailand at

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Speaker 1: the end of the Vietnam War and then was stationed

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Speaker 1: in Washington State and ultimately at the Elson Air Force

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Speaker 1: Base in Fairbanks, Alaska. And it was here in Alaska

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Speaker 1: that he first saw the snow in the mountains that

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Speaker 1: would crop up again and again in his paintings. And

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Speaker 1: being from Florida, this environment was completely foreign to him,

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Speaker 1: and it proved immensely inspirational to his burgeoning interest in painting.

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Speaker 1: So it would have been a little more than a

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Speaker 1: hobby quickly balloon into a full blown obsession, kind of

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Speaker 1: a side hustle. He was a single father, raising his

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Speaker 1: son's Steve, a name familiar to fans of the show.

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Speaker 1: He was a frequent guest and we'll talk more about

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Speaker 1: Steve later, and supplementing his army pay was crucial to

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Speaker 1: how raise his son. So he started drawing greeting cards

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Speaker 1: and giving painting lessons to children and elderly town members,

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Speaker 1: and they also painted Alaskan scenes onto gold pans that

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Speaker 1: tourists bought as souvenirs you know of the gold Rush,

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Speaker 1: for twenty five bucks a pop. Recently, one of these

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Speaker 1: gold pans was listed on eBay with a buy it

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Speaker 1: now price of sixty thousand dollars. So this work and

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Speaker 1: his lessons made him something of a local celebrity. Earning

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Speaker 1: Bob Ross is very first fans. The logical question at

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Speaker 1: this point, you might ask, is how did Bob learn

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Speaker 1: how to paint in the first place, coming from this

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Speaker 1: rough and tumble, bare chested, double Floridians, bare knuckle brock

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Speaker 1: baller kind of guy. I'm so glad you asked. There

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Speaker 1: have been several versions. Bob didn't give many interviews, is

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Speaker 1: the thing, and there are very few primary sources. When

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Speaker 1: it came to his life, I sort of imagined him

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Speaker 1: traveling around with like a switchblades strapped to his leg,

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Speaker 1: telling people like, don't you talk about me anyway. One

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Speaker 1: is that he started taking classes at a USO club

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Speaker 1: but got frustrated by some of the teachers who are

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Speaker 1: all about abstract paintings. Bob would later grumble, they'd tell

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Speaker 1: you what makes a tree, but they wouldn't tell you

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Speaker 1: how to paint a tree. But the most common retailing

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Speaker 1: of the tale involves Bob's time moon lighting is a

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Speaker 1: bartender at a local tavern to make some extra money.

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Speaker 1: The TV in this bar was turned to PBS, which

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Speaker 1: is hilarious. What bar have you ever been to with

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Speaker 1: PBS on it? Boy? It gets better. Not only was

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Speaker 1: it to the PBS, it was tuned to a painting

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Speaker 1: show on PBS in a bar called The Magic of

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Speaker 1: Oil Painting. It was hosted by a jovial German named

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Speaker 1: Bill Alexander, who would create a landscape painting from scratch

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Speaker 1: over the course of a half hour, leading viewers at

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Speaker 1: home through the process with encouragement and uplifting homilies. As

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Speaker 1: he spoke of happy trees and almighty brush is sound familiar.

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Speaker 1: The Magic of Oil Painting is basically uh to use

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Speaker 1: a similarly from an earlier episode of t M I

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Speaker 1: The Hydros to Bob Ross's oreo, and the feud would

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Speaker 1: become just as vicious. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

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Speaker 1: The Magic of Oil Painting was a hugely popular show

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Speaker 1: when it aired on PBS between nineteen seventy two and two.

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Speaker 1: The host, the aforementioned Bill Alexander made guest appearances on

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Speaker 1: The Tonight Show, won a local Emmy, and even had

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Speaker 1: show syndicated in Canada and Mexico, and he had his

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Speaker 1: own line of paint supplies and books. Much of the

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Speaker 1: show's popularity was down to the personality of Bill Alexander, who,

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Speaker 1: despite his nickname as the Happy Painter, had a tough upbringing.

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Speaker 1: Raised in Germany, he was drafted to fight in World

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Speaker 1: War Two and captured by the Americans, who were so

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Speaker 1: tickled with his painting talent that he was given preferential

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Speaker 1: treatment and ultimately released. He painted his way to freedom AH,

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Speaker 1: but his parents AH, and from freedom to the crushing

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Speaker 1: lows of defeat. His parents had been killed by the Nazis,

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Speaker 1: so he emigrated to the US and tried to make

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Speaker 1: a living painting landscapes at an l a mall. Oh.

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Speaker 1: This took a really dark turn, and in a classic

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Speaker 1: Hollywood turn, he was discovered by producers at a local

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Speaker 1: PBS station given his show, where he charmed audiences with

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Speaker 1: his Happy Painter persona, delivering optimistic New a g adjacent

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Speaker 1: slogans like open up your heart and let the sun in.

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Speaker 1: His motto was you can't have the Light without the Dark,

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Speaker 1: which a good tagline for his life. This sounds like

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Speaker 1: the old like Germans who say nice things sketch with

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Speaker 1: Steve Correll. Have you ever seen that? No, I have

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Speaker 1: no idea what you're talking about. It was from the

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Speaker 1: Dana Carvey Variety show that he had for like a

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Speaker 1: couple of months, and they had Steve Correll and Colbert

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Speaker 1: and all the Luis y k and it would just

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Speaker 1: be like these German guys up there just screaming like

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Speaker 1: it was a can't I used to be able to

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Speaker 1: do a really good German voice and cannymore it was

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Speaker 1: a pleasure babysitting Kevin. It's worth watching. There's a thread

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Speaker 1: that always goes viral when it's ever like Tory musicians

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Speaker 1: start talking about hitting Germany, about how Germans are like

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Speaker 1: brutally direct with them about uh feedback to the point

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Speaker 1: that sounds like aggressively rude, like it was an excellent

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Speaker 1: show tonight. But I have seen Vilco twenty seven times,

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Speaker 1: and if you want me to see you twenty seven times,

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Speaker 1: you will have to be better. It just brutally direct people.

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Speaker 1: Any any musician who's toured in Germany asked them for

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Speaker 1: their stories of German feedback that they've gotten. Part of

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Speaker 1: Bill Alexander's popularity was down to the lightning speed that

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Speaker 1: he painted. This was due to his technique, which, to

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Speaker 1: get a little freshman art history on you, was known

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Speaker 1: as wet on wet to, a painting technique that dates

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Speaker 1: back to the fifteenth century, when it was called a

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Speaker 1: la prima, an Italian term meaning first attempt. This involved

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Speaker 1: playing many layers of wet paint to a canvas rather

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Speaker 1: than waiting for it to dry. This not only allows

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Speaker 1: you to paint faster because you don't have to wait

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Speaker 1: for these layers to dry, but it also allows you

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Speaker 1: to blend the wet paint easily create the illusion of trees, clouds, mountains,

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Speaker 1: bodies of water, et cetera. And this was a game

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Speaker 1: changer to Bob Rass. He later said, it almost made

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Speaker 1: me angry the first time I saw Bill Alexander on

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Speaker 1: TV that he could do in a matter of minutes

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Speaker 1: what took me days to do. Bob was so taken

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Speaker 1: with this that he went right to the source and

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Speaker 1: sought out Bill himself, and Bill happily taught him, which

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Speaker 1: is something they would later come back to bite Bill

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Speaker 1: Alexander in the ass. But at the same time, Bill

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Speaker 1: was impressed with Bob Ross's talent and they hit it off,

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Speaker 1: and Bill offered him a job at his company. See

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Speaker 1: Bill was planning on retiring, possibly to Argentina. Steady, steady.

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Speaker 1: He wanted to have an army of certified I wanted

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Speaker 1: to have an army. Don't mention the war. I mentioned

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Speaker 1: it once, but I think I got away with it.

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Speaker 1: We wanted to have, let's say, um a youth brigade

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Speaker 1: of certified instructors who would travel across the country uh

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Speaker 1: teach his patented Volks paintings techniques and by his brand

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Speaker 1: and paint supplies. I this poor man was not a Nazi.

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Speaker 1: Please forgive me. Bill was planning on retightning. He wanted

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Speaker 1: to have an army of certified instructors travel across the

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Speaker 1: country to teach his patented wet on wet painting techniques

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Speaker 1: and buy his brand of paint supplies. And he wanted

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Speaker 1: Bob to be one of his master apprentices. But by

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Speaker 1: this point Bob was making more money from selling paintings

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Speaker 1: and giving lessons than he was in the army. So

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Speaker 1: in one at the age of forty. He retired from

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Speaker 1: the Air Force after two decades and vowed never to

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Speaker 1: raise his voice again and devote his life to painting

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Speaker 1: that is that hurts in the best way. He basically

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Speaker 1: became like a wondering martial arts monk. Yeah, yeah, he

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00:18:07,760 --> 00:18:11,399
Speaker 1: just traveled, traveled teaching his panning technique. He moved to

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Speaker 1: back to his native Florida and became a traveling art

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Speaker 1: instructor on the road for eight months a year in

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Speaker 1: a motor home, setting up ad hoc classrooms in hotel

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Speaker 1: function rooms, church halls, or small art shops across the country.

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Speaker 1: But as with so many things, the Central Intelligence Agency

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Speaker 1: inserts itself into our narrative. It was at one of

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Speaker 1: these workshops during his travels in two that Bob Ross

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Speaker 1: meant a middle aged couple who would change the trajective

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Speaker 1: of his life. The Kowalski's a net and Walt Annette

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Speaker 1: and Walt Kowowski. Great to meet you, Bob. They're related

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Speaker 1: to the cigar chomping executive. They lived outside of Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C. Where Walt worked for the CIA, and uh,

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Speaker 1: if you got close to Walt, he'd sometimes vendori or

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Speaker 1: with stories about his days eating monkey brains with the

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Speaker 1: Viet Cong or strolling the Kremlin. But the Kowalskis were

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Speaker 1: still a family in mourning. Their twenty four year old

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Speaker 1: son had been killed in a car accident on the

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Speaker 1: Beltway the year before, and Annette was, by her own description,

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Speaker 1: merely catatonic with grief. She would later say, all I

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Speaker 1: could do is lay on the couch and watch television.

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Speaker 1: One of the few things that gave her joy during

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Speaker 1: this time was watching The Magic of Oil Painting show

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Speaker 1: on PBS, where Bill Alexander told her about the happy

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Speaker 1: little trees in his happy little world where everything was

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Speaker 1: beautiful and nothing hurt. Annette reached out to take lessons

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Speaker 1: with Bill, but he said that he retired, and instead

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Speaker 1: he recommended his apprentice, Bob Ross, who was giving a

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Speaker 1: lesson in Clearwater, Florida. There's a multiverse somewhere where Bob

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Speaker 1: Ross teams up with Jimmy Buffett, you know about right. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Walt was so desperate to cheer up his wife that

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Speaker 1: he drove her the thousand mile to Florida to take

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Speaker 1: this class. It was a five day instructional course, and

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Speaker 1: by the end a Net felt rejuvenated by Bob Ross

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Speaker 1: his optimism, his serenity, his encouragement, his exuberance. How there

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Speaker 1: were no mistakes in Bob's world, just happy accidents. Annett

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Speaker 1: Kowalski later said, I saw and felt magic happening. I

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Speaker 1: was so mesmerized by him. I didn't paint. I just

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Speaker 1: followed him around the room all day, listening to the

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Speaker 1: way he talks to people. And at the end of

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Speaker 1: my five day class with him, I said, Bob, I

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Speaker 1: don't know what you've got, but I think we should

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Speaker 1: bottle it and sell it. She wanted everyone to experience

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Speaker 1: the joy of paintings. So the Kowalski's approached Bob about

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Speaker 1: splitting off from his mentor Bill Alexander and going into

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Speaker 1: business for themselves. And this couple definitely knew a good

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Speaker 1: thing when they saw it. Walter just retired from the

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Speaker 1: c I A and was looking for something else to do,

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Speaker 1: so they found that Bob raw incorporated, with the Kowalski's

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Speaker 1: acting as the business minds. They mortgaged their house and

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Speaker 1: sunk their life savings into the venture, and there were

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Speaker 1: some rumors in later years, nasty rumors. I should say

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Speaker 1: that what Kowalski used the CIA connections to get sweeter

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Speaker 1: deals and contracts um unsubstantiated rumor lest if that's the

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Speaker 1: most sordid thing the CIA is tagged with. I think

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Speaker 1: we let him have. We're going to take a quick break,

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Speaker 1: but we'll be right back with more too much information

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Speaker 1: in just a moment. So Barbara struck out alone, hitting

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Speaker 1: the road in his motor home, spreading the joy of

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Speaker 1: painting like a soft spoken, artistic Johnny apple Seed, or,

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Speaker 1: to put in a less generous way, as he later said,

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Speaker 1: we were like drug dealers. We come into town and

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Speaker 1: get everybody absolutely addicted to painting. It doesn't take to

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Speaker 1: get you. It did. He would say that a lot

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Speaker 1: on his show, and he said it in interviews. Um.

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Speaker 1: But money was tight and in the first year the

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Speaker 1: business lost twenty grand, so Bob had to cut some corners.

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Speaker 1: Thank god that was c I, a heroin trafficking could

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Speaker 1: afford to take a hit. But Bob had to cut

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Speaker 1: some corners, and one of them resulted in his signature look.

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Speaker 1: According to the Bob Ross myth, he decided to save

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Speaker 1: money on regular haircuts by getting his hair permed, and

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00:22:32,040 --> 00:22:35,359
Speaker 1: this was vaguely fashionable in the early eighties. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: it meant that he didn't have to go every few

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Speaker 1: weeks a get his regular military you know, high and tight.

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Speaker 1: This look was certainly a choice. Apparently his old Air

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Speaker 1: Force friends couldn't recognize him on the joy of painting,

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Speaker 1: and we're only convinced that it was actually him when

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Speaker 1: they saw the missing tip of his finger. Otherwise he

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00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:54,960
Speaker 1: was totally unrecognizable from the guy that knew in the

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Speaker 1: armed forces. Uh. Sadly, this is this bumst me out.

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Speaker 1: Bob apparently grew to hate the look, but by the

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Speaker 1: time he was making enough to afford regular haircuts again,

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00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:08,199
Speaker 1: it had become his trademark, both literally and metaphorically. And

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Speaker 1: that Kowski later said, when we got a line of

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Speaker 1: paints and brushes, we put his picture on them. The

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00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:16,040
Speaker 1: logo is a picture of Bob with that hair, so

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Speaker 1: we could never cut it. And he wasn't always happy

404
00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:21,440
Speaker 1: about that. And later towards the end of his life,

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00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:23,679
Speaker 1: when he was being treated for lymphoma, he wore a

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00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:27,120
Speaker 1: curly wig to keep up appearances because it was so

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00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:31,120
Speaker 1: identified with him. It's like jack Nance keeping the eraserhead

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Speaker 1: five years. Yes, and this brings us to a section

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Speaker 1: that I like to call happy Little betrayals Bob Ross's

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00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:44,480
Speaker 1: mentor the Happy German painter Bill Alexander was originally pretty

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Speaker 1: chill when Bob struck out on his own. He even

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Speaker 1: filmed the commercial for Bob where he handed over his

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Speaker 1: paint brush in the ceremonial passing of the torch moment, saying,

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Speaker 1: I hand over the almighty brush. Who's almighty man, that's

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Speaker 1: not that's not, I'll leave. But I could have done

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Speaker 1: better on that. Uh. And having watched episodes of both

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Speaker 1: the Magic of Oil Painting and the Joy of Painting,

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00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 1: it's pretty obvious that Bob borrowed a lot of his

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00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:16,840
Speaker 1: phrases and uber positive mannerisms, you know, the happy little

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Speaker 1: trees and all that. He billed himself as the Happy Alaskan,

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00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:24,879
Speaker 1: a play on Bill's nickname the Happy Painter, and Bob

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00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:28,400
Speaker 1: freely admitted that he copped Bill Alexander's painting technique, even

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00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:32,359
Speaker 1: dedicated an early episode of the Joy of Painting to Bill, explaining, quote,

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00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 1: years ago, Bill taught me this fantastic wet on wet technique,

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Speaker 1: and I feel as though he gave me a precious gift,

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Speaker 1: and I'd like to share that gift with you. But

427
00:24:41,280 --> 00:24:46,120
Speaker 1: then as Bob's popularity grew, his relationship with Bill Alexander,

428
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:49,679
Speaker 1: his old mentor became increasingly strange. You can kind of

429
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 1: see this comment. It started when the Kowalskis and Bob

430
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:56,680
Speaker 1: Ross Incorporated released their own product line of paints, brushes,

431
00:24:56,680 --> 00:25:00,640
Speaker 1: and palette knives that were essentially copies of Bill Alexander's

432
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:04,840
Speaker 1: products with just minor differences. And you know, Bill's products

433
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:07,199
Speaker 1: are a result of years of trial and error and

434
00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:10,399
Speaker 1: seeing the stuff that worked best. He didn't take kindly

435
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:13,560
Speaker 1: to somebody, just you know, cribbing his style, and there

436
00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:16,160
Speaker 1: were some hard feelings. I want to quote the Daily

437
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:21,119
Speaker 1: Beast piece on this because it's pretty harrowing. A close

438
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:24,920
Speaker 1: artist friend of Bill Alexander's recalled the exact moment when

439
00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:28,920
Speaker 1: Bill found out that Bob struck out on his own. Bill,

440
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 1: a man of seventy long years who had survived Hell

441
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:35,639
Speaker 1: on Earth onto the Nazis, remember and vowed to be

442
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:39,919
Speaker 1: thankful for every day thereafter, a man whose happiness buoyed

443
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:44,240
Speaker 1: all around him. That same Bill Alexander broke down and cried.

444
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 1: It was horrible, it was heartbreaking, his friend explained to

445
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 1: the Daily beast. It was like he lost a son.

446
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:53,639
Speaker 1: It broke his heart and he never spoke to Bob again.

447
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 1: And when The New York Times profiled Bob Ross, they

448
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:00,880
Speaker 1: made the mistake of contacting Bill Alexander, under who said,

449
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:06,080
Speaker 1: under no uncertain terms, he betrayed me. I invented, I invented.

450
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:08,800
Speaker 1: I know I'm doing Doctor Strangelove. He betrayed me. I

451
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:13,040
Speaker 1: invented wet vet on vett. I trained him, and he

452
00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 1: sinks he can do it's better. Thank the offensive, that's

453
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 1: good art. His storians have pointed out that the wet

454
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:22,600
Speaker 1: on wet technique have been used for centuries by everyone

455
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:26,159
Speaker 1: from Paul Sayson and John Singer Sergeant to Claude Monet,

456
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 1: among many many others. But Bill Alexander's point was obvious.

457
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 1: In the same Times piece, this is brutal, Bob refuses

458
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 1: to name his longtime mentor, saying quote, now he is

459
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 1: our major competitor, and that, my friends, is the cutthroat

460
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 1: world of hobby painting in the eighties for you brutal

461
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 1: wow under happier pastors failure, joy failure. Uh. They are

462
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:55,399
Speaker 1: conflicting stories about how Bob Ross first came to the

463
00:26:55,440 --> 00:27:00,919
Speaker 1: attention of PBS. None are especially interesting, which is a

464
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:04,879
Speaker 1: rarity for this show in that we have deemed to

465
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:09,639
Speaker 1: skip something. Yeah, but we're doing that here. It's the

466
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:12,400
Speaker 1: first t M I one. We're skipping some minut show.

467
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 1: The first series of The Joy Painting was taped at

468
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:18,640
Speaker 1: a public television studio in northern Virginia, near to where

469
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 1: the Kowalski has lived, because they were CIA spooks. That

470
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 1: is not a racial term, by the ways, this means

471
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:31,159
Speaker 1: CIA operatives who have no identities. Anyway, this only aired

472
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 1: along the Eastern Seaboard and consequently had a small audience,

473
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 1: which is perhaps for the best because Bob was still

474
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:39,720
Speaker 1: working out some of the kings. He was perfecting both

475
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:42,840
Speaker 1: the format of the show and also his persona. It

476
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 1: was sort of a bust, and Bob abandoned it and

477
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:49,960
Speaker 1: went back to his traveling art tutorial gig. But when

478
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:54,080
Speaker 1: production switched to w I p B a PBS station

479
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:58,159
Speaker 1: in Muncy, Indiana. That's like a Simpsons punchline, why do

480
00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:01,520
Speaker 1: I recognize Muncy, Indiana? Field and the Friends would use

481
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 1: that an Abu Dhabi where the two Okay, that was

482
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 1: where things started to gel. Bob initially approached them purely

483
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 1: because he was doing a class and months and wanted

484
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:15,440
Speaker 1: to put an ad on the station, And as luck

485
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 1: would have it, w I p B was one of

486
00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:20,680
Speaker 1: the ten PBS stations in the country permitted to run

487
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:23,919
Speaker 1: paid ad spots at the time because they were in

488
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 1: such dire straits financially. That's both an argument for kiss

489
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 1: met and perhaps the grant the arc of the universe

490
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:36,879
Speaker 1: bends towards Bob Ross, but also a reminder to support

491
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 1: your local PBS station focus. So Bob makes the ad,

492
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 1: The turnout for the class is good, the station was

493
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 1: impressed with him, and he decided to give the joy

494
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: of painting another go on w I PB Monc, Indiana.

495
00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 1: They would produce the show until it ended just before

496
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:58,560
Speaker 1: Bob's death. That is thirty seasons of thirteen episodes a piece.

497
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 1: So how's that work? Well, every three months, Bob would

498
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 1: drive his motor home from his home in Florida to

499
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 1: Indiana to film. Did you pull that up on Google Maps?

500
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 1: What is that? Fifteen hours from Florida to Muncy. God

501
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:19,160
Speaker 1: love him. Ah. He would bang out an entire season

502
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:23,440
Speaker 1: of thirteen episodes in just two or three days. Thirteen

503
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 1: episodes in two or three days. Since the episodes were

504
00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:31,600
Speaker 1: largely unedited, he could tape one episode every twenty six

505
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 1: minutes approximately. The W I p B studio is in

506
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 1: the living room of a converted Victorian home, which is

507
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 1: pretty hilarious given the shoe string of this ultra low

508
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 1: budget shot with two cameras, a medium shot of Ross

509
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 1: and his canvas, and a close up shot of the

510
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: canvas or palette. The set was deliberately spartan, so it's

511
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:57,720
Speaker 1: not too distract from the painting. Bob wore his standard

512
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:00,960
Speaker 1: now canonical outfit of Jeane in a button down shirt

513
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:03,960
Speaker 1: every episode because he thought it was a timeless look

514
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 1: and he didn't want anything that would date the episodes

515
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 1: and hurt the chances of the show being run in syndication.

516
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:14,880
Speaker 1: I'm starting to gather that every single design choice that

517
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:17,960
Speaker 1: he made for the show made it look dated almost instantly,

518
00:30:18,040 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 1: which I guess is part of the charm. It's timeless

519
00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:25,440
Speaker 1: in that it never really was of its time. Yeah, exactly,

520
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:29,800
Speaker 1: it exists outside of time. Despite the freewheeling, laid back

521
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 1: vibe of the show, Bob actually planned a lot of

522
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:36,600
Speaker 1: this quite meticulously. The painting he did every episode was

523
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 1: not off the top of his head. He actually painted

524
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:43,520
Speaker 1: not one, but three versions of each painting you see

525
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:45,480
Speaker 1: in the show. And this will come back later into

526
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 1: the by the Numbers segment that we do of this,

527
00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 1: So keep this fact in mind. Three versions of each painting.

528
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 1: He did the first version beforehand, just to work out

529
00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 1: what he wanted to do. Then he painted the one

530
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 1: you see on the camera, using the previous version as

531
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 1: a reference while filming. Then after the show he painted

532
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: a third, quote perfect version that was painted with a

533
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 1: photographer who snapped every brush stroke for the instructional books

534
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 1: that he published. Now, while there were some differences between

535
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 1: these three versions, they were usually pretty minor. According to

536
00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 1: his business partner, Annett Kolowski, even his ad libs were

537
00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: well rehearsed. She later said, he told me he would

538
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:26,640
Speaker 1: lay in bed at night and plan every word. He

539
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 1: knew exactly what he was doing. Talking to the Washington

540
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 1: Business Journal in two thousand nine, she elaborated, every single

541
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:37,360
Speaker 1: thing Bob said or did on every program was deliberate.

542
00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 1: There was not one word that came out of his

543
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:42,720
Speaker 1: mouth that he hadn't thought about beforehand. He was a

544
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:46,720
Speaker 1: little ahead of his time, he sensed a growing evangelical

545
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:50,240
Speaker 1: mood in the country, so he started saying God bless

546
00:31:50,360 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 1: my friend at the end of every show. He had

547
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 1: a real sense for these things. That's horrifying. And that's

548
00:31:57,280 --> 00:32:01,040
Speaker 1: not a quote, that's me interjecting. And of course we

549
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 1: can't forget Bob's love for God's little things, his little

550
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 1: critters that he loved to bring out on days when

551
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 1: he had paintings that were less time consuming. There's Peepo

552
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:13,600
Speaker 1: the squirrel people would hang out in his pocket, but

553
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:17,360
Speaker 1: there was also people Jr. And Bob Et and most

554
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:21,360
Speaker 1: germane to my interest as an amateur corvidologist. He kept

555
00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 1: a crow. Do you know the name of the crow?

556
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:28,320
Speaker 1: Jim Crocey. I don't know Jim croce damn it beat

557
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 1: me to it. That was not the actual name of

558
00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 1: the crow. That's just a little inside joke between me

559
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:37,240
Speaker 1: and Jordan's. You folks getting none of that. The joy

560
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 1: of success, Thanks in part to these adorable creatures, but

561
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 1: also the nuclear grade charm of Ross himself, the show

562
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 1: was a massive success. Within a few short years, it

563
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: was carried by nine of PBS network to the tune

564
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:59,280
Speaker 1: of four hundred and fifty stations across the country, bringing

565
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:01,960
Speaker 1: the joy of pain ainting into ninety three and a

566
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: half million homes. Take a second, you insects to internalize

567
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:14,600
Speaker 1: that nine three and a half million homes. The show

568
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:18,640
Speaker 1: is also broadcast in Mexico, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan,

569
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 1: Hong Kong, Turkey, the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria,

570
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:29,719
Speaker 1: Costa Rica, Canada, and Japan, where it aired twice a

571
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:35,360
Speaker 1: day on the network and HK twice a day. Bob

572
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 1: Ross was on the air in Japan, Japan was second

573
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 1: to the US in terms of audience numbers. When he

574
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 1: visited Japan, Bob attracted Beatlemania level mobs. The station manager

575
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: at w I p B tells the story of the

576
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 1: Japanese television executives watching a version that had been dubbed

577
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 1: in Japanese with Bob's voice wiped out. They flipped out

578
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:00,040
Speaker 1: and demanded that Bob's voice be added back in it.

579
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 1: Even though audiences would have no idea what he was saying,

580
00:34:05,040 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: the tones and timbre of his voice transcended the language.

581
00:34:10,560 --> 00:34:12,719
Speaker 1: I love that, I love that It's true. I mean,

582
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:20,000
Speaker 1: I'm sure they had captions on our subtitles, but it dubbed.

583
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:23,839
Speaker 1: This gets to the larger question of why this show

584
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 1: was such a global success. Bob's voice is clearly a

585
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:30,719
Speaker 1: major factor. Our critic, Mirror Shore compared his voice to

586
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:34,840
Speaker 1: Fred Rogers, noting similarities between Bob's soft voice and the

587
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:37,440
Speaker 1: slow pace of his speech. And there are also some

588
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:40,320
Speaker 1: who praised the virtues of his wet on wet technique,

589
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 1: which is a fast and quick to learn method that

590
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 1: allows beginners to paint trees, water, clouds, and mountains a

591
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:49,200
Speaker 1: matter of seconds with a huge two inch brush and

592
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:52,360
Speaker 1: painting knives. And Bob later said, I really believe that

593
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:54,760
Speaker 1: if you practice enough, you could paint the Mona Lisa

594
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:58,160
Speaker 1: with a two inch brush. It took Da Vinci four

595
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:00,319
Speaker 1: years to paint the Mona Lisa, but I guess with

596
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:03,800
Speaker 1: Bob Ross's wet on wet method, twenty six minutes should

597
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 1: do it should get you there. Uh. The wet on

598
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:09,920
Speaker 1: wet technique didn't require a large investment in expensive tools,

599
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 1: and Bob would brag that within one hour of touching

600
00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 1: the brush to canvas for the first time, his students

601
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:17,680
Speaker 1: would have a finished painting. And you know that's nothing

602
00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:20,759
Speaker 1: to sneeze at. The New York Times piece from one

603
00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:23,319
Speaker 1: that we've been quoting from with the awesome headline, The

604
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:27,440
Speaker 1: Frugal Gourmet of Painting says that quote as a cultural phenomenon,

605
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:31,360
Speaker 1: Mr Ross can be ranked with the overnight mail delivery service,

606
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:35,719
Speaker 1: liquid diet, weight loss programs, twenty four hour wedding chapels,

607
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:41,719
Speaker 1: television evangelicalism, and microwave ovens. He provides instant gratification to

608
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:46,279
Speaker 1: his followers, satisfaction guaranteed. But let me touched some necess

609
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:48,480
Speaker 1: earlier in the episode. Let's be real here. Have you

610
00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:51,240
Speaker 1: ever actually watched The Joy of Painting to actually paint?

611
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:55,239
Speaker 1: Absolutely not? I know you've not. I've not, I don't

612
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:58,200
Speaker 1: know anyone who has. It was once estimated by the

613
00:35:58,200 --> 00:36:01,400
Speaker 1: production team who makes a show that only between three

614
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:05,120
Speaker 1: and ten percent of viewers were actually painting along ten

615
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 1: sounds high. I'd go with three. In Bob's own words,

616
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:12,160
Speaker 1: the majority of our audience doesn't paint, has no desire

617
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 1: to paint, will never paint. They watch it strictly for

618
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:18,959
Speaker 1: entertainment value or for relaxation. We've gotten letters from people

619
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 1: who say they sleep better when the show is on.

620
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:23,719
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me. I wonder how he felt about that.

621
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:28,000
Speaker 1: Oh man, I guess a noble soothing people to sleep

622
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:32,799
Speaker 1: is noble undertaking. Oh, I agree, and Bob Ross is

623
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:35,400
Speaker 1: likely the way that a certain segment of the population

624
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:38,239
Speaker 1: over the age of thirty, including me, discovered that they

625
00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:41,799
Speaker 1: were susceptible to a s MR. What is a s MR? Join, Yes,

626
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:44,040
Speaker 1: let's talk about that phenomenon for just a moment. For

627
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 1: anyone who doesn't know, it's the pleasurable, almost physical trancelike

628
00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:52,400
Speaker 1: sensation of tingles on the scalp on the back of

629
00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:57,160
Speaker 1: the neck in response to auditory stimuli like whispering, tapping, typing,

630
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:01,160
Speaker 1: usually mundane, ordinary everyday task. Isn't the thing like people

631
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:05,400
Speaker 1: do like yeah, yeah, with like the b by orioles

632
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:09,839
Speaker 1: that the world those microinoral yeah, microphones usually like it's

633
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 1: like stereo panting. Like you you basically have two microphones

634
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:18,080
Speaker 1: that you're sort of tapping and panning the signals between.

635
00:37:18,120 --> 00:37:20,000
Speaker 1: It can be something as similar as like, I mean,

636
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:22,239
Speaker 1: what I'm doing right now is dragging my fingers on

637
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:25,719
Speaker 1: the mic. But you can tap and people crinkle like

638
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 1: wrappers and stuff and pan those signals to either side

639
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,800
Speaker 1: of a stereo channel and that and you wear headphones.

640
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:34,600
Speaker 1: People who want to experience that you listened to through headphones,

641
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:40,399
Speaker 1: and it gratifies people. Let's yeah, yeah, there's sometimes there's

642
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:43,120
Speaker 1: Yeah it's a little sexual. Let's let's get that out

643
00:37:43,120 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 1: of the way. Yeah, thank you. Yeah I was. I

644
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:49,239
Speaker 1: wrote that and then I didn't say I want did

645
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:51,919
Speaker 1: it come back? I appreciate that, but yeah, the joy

646
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 1: of painting hits the SMR trifecta due to both the

647
00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:59,200
Speaker 1: natural tambrea Bob's voice plus this mellow cadence and the

648
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:02,440
Speaker 1: simple repetit to actions he does with his brushes. And

649
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:06,759
Speaker 1: the term SMR stands for autonomous sensory meridian response and

650
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:08,920
Speaker 1: that's a non clinical term that was coined in two

651
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 1: thousand and ten by a woman named Jennifer Allen, who

652
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 1: started the s MR Research Support Facebook group. And it's

653
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:19,480
Speaker 1: so named because very little is known about this phenomenon.

654
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:24,120
Speaker 1: The sensation literally didn't have a name before. I think

655
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 1: many people felt like it was something that was unique

656
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 1: just to them, and they're kind of seemed to be

657
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 1: an element of shame surrounding it, at least until it

658
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:34,280
Speaker 1: was brought into the open in two thousand and seven

659
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:38,839
Speaker 1: when a woman with the user name okay whatever three

660
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:43,719
Speaker 1: eight described her experience of SMR sensations in an online

661
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:47,960
Speaker 1: health discussion forum steady health dot com. And that kind

662
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 1: of was like open the floodgates for everyone saying, oh

663
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:52,840
Speaker 1: my god, I feel that way too. I thought that

664
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 1: was just this weird thing of mine. It was this

665
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:58,280
Speaker 1: incredible period of everybody comparing notes and a huge section

666
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:01,879
Speaker 1: of population, but not every everybody notably realized they all

667
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:04,920
Speaker 1: felt the same way as a response to these triggers,

668
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:08,360
Speaker 1: and ever since, a cottage industry of YouTubers have racked

669
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 1: up millions of page views with videos of them, I

670
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:15,920
Speaker 1: don't know, folding napkins, brushing hair, turning pages and magazines.

671
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:23,360
Speaker 1: There's something wonderfully poetic about like people deriving clause I sensual,

672
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:33,360
Speaker 1: let's sensual experiences from just the most mundange, you know. Yeah, Like, honestly,

673
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:35,279
Speaker 1: what more do you want out of life than to

674
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 1: be able to be to get a borderline transcendent experience

675
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:45,040
Speaker 1: from somebody turning magazine pages? That's beautiful to me. Like

676
00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 1: that's like, that's like Buddhism, man to be like to

677
00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:52,759
Speaker 1: be like fulfilled by like the very banalities of everyday

678
00:39:52,800 --> 00:39:56,040
Speaker 1: life in like a way that lights up all your synapses,

679
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:59,000
Speaker 1: and I think that it's hypnotic. It is. I mean

680
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:02,560
Speaker 1: it's something I'm very susceptible to. And yeah, that's exactly

681
00:40:02,560 --> 00:40:05,400
Speaker 1: what it is. It's something calming because it just is

682
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:09,879
Speaker 1: in the rhythm of living. I mean, I love watching

683
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 1: people cook, for example, or with their hands. Yeah, I'm

684
00:40:15,440 --> 00:40:17,520
Speaker 1: not into like the click clack stuff or any of

685
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:21,160
Speaker 1: the scratching or or crinkling. It's more watching people do

686
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:26,040
Speaker 1: things and there's just something beautiful about why with their hands,

687
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 1: That's really what it is. Including card tricks and coin

688
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:33,240
Speaker 1: tricks and things. It's all about just like watching somebody's

689
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:35,719
Speaker 1: skillfully do something, which is I think why the Bob

690
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 1: Rass Show is such a big one for me. But

691
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:41,759
Speaker 1: there are many questions about a SMR, arranging from why

692
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:44,640
Speaker 1: only certain people experience it and what percentage of the

693
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 1: population they make up, and what are those who have

694
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 1: never experienced it ever can if there's some trigger that

695
00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:54,680
Speaker 1: would actually get them to experience it. Uh considering that

696
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 1: most view it as at best the pseudoscience, there's been

697
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:01,200
Speaker 1: very little research done on a SMR. Stephen Novella who's

698
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 1: a clinical neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine, suggested

699
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:09,800
Speaker 1: a potential scientific basis for the experience in a post

700
00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 1: on the Neurological blog. I want to quote some of

701
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:15,880
Speaker 1: it now. Perhaps a SMR is a type of seizure.

702
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:19,480
Speaker 1: Seizures can sometimes be pleasurable and can be triggered by

703
00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:22,319
Speaker 1: these sorts of things, or a SMR could just be

704
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:25,960
Speaker 1: a way of activating the pleasure response. Vertebrate brains are

705
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 1: fundamentally hardwired for pleasure and pain for positive and negative

706
00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:34,000
Speaker 1: behavioral feedback. We're rewarded with a pleasurable sensation for doing

707
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:37,880
Speaker 1: things and experiencing things that increase or survival probability and

708
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:40,920
Speaker 1: have a negative or painful experience to make us avoid

709
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 1: harmful behavior or warn us about the potential of danger

710
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 1: or injury. Over evolutionary time, a complex set of reward

711
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:52,040
Speaker 1: and aversion feedbacks have developed. Add to this the notion

712
00:41:52,080 --> 00:41:54,720
Speaker 1: of neurodiversity, the fact that all of our human brains

713
00:41:54,719 --> 00:41:57,239
Speaker 1: are not clones or copycats, but vary in every way

714
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:00,719
Speaker 1: possible they can. We have a range of likes and dislikes,

715
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 1: and there are individuals and even subcultures that seem to

716
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:07,240
Speaker 1: have a different pattern of pleasure stimulization than what's typical.

717
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:10,959
Speaker 1: Perhaps in some cases this is largely cultural, not neurotypical.

718
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:14,240
Speaker 1: S and m comes to mind. If reports are accurate,

719
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:17,759
Speaker 1: there are some people who experience pain as pleasure and erotic.

720
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:22,280
Speaker 1: That's all very interesting to me. The first peer reviewed

721
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:26,279
Speaker 1: research study into a SMR was published in by two

722
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:29,800
Speaker 1: psych researchers at Swansea University in Wales, and it was

723
00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 1: pretty base level, basically suggested that a SMR can improve

724
00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:37,040
Speaker 1: mood and even pain symptoms through various common triggers including whispering,

725
00:42:37,320 --> 00:42:42,480
Speaker 1: personal attention, crisp sounds, and slow movements. And other sciencests

726
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:45,600
Speaker 1: have looked directly at brain scans via FMR eyes and

727
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:48,920
Speaker 1: these suggest that there's a blending of neural networks, a

728
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:53,960
Speaker 1: sort of audio tactile synaesthesia, which most people associate synaesthesia

729
00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:57,840
Speaker 1: with just being able to see colors of music, for example.

730
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:01,239
Speaker 1: The blending of different senses could also be something a

731
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:03,600
Speaker 1: little more simple. It could be an evolutionary thing because

732
00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:06,720
Speaker 1: it reminds us of being children and our parents talking

733
00:43:06,760 --> 00:43:11,480
Speaker 1: to us in these very soothing tones. So yeah, a

734
00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:14,920
Speaker 1: lot of unknowns, but whatever, it is, Bob Ross has it.

735
00:43:15,200 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 1: He has the SMR magic hashtag. Whatever it is, Bob

736
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:23,160
Speaker 1: has it. Getting back to Bob, given the wild success

737
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:25,839
Speaker 1: of his PBS show, guess how much money he made

738
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:31,360
Speaker 1: off of these four hundred and three episodes. Uh, prices right, rules,

739
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:34,120
Speaker 1: closes without going over? Well, I would always go over

740
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:39,319
Speaker 1: because he made zip zero not a bump kiss could put.

741
00:43:39,680 --> 00:43:42,000
Speaker 1: Bob Ross was not paid to appear on his show.

742
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:46,240
Speaker 1: This is a common misconception, he told The Orlando Sentinel

743
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:50,040
Speaker 1: in people see you on television and think you make

744
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:52,719
Speaker 1: the same amount of money that Clint Eastwood does, which

745
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:55,920
Speaker 1: I don't know do they, Bob? But this is PBS.

746
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 1: All these shows are done for free. This is the

747
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:01,600
Speaker 1: common structure of the shows. At the time, PBS Public

748
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:05,600
Speaker 1: Access Television served as advertising for whatever else this person

749
00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:08,759
Speaker 1: had in their life, namely, in Bob's sake, his art

750
00:44:08,840 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 1: lessons and the product line so he could bang out

751
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:14,880
Speaker 1: an entire thirteen episode season of The Joy of Painting

752
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:17,719
Speaker 1: in just over two days, which freed him to get

753
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:20,760
Speaker 1: back to his private lessons, which is where he made money,

754
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:23,560
Speaker 1: and his company at this point also produces how two

755
00:44:23,560 --> 00:44:27,719
Speaker 1: books over a hundred branded tapes and art materials, and

756
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:32,959
Speaker 1: at one point several hundred certified Bob Ross method instructors

757
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:36,840
Speaker 1: fanned out across the globe, all of which, presumably he

758
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:42,200
Speaker 1: got a decent percentage of um. Bob Ross Incorporated ultimately

759
00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:48,160
Speaker 1: blossomed into a multimillion dollar venture. And uh, you know,

760
00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:50,960
Speaker 1: when Bob wasn't busy doing the lord's work, tending to

761
00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:55,200
Speaker 1: injured creditters in his empty jacuzzi, he was cruising the

762
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:59,440
Speaker 1: streets of Florida in his nineteen sixty nine Silver corvette

763
00:44:59,480 --> 00:45:03,239
Speaker 1: with its Nity Bob Ross license plate, or who had

764
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:08,440
Speaker 1: this on their bingo card, collecting Victorian era opalescent glass,

765
00:45:11,719 --> 00:45:18,560
Speaker 1: Victorian era opalescent glass, ripping butts in his sixty nine

766
00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:22,400
Speaker 1: corvette with his Bob Ross vanity plate in search of

767
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:28,759
Speaker 1: Bob Ross is railing lines of coke in Miami, like

768
00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:30,880
Speaker 1: I don't care what you gotta do. You get me

769
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 1: that Victorian glass, but get me that follow of Prussian blue.

770
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:40,000
Speaker 1: Get me it. I'm gonna come back here in one

771
00:45:40,080 --> 00:45:42,360
Speaker 1: week and I want you to get me that glass.

772
00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:47,319
Speaker 1: Somehow that turned into the Ray Winston rat Get made

773
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:52,839
Speaker 1: a glass. As you meditate on that, we'll be right

774
00:45:52,880 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 1: back with more too much information after these messages. But

775
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:09,040
Speaker 1: of course, even something as pure and beautiful as Bob

776
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:14,560
Speaker 1: Ross has its haters. For the piece on Ross, The

777
00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 1: New York Times interviewed employees at Pearl Paint Company, store

778
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:22,600
Speaker 1: of modern Renown in downtown New York City, where people

779
00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:26,359
Speaker 1: like Bosciott used to shop. These employees are described as

780
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:29,600
Speaker 1: struggling painters, so it's really no surprise that they resent

781
00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:33,719
Speaker 1: Bob's success. They say that they keep Bob's branded products

782
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 1: in a quote happy little corner in the back so

783
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:40,920
Speaker 1: as not to offend uh. They allow that Bob has

784
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:44,200
Speaker 1: attracted people who wouldn't ordinarily be involved in art. But

785
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:47,400
Speaker 1: his partner at Pearl Paints, this gentleman who's interviewed his

786
00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:51,720
Speaker 1: partner pro paints is not as generous. Quote, it's cabinet making.

787
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 1: He's sniffed. It is formulaic and thoughtless. Art as therapy,

788
00:46:56,840 --> 00:47:00,239
Speaker 1: which go for yourself. Art therapy is a thing was like.

789
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:07,279
Speaker 1: So they described the Bob Ross style as pizzeria arts.

790
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 1: Paintings often hung in pizza part These guys, ah, how

791
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:20,640
Speaker 1: dare you slander not only pizza parlors but Bob Ross.

792
00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:26,279
Speaker 1: Oh a world renowned painter was also approached for this

793
00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:30,640
Speaker 1: New York Times piece Richard poo sat Dart, who said

794
00:47:31,760 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 1: an abstract expressionist, yea father post Dart of the Post

795
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:41,120
Speaker 1: Dark Band. It was a New England favorite. I feel

796
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 1: like my parents used to see see them a lot.

797
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:47,400
Speaker 1: It sounds terrible. Quoted by The Times, is saying, I

798
00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:53,240
Speaker 1: am horrified by art instruction on television. It's terrible, bad, bad, bad.

799
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:58,880
Speaker 1: They are just commercial exploiters, non artists teaching other non artists.

800
00:47:59,520 --> 00:48:02,960
Speaker 1: I don't teach a technique or a method. I nurture

801
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:06,239
Speaker 1: students to find their own. Thank god you didn't make

802
00:48:06,239 --> 00:48:09,080
Speaker 1: me read this beforehand. I would have vomited my own mouth.

803
00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:12,960
Speaker 1: But Bob had his own words for abstract inspressionists. If

804
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 1: I paint something, I don't want to have to explain

805
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 1: what it is. Abstract expressionism was funded by the CIA

806
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:25,520
Speaker 1: as a direct result of the Soviet art concentration on realism,

807
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:29,600
Speaker 1: on paintings of like peasants striving in the fields and

808
00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:33,440
Speaker 1: these large scale renderings of industrial art. Did you know that?

809
00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:35,919
Speaker 1: Where is this? What are you getting this? I've never

810
00:48:35,960 --> 00:48:39,920
Speaker 1: heard this do a quick sidebar. I wasn't prepared to

811
00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:43,080
Speaker 1: do this. Wow, that is fascinating. I had not heard that.

812
00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:44,880
Speaker 1: Get this on stuff that I want you to know.

813
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:50,640
Speaker 1: This is on BBC. This is alright, so quick bullet

814
00:48:50,640 --> 00:48:57,240
Speaker 1: points abstract expressionism. We're talking William Dacooning, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko.

815
00:48:58,040 --> 00:49:00,920
Speaker 1: I'm quoting the BBC here. One of the most remarkable

816
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:03,239
Speaker 1: things about the movement was the speed with which it

817
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 1: rose to international prominence. Although the artists associated with it

818
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:10,239
Speaker 1: took a long time to reach their signature styles, once

819
00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:13,520
Speaker 1: the movement had crystallized by the late forties, it rapidly

820
00:49:13,560 --> 00:49:17,680
Speaker 1: achieved first notoriety and then respect. By the fifties, it

821
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 1: was generally accepted that the most exciting advances in painting

822
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:24,120
Speaker 1: and sculpture were taking place in New York rather than Paris.

823
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:27,320
Speaker 1: A year after Jackson Pollock's death in a car crash,

824
00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:31,640
Speaker 1: the met paid thirty grand for his one of his paintings,

825
00:49:31,680 --> 00:49:35,319
Speaker 1: an unprecedented amount. Now we know for a fact that

826
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:39,239
Speaker 1: the CIA bankrolled certain cultural initiatives as part of its

827
00:49:39,239 --> 00:49:44,239
Speaker 1: war against the Soviet Union. It did so indirectly through

828
00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 1: part of programs such as this organization, Congress for Cultural Freedom,

829
00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 1: which is an anti communist advocacy group active in thirty

830
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:59,120
Speaker 1: five countries, which the CIA helped establish and fund. For example,

831
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:02,600
Speaker 1: it paid for the Austin Symphony Orchestra to travel to

832
00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:06,400
Speaker 1: Paris to participate in a festival of Modern music. Now,

833
00:50:06,440 --> 00:50:12,960
Speaker 1: according to a historian named Francis Stanor Sanders, the CCF

834
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:17,880
Speaker 1: financed several high profile exhibitions of abstract expressionism during the

835
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:23,479
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties which toward Europe. Between nine. An exhibition brought

836
00:50:23,480 --> 00:50:26,719
Speaker 1: to London was funded by an American milliader named Julius Fleshman.

837
00:50:27,760 --> 00:50:31,440
Speaker 1: Fleshman was the president of a body called the Farfield Foundation,

838
00:50:31,520 --> 00:50:35,960
Speaker 1: which was funded by the CIA. So you connect all

839
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:40,640
Speaker 1: these links, you can essentially infer that much of the spread,

840
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:43,240
Speaker 1: if not the school. Like we're not saying the CIA

841
00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 1: gave Jackson Paula could check. What we're saying is that

842
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:50,759
Speaker 1: the dissemination of the school of abstract expressionism that was

843
00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:56,480
Speaker 1: popular in mid century America was pushed by cultural funds

844
00:50:56,520 --> 00:51:00,279
Speaker 1: that the CIA had a hand in. I don't where

845
00:51:00,360 --> 00:51:03,560
Speaker 1: I was going with that. My point is, I mean,

846
00:51:03,640 --> 00:51:07,000
Speaker 1: so your point was, Bob Ross, the military man has

847
00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:10,399
Speaker 1: a reason for hating abstract expressionists. Yeah, but he's also

848
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:12,840
Speaker 1: one degree of separation away from the dam c I A.

849
00:51:13,520 --> 00:51:17,600
Speaker 1: But what we're talking about mystery and the c I

850
00:51:17,800 --> 00:51:21,920
Speaker 1: A and and shadowy figures. Let's get to the shadowy

851
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:24,799
Speaker 1: figure Bob Ross himself, because, as you said the top

852
00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:28,560
Speaker 1: of the episode, not a lot is known about this man. Yeah,

853
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:31,279
Speaker 1: for someone who has had such an impact, it was

854
00:51:31,400 --> 00:51:33,879
Speaker 1: such a public figure for the duration of their life,

855
00:51:33,880 --> 00:51:37,319
Speaker 1: there is surprisingly little out there about the life of

856
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:40,680
Speaker 1: Bob Ross. There's an article on the site Today I

857
00:51:40,760 --> 00:51:44,800
Speaker 1: found Out called the Surprisingly Mysterious Life of Bob Ross

858
00:51:44,960 --> 00:51:49,520
Speaker 1: that delves into this phenomenon. Bob valued his privacy. Some

859
00:51:49,600 --> 00:51:52,240
Speaker 1: of only a few interviews with his close knit circle

860
00:51:52,280 --> 00:51:53,960
Speaker 1: of friends and family can be found in the two

861
00:51:54,000 --> 00:51:58,359
Speaker 1: thousand eleven PBS documentary Bob Ross The Happy Painter, which

862
00:51:58,400 --> 00:52:02,279
Speaker 1: is really the closest thing that exists to an official biography. Yeah,

863
00:52:02,360 --> 00:52:04,319
Speaker 1: it's it's really weird. I watched it the other day.

864
00:52:04,320 --> 00:52:08,719
Speaker 1: It as cameos from Jane Seymour, Brad Paisley, Philled donnihue,

865
00:52:08,760 --> 00:52:12,320
Speaker 1: the TV show Paisley, Yeah, yeah, Phill donni here, the

866
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:16,440
Speaker 1: chat show host and TV network chef Duff Goldman, which

867
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:24,959
Speaker 1: is weird. Duff Goldman. Anyway, other conversations with Bob were

868
00:52:25,040 --> 00:52:28,960
Speaker 1: destroyed as part of a legal sentiment between Ross's family

869
00:52:28,960 --> 00:52:32,160
Speaker 1: and Bob Ross, Inc. Which we'll get into the distinction

870
00:52:32,200 --> 00:52:36,080
Speaker 1: between Bob Ross's family and Bob Ross Inc. Later. Even

871
00:52:36,239 --> 00:52:40,919
Speaker 1: the biographical book Happy Clouds, Happy Trees the Bob Ross

872
00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:46,280
Speaker 1: phenomenon admitted that their text quote is about an understanding

873
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:49,400
Speaker 1: we have Bob in his life. If we had wanted

874
00:52:49,440 --> 00:52:52,680
Speaker 1: to write an accurate biographical book on Bob Ross, that

875
00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:56,000
Speaker 1: goal would have been difficult to accomplish. Bob said he

876
00:52:56,040 --> 00:53:01,480
Speaker 1: never turned down requests for interviews quote, I'm just rarely asked. However,

877
00:53:01,800 --> 00:53:05,000
Speaker 1: in another interview he gave with Egg Magazine, Bob admitted

878
00:53:05,040 --> 00:53:07,799
Speaker 1: that he liked to stay hidden, adding that he was

879
00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:11,760
Speaker 1: quote sort of hard to find. Again. He's a spook,

880
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:15,640
Speaker 1: He's a ghost. He's one of these CIA guys that

881
00:53:15,680 --> 00:53:19,480
Speaker 1: doesn't have any fingerprints. It's possible that he was concerned

882
00:53:19,520 --> 00:53:22,400
Speaker 1: that elements of his personal life, specifically his time in

883
00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:26,000
Speaker 1: the Air Force UH, would have been come to light

884
00:53:26,160 --> 00:53:29,520
Speaker 1: and been bad for his image. Yeah, didn't jibe with

885
00:53:29,600 --> 00:53:32,920
Speaker 1: the brand to quote the Daily Beast piece. From his

886
00:53:33,040 --> 00:53:37,040
Speaker 1: earliest days, Ross had issues with fidelity. Like his father

887
00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:40,600
Speaker 1: before him, he had fathered a child as an unmarried teen,

888
00:53:40,960 --> 00:53:44,239
Speaker 1: and his first marriage had fallen apart over affairs. He

889
00:53:44,280 --> 00:53:48,000
Speaker 1: was also said to have squeezes in various places over

890
00:53:48,040 --> 00:53:51,959
Speaker 1: the years, as did many traveling TV artists of the time,

891
00:53:52,360 --> 00:53:56,360
Speaker 1: and that for a second, as had many traveling TV

892
00:53:56,680 --> 00:53:59,560
Speaker 1: artists of the time. Yeah, that's a short list that

893
00:53:59,600 --> 00:54:04,880
Speaker 1: would get us. But so you get back to me

894
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:09,680
Speaker 1: about that one, folks, Well, sorry, we've meandered enough. You

895
00:54:09,680 --> 00:54:11,560
Speaker 1: are not here because you want to hear about the

896
00:54:11,600 --> 00:54:14,800
Speaker 1: sordid details of Bob Ross's personal life. You are here

897
00:54:14,840 --> 00:54:17,360
Speaker 1: because you love the man and want to get closer

898
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:20,160
Speaker 1: to him and his work. In fact, you might even

899
00:54:20,160 --> 00:54:22,239
Speaker 1: want to buy a Bob Ross painting of your very own.

900
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:25,960
Speaker 1: This seems like an easy thing, right after all, Between

901
00:54:25,960 --> 00:54:28,040
Speaker 1: the ones he painted on the show plus his years

902
00:54:28,080 --> 00:54:31,200
Speaker 1: as a traveling art instructor, Bob estimated that he must

903
00:54:31,239 --> 00:54:35,719
Speaker 1: have painted upwards of thirty thousand canvases. If that's true,

904
00:54:35,840 --> 00:54:38,200
Speaker 1: or even remotely in the ballpark, that would make him

905
00:54:38,200 --> 00:54:42,080
Speaker 1: the most prolific painter in history. A core andy information

906
00:54:42,120 --> 00:54:45,880
Speaker 1: tally by the website The Hustle Picasso sits at second

907
00:54:45,920 --> 00:54:49,920
Speaker 1: place for the most prolific artists, having completed an estimated thousand,

908
00:54:50,040 --> 00:54:53,200
Speaker 1: five hundred paintings, and on a at third place with

909
00:54:53,320 --> 00:54:56,880
Speaker 1: two thousand, five hundred. I'm surprised Warhol isn't on that list.

910
00:54:57,120 --> 00:55:03,080
Speaker 1: Does that count reprosprint um silk screening stuff? I don't know.

911
00:55:03,200 --> 00:55:05,960
Speaker 1: His website says that he produced over nine thousand paintings

912
00:55:05,960 --> 00:55:09,160
Speaker 1: and sculptures and nearly twelve thousand drawings, so I'm not sure,

913
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:13,839
Speaker 1: but yeah, maybe it's they have strict definitions, but how

914
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:18,040
Speaker 1: the paintings are made. But anyway, clearly there are many

915
00:55:18,160 --> 00:55:21,000
Speaker 1: Bob Ross paintings out there in the world, so clearly

916
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:24,200
Speaker 1: they must come up for sale all the time. Right,

917
00:55:24,280 --> 00:55:29,880
Speaker 1: dead wrong, very wrong. Bob Ross paintings are famously impossible

918
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:33,240
Speaker 1: to obtain. The major auction houses like Julian's and Christie's

919
00:55:33,280 --> 00:55:37,040
Speaker 1: have reportedly never come across a Bob Ross painting. Why

920
00:55:37,120 --> 00:55:40,840
Speaker 1: is this? Well? In short, to borrow phrase from Billy Preston,

921
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:44,360
Speaker 1: that's the way Bob planned it, That's the way Bob

922
00:55:44,440 --> 00:55:48,080
Speaker 1: wanted it to be. His relationship to his work was

923
00:55:48,200 --> 00:55:52,560
Speaker 1: always interesting because he didn't crave any sort of professional

924
00:55:52,640 --> 00:55:56,440
Speaker 1: validation whatsoever. As he told The New York Times, quote,

925
00:55:56,480 --> 00:55:59,560
Speaker 1: there are thousands of very, very talented artists who will

926
00:55:59,640 --> 00:56:03,520
Speaker 1: never be known even after they're dead. Most painters want recognition,

927
00:56:03,600 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 1: especially by their peers. I achieved that a long time

928
00:56:06,600 --> 00:56:10,759
Speaker 1: ago with TV. I don't need anymore. And that's just

929
00:56:10,920 --> 00:56:15,480
Speaker 1: a really interesting outlook. He only had one retrospective held

930
00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:18,719
Speaker 1: at the minestrac Cultural Center in Muncy, where he taped

931
00:56:18,760 --> 00:56:21,279
Speaker 1: the show. Other than that, Bob said he had no

932
00:56:21,360 --> 00:56:23,960
Speaker 1: interest in a major exhibit, and he was also opposed

933
00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:27,040
Speaker 1: to flipping his paintings for profits. He frequently said on

934
00:56:27,080 --> 00:56:30,120
Speaker 1: his show that he donated his paintings to PBS stations

935
00:56:30,120 --> 00:56:33,360
Speaker 1: to auction off at fundraisers to quote make a happy buck.

936
00:56:33,960 --> 00:56:36,640
Speaker 1: And for years w I p B TV, the PBS

937
00:56:36,680 --> 00:56:39,400
Speaker 1: station to Munsey where Bob filmed most of his episodes,

938
00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:42,320
Speaker 1: with auction off of Bob Ross painting at its annual

939
00:56:42,360 --> 00:56:46,239
Speaker 1: fundraising drive, and according to the town's local paper, these

940
00:56:46,280 --> 00:56:49,360
Speaker 1: paintings were always the most anticipated item at the auction,

941
00:56:49,760 --> 00:56:54,960
Speaker 1: overshadowing things like tickets to Cancoon, diamond necklaces, rare beanie babies,

942
00:56:55,160 --> 00:57:00,480
Speaker 1: and basketball signed by Magic Johnson. Damn right, Yeah, The

943
00:57:00,600 --> 00:57:03,120
Speaker 1: rare paintings of Bob's that do come to market are

944
00:57:03,160 --> 00:57:06,160
Speaker 1: almost exclusively from before his TV career, when he sold

945
00:57:06,160 --> 00:57:10,640
Speaker 1: paintings just to survive of in Alaska. These works frequently

946
00:57:10,719 --> 00:57:14,440
Speaker 1: sell for tens of thousands of dollars. There's a story

947
00:57:14,480 --> 00:57:17,440
Speaker 1: of a flight instructor from Alaska who bought a landscape

948
00:57:17,480 --> 00:57:19,880
Speaker 1: scene from a local artist in the early eighties at

949
00:57:19,880 --> 00:57:23,040
Speaker 1: an art fair for something like sixty bucks. It spent

950
00:57:23,120 --> 00:57:25,560
Speaker 1: years sitting in his garage until his son, who was

951
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:28,640
Speaker 1: a big fan of Bob Ross's YouTube videos, thought that

952
00:57:28,680 --> 00:57:31,320
Speaker 1: he recognized the signature in the corner of the painting,

953
00:57:31,520 --> 00:57:34,280
Speaker 1: and sure enough it was an authentic Bob Ross painting.

954
00:57:34,720 --> 00:57:40,760
Speaker 1: Sold for ten grands. So check your Alaskan landscape paintings, folks,

955
00:57:40,760 --> 00:57:44,160
Speaker 1: because you never know. Uh. Bob said he painted thirty

956
00:57:44,200 --> 00:57:49,120
Speaker 1: thousand pre owned Mountain Stream original. It's going for a

957
00:57:49,240 --> 00:57:54,880
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty five thousand eBay right now. Wow? Wow

958
00:57:55,960 --> 00:58:01,240
Speaker 1: Ross original wet unwet gold pan. Uh what he did

959
00:58:02,400 --> 00:58:07,960
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy with certificate of authenticity twelve thousand. That sounds

960
00:58:08,000 --> 00:58:16,160
Speaker 1: like a deal. Another pan ten, another one nine thousand. Wow,

961
00:58:16,840 --> 00:58:19,000
Speaker 1: that's kind of all you get. I mean, there's not

962
00:58:19,080 --> 00:58:21,480
Speaker 1: a lot out there, and why is that? I mean,

963
00:58:21,480 --> 00:58:23,880
Speaker 1: the main question is, where the hell are these paintings

964
00:58:23,880 --> 00:58:27,040
Speaker 1: that Bob painted on the Joy of Painting? Well, no

965
00:58:27,200 --> 00:58:29,720
Speaker 1: less an authority than The New York Times launched an

966
00:58:29,760 --> 00:58:33,880
Speaker 1: investigative report in twenty nineteen called Where all the Bob

967
00:58:33,960 --> 00:58:39,400
Speaker 1: Ross Paintings? Well we found them. This is an incredible video. Uh.

968
00:58:39,440 --> 00:58:41,800
Speaker 1: It turns out these paintings are held at Bob Ross

969
00:58:41,880 --> 00:58:46,840
Speaker 1: Incorporated headquarters in an anonymous looking office building in suburban Virginia.

970
00:58:47,240 --> 00:58:50,040
Speaker 1: There's a trove of more than a thousand paintings worth

971
00:58:50,080 --> 00:58:53,520
Speaker 1: well over a million dollars sitting in cardboard boxes. I

972
00:58:53,560 --> 00:58:55,360
Speaker 1: think there's a couple that are on the walls in

973
00:58:55,440 --> 00:58:59,320
Speaker 1: the office, but mostly they're just canvases, just shoved in

974
00:58:59,360 --> 00:59:03,840
Speaker 1: these cardboard boxes where they sit gathering dust. Bob's old

975
00:59:03,840 --> 00:59:07,960
Speaker 1: business partners, the Kowalski's, who oversee Bob Ross Incorporator, holding

976
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:11,480
Speaker 1: fast to Bob's wish that these never get sold, and

977
00:59:11,520 --> 00:59:14,960
Speaker 1: the companies now in the control of the Kowalski's daughter Joan,

978
00:59:15,200 --> 00:59:18,880
Speaker 1: who told Hustle dot Com quote, the paintings have always

979
00:59:18,920 --> 00:59:21,240
Speaker 1: just sort of been here. We were sort of behind

980
00:59:21,240 --> 00:59:24,320
Speaker 1: the times. It never occurred to us that anyone would

981
00:59:24,360 --> 00:59:28,360
Speaker 1: want them. The company, which you can call right now

982
00:59:28,400 --> 00:59:32,720
Speaker 1: at one hundred Bob Ross Uh gets constant inquiries from

983
00:59:32,800 --> 00:59:36,520
Speaker 1: folks about buying these paintings, but they are not for sale.

984
00:59:37,080 --> 00:59:40,320
Speaker 1: John Kowalski says, our only mission is to preserve the

985
00:59:40,480 --> 00:59:46,320
Speaker 1: mythological wonderment that was Bob Ross. However, her mother and

986
00:59:46,400 --> 00:59:49,320
Speaker 1: Net Kowalski, the woman who discovered Bob in the eighties

987
00:59:49,360 --> 00:59:53,160
Speaker 1: and was as closest business partner, is the only authenticator

988
00:59:53,240 --> 00:59:56,640
Speaker 1: in the world of Bob Ross's paintings. She said that

989
00:59:56,680 --> 00:59:59,560
Speaker 1: in addition to the brushwork and other signs of Bob's hand,

990
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:02,720
Speaker 1: she looks for a specific detail and the quality of

991
01:00:02,720 --> 01:00:06,800
Speaker 1: a signature that, for understandable reasons, she has declined to

992
01:00:06,880 --> 01:00:11,560
Speaker 1: describe because she doesn't want to aid any foragers out there.

993
01:00:11,960 --> 01:00:13,919
Speaker 1: But if a painting is certified to be a Bob

994
01:00:13,960 --> 01:00:17,320
Speaker 1: Russ original, the owner will be provided with documentation attesting

995
01:00:17,400 --> 01:00:22,200
Speaker 1: with authenticity. Despite the controversy surrounding the Kowalskis and the

996
01:00:22,240 --> 01:00:25,520
Speaker 1: way they spun this man's image into a multimillion dollar

997
01:00:25,600 --> 01:00:29,520
Speaker 1: industry in recent years while simultaneously cutting out Bob's own son,

998
01:00:29,720 --> 01:00:32,640
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about later. I do think it's admirable

999
01:00:32,680 --> 01:00:35,400
Speaker 1: that they honored Bob's wish and didn't bust up the

1000
01:00:35,440 --> 01:00:38,600
Speaker 1: collection in the wake of mounting pressure from fans, and

1001
01:00:39,240 --> 01:00:41,240
Speaker 1: it is a hell of a collection. They have an

1002
01:00:41,360 --> 01:00:45,760
Speaker 1: estimated one thousand, one hundred sixty five paintings stored on site,

1003
01:00:46,240 --> 01:00:49,560
Speaker 1: according to an analysis by the website five thirty eight,

1004
01:00:49,600 --> 01:00:53,160
Speaker 1: which we'll hear more from them later. Ross painted three

1005
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:56,400
Speaker 1: hundred eighty one of the four hundred and three episodes

1006
01:00:56,440 --> 01:00:59,160
Speaker 1: of the show. The rest featured a guest if there

1007
01:00:59,160 --> 01:01:01,880
Speaker 1: are three version for each of these paintings that he

1008
01:01:01,920 --> 01:01:04,479
Speaker 1: did you know one before the show, won during the show,

1009
01:01:04,600 --> 01:01:06,520
Speaker 1: won the painting after the show. For the how two

1010
01:01:06,560 --> 01:01:10,400
Speaker 1: books there are at least one thousand, one d forty

1011
01:01:10,440 --> 01:01:14,560
Speaker 1: three originals from The Joy of Painting Show. However, storing

1012
01:01:14,600 --> 01:01:17,760
Speaker 1: these canvases and cardboard boxes in rooms that aren't climate

1013
01:01:17,800 --> 01:01:20,960
Speaker 1: controlled is not the best way to store these treasures.

1014
01:01:21,480 --> 01:01:25,360
Speaker 1: Simply put what they belong in a museum here it is,

1015
01:01:26,200 --> 01:01:30,200
Speaker 1: and recently Bob Ross Incorporated were contacted by the granddaddy

1016
01:01:30,240 --> 01:01:33,840
Speaker 1: of all museums, the Smithsonian. Over the years, the Smithsonian

1017
01:01:33,920 --> 01:01:37,480
Speaker 1: Museum of American History was inundated with letters and emails

1018
01:01:37,480 --> 01:01:41,120
Speaker 1: from Bob Ross fans, and in ten they contacted Bob

1019
01:01:41,240 --> 01:01:45,480
Speaker 1: Ross Incorporated about obtaining some of his work. Four paintings

1020
01:01:45,480 --> 01:01:49,800
Speaker 1: were chosen by the museum's curators for their permanent collection. Sadly,

1021
01:01:49,880 --> 01:01:51,760
Speaker 1: three of these paintings are all the same. They have

1022
01:01:51,840 --> 01:01:54,600
Speaker 1: three versions of the painting on a Clear Day from

1023
01:01:54,680 --> 01:01:58,920
Speaker 1: season fourteen, the preliminary version, the version he painted on

1024
01:01:58,960 --> 01:02:01,240
Speaker 1: the show, and the one he did towards, as well

1025
01:02:01,280 --> 01:02:05,320
Speaker 1: as the book version of Blue Ridge Falls from season thirty.

1026
01:02:05,800 --> 01:02:09,960
Speaker 1: That's They also obtained a converted step ladder that he

1027
01:02:10,040 --> 01:02:12,640
Speaker 1: used as an easel during his first season on the show,

1028
01:02:13,080 --> 01:02:16,040
Speaker 1: two handwritten notebooks that we used to plan the productions

1029
01:02:16,040 --> 01:02:18,960
Speaker 1: of season two and three, and also some brushes and

1030
01:02:19,040 --> 01:02:22,800
Speaker 1: palette knives. And when the museum reopened after COVID in

1031
01:02:22,880 --> 01:02:27,120
Speaker 1: May of one On a Clear Day was on display.

1032
01:02:27,200 --> 01:02:30,600
Speaker 1: And this is amazing poetic justice because Bob would often

1033
01:02:30,640 --> 01:02:33,439
Speaker 1: tell his detractors, Hey, I know my work's never gonna

1034
01:02:33,440 --> 01:02:36,560
Speaker 1: hang up the Swithsonian, and now it does. Believe in

1035
01:02:36,560 --> 01:02:41,080
Speaker 1: yourself so well, you can't buy a Bob Ross painting

1036
01:02:41,240 --> 01:02:43,600
Speaker 1: you can at least see them. In addition to the

1037
01:02:43,640 --> 01:02:46,600
Speaker 1: four in the Smithsonian collection, there are whopping fifty four

1038
01:02:46,720 --> 01:02:50,880
Speaker 1: Bob Ross's paintings on display at the Bob Ross Artworkshop

1039
01:02:51,320 --> 01:02:56,600
Speaker 1: in New Smyrna Beach. I'm not even gonna try to

1040
01:02:56,640 --> 01:03:00,760
Speaker 1: guess that. Google it in Bob's native Florida, and this

1041
01:03:00,800 --> 01:03:03,320
Speaker 1: has been described as a must visit for Bob Ross

1042
01:03:03,360 --> 01:03:06,040
Speaker 1: die hards, where you can take a class in Bob's

1043
01:03:06,080 --> 01:03:08,960
Speaker 1: method of painting. But for my money, this is the

1044
01:03:09,000 --> 01:03:11,560
Speaker 1: thing that really gets me excited. There are twenty seven

1045
01:03:11,560 --> 01:03:14,840
Speaker 1: of Bob's paintings held in the I'm gonna take a

1046
01:03:14,840 --> 01:03:17,760
Speaker 1: guess that's how you say this Mini tries the museum

1047
01:03:17,760 --> 01:03:21,040
Speaker 1: in Muncie, Indiana, where Bob taped all but one season

1048
01:03:21,040 --> 01:03:24,440
Speaker 1: of the show. And I don't want to check this

1049
01:03:24,480 --> 01:03:27,400
Speaker 1: out myself, because they just opened a one point two

1050
01:03:27,440 --> 01:03:33,720
Speaker 1: million dollar interactive exhibit called the Bob Ross Experience, the

1051
01:03:34,480 --> 01:03:37,680
Speaker 1: less successful follow up to the Jimi Hendrix Experience. They

1052
01:03:37,720 --> 01:03:40,840
Speaker 1: opened up this exhibit in the very studio where Bob

1053
01:03:40,880 --> 01:03:43,720
Speaker 1: taped his show at w I P. B. Yes, you

1054
01:03:43,760 --> 01:03:46,760
Speaker 1: could visit the very room where he taped nearly all

1055
01:03:46,840 --> 01:03:49,200
Speaker 1: of the Joy of painting, and the room has been

1056
01:03:49,240 --> 01:03:51,760
Speaker 1: restored to how it was in Bob's time, complete with

1057
01:03:51,800 --> 01:03:56,000
Speaker 1: personal effects like his paintbrushes, his easel, his palette, as

1058
01:03:56,000 --> 01:03:58,680
Speaker 1: well as the vix Vapo rub he used to clear

1059
01:03:58,720 --> 01:04:03,280
Speaker 1: as sinuses, his hair, pick his shirts, his keys. It's

1060
01:04:03,280 --> 01:04:06,840
Speaker 1: all there, and there are reportedly at present time, six

1061
01:04:06,880 --> 01:04:08,840
Speaker 1: of his paintings on display, but like I said, I

1062
01:04:08,840 --> 01:04:10,800
Speaker 1: think they have twenty seven of them in their collection,

1063
01:04:11,240 --> 01:04:14,160
Speaker 1: and they offer classes in his painting method too, So

1064
01:04:14,240 --> 01:04:16,520
Speaker 1: you can paint in the very building where The Joy

1065
01:04:16,560 --> 01:04:19,840
Speaker 1: of Painting was filmed. I just I love this. Let

1066
01:04:19,840 --> 01:04:22,280
Speaker 1: me read from the website because it seems both awesome

1067
01:04:22,360 --> 01:04:25,920
Speaker 1: and hilarious. Explore the life, philosophy, and art of the

1068
01:04:26,080 --> 01:04:29,560
Speaker 1: iconic American painter inside the historic home where The Joy

1069
01:04:29,560 --> 01:04:33,040
Speaker 1: of Painting was filmed. The immersive exhibit features original paintings

1070
01:04:33,080 --> 01:04:37,640
Speaker 1: and artifacts, inspiring visitors with Bob's message of fearless creativity.

1071
01:04:37,920 --> 01:04:40,720
Speaker 1: You can step into the restored television studio and stand

1072
01:04:40,800 --> 01:04:44,320
Speaker 1: where Bob stood at the iconic easel where he beat

1073
01:04:44,360 --> 01:04:47,200
Speaker 1: the devil out of his brushes. Across the hall, you

1074
01:04:47,240 --> 01:04:50,320
Speaker 1: will be transported to a nine eighties living room, the

1075
01:04:50,360 --> 01:04:53,560
Speaker 1: setting where much of the world discovered and enjoyed Bob.

1076
01:04:53,680 --> 01:04:56,440
Speaker 1: I love this so much. And if you can't make

1077
01:04:56,480 --> 01:04:58,720
Speaker 1: the trip to any of these places, you could view

1078
01:04:58,720 --> 01:05:02,040
Speaker 1: Bob's work digitally on the Internet. There's a website called

1079
01:05:02,080 --> 01:05:05,600
Speaker 1: two inch brush dot com, named for his favorite painting instrument,

1080
01:05:06,000 --> 01:05:09,280
Speaker 1: and they have an unofficial database that organizes all four

1081
01:05:09,360 --> 01:05:12,320
Speaker 1: hundred and three paintings from the Joy of Painting by

1082
01:05:12,400 --> 01:05:15,600
Speaker 1: season and episode. And now, folks, we have to get

1083
01:05:15,640 --> 01:05:18,880
Speaker 1: what you really come to too much information for not

1084
01:05:18,960 --> 01:05:24,240
Speaker 1: the impressions, not the bits, not the references to Nazis

1085
01:05:24,440 --> 01:05:29,000
Speaker 1: fleeing to Argentina, but the cold hearted data. This database

1086
01:05:29,560 --> 01:05:33,200
Speaker 1: has allowed us to study Bob's work like never before

1087
01:05:33,520 --> 01:05:36,840
Speaker 1: and figure out the inner workings of the misunderstood genius,

1088
01:05:37,360 --> 01:05:41,440
Speaker 1: to bring us closer to Bob. To bring us closer

1089
01:05:41,480 --> 01:05:47,400
Speaker 1: to Bob, Nate Silver's data crunching website analyzed every episode

1090
01:05:47,480 --> 01:05:51,680
Speaker 1: in which Bob painted live, and their discoveries were well

1091
01:05:51,840 --> 01:05:56,080
Speaker 1: Jordan wrote, shocking, but it's it's not really shocking. Move

1092
01:05:56,480 --> 01:06:00,720
Speaker 1: will move past that. They concluded of raw his paintings

1093
01:06:00,760 --> 01:06:08,760
Speaker 1: contained at least one happy little tree, contained happy little clouds,

1094
01:06:08,800 --> 01:06:16,040
Speaker 1: had almighty mountains, and thirty four contained peaceful mountain lakes,

1095
01:06:16,200 --> 01:06:19,560
Speaker 1: but a man after my own heart? Do you know what?

1096
01:06:19,640 --> 01:06:29,000
Speaker 1: He almost never painted people in miserable humanity quote, I

1097
01:06:29,040 --> 01:06:31,480
Speaker 1: don't know how much longer I can keep doing this

1098
01:06:31,640 --> 01:06:39,640
Speaker 1: with these people. On rare occasions, Bob would incorporate a cabin.

1099
01:06:40,160 --> 01:06:42,800
Speaker 1: But and that Kowaski had an interesting point about those.

1100
01:06:44,800 --> 01:06:48,920
Speaker 1: I will tell you Bob's biggest secret, she said, perhaps

1101
01:06:48,960 --> 01:06:53,720
Speaker 1: over this quote. If you notice his cabin has never

1102
01:06:53,800 --> 01:06:57,600
Speaker 1: had any chimneys on them. That's because chimneys represented people,

1103
01:06:58,240 --> 01:07:00,800
Speaker 1: and he didn't want any sign of a person in

1104
01:07:00,920 --> 01:07:04,560
Speaker 1: his paintings. There's an early viral video of some guy

1105
01:07:04,560 --> 01:07:07,120
Speaker 1: addressed as Bob singing a song called That's why I

1106
01:07:07,160 --> 01:07:10,840
Speaker 1: don't paint people, which I love. In the eleven years

1107
01:07:10,840 --> 01:07:13,680
Speaker 1: that Ross painted on television, there are only a few

1108
01:07:13,760 --> 01:07:17,680
Speaker 1: known instances in which he included a human figure in

1109
01:07:17,800 --> 01:07:23,720
Speaker 1: his landscapes. There's Morning Walk from season seventeen, episode eleven,

1110
01:07:24,560 --> 01:07:29,160
Speaker 1: two people stroll through the woods, camp Fire from season three,

1111
01:07:29,240 --> 01:07:34,040
Speaker 1: episode ten, a figure in a hat leans against a tree,

1112
01:07:34,440 --> 01:07:38,840
Speaker 1: and according to an at Kowalski, camp Fire was among

1113
01:07:39,120 --> 01:07:45,080
Speaker 1: Ross's least favorite paintings. But despite his apparent disdaining for humanity,

1114
01:07:45,480 --> 01:07:48,000
Speaker 1: Bob was very good at connecting with them, especially for

1115
01:07:48,080 --> 01:07:51,480
Speaker 1: his high profile media appearances. He was a regular guest

1116
01:07:51,520 --> 01:07:55,120
Speaker 1: on The Phil Dona Hue Show. Once he brought five

1117
01:07:55,200 --> 01:07:57,960
Speaker 1: members of the audience on stage to do a painting

1118
01:07:58,000 --> 01:08:02,680
Speaker 1: tutorial live on air. In nine, he appeared on the

1119
01:08:02,800 --> 01:08:07,640
Speaker 1: Joan Rivers show I'd like to see that I know uh,

1120
01:08:07,680 --> 01:08:10,800
Speaker 1: and also appeared on Regis and Kathie Lee. In the

1121
01:08:10,800 --> 01:08:14,920
Speaker 1: early nineties, Rosie even did several MTV promotional spots. He

1122
01:08:15,000 --> 01:08:18,559
Speaker 1: painted a snowy mountain and said MTV, it's all just

1123
01:08:18,720 --> 01:08:22,920
Speaker 1: fluffy white clouds, which is a great bit of shade

1124
01:08:24,760 --> 01:08:30,120
Speaker 1: that's on YouTube. It's good. It's good. He made Jordan's

1125
01:08:30,120 --> 01:08:33,080
Speaker 1: maybe Jordan's favorite cameo and Bill Nye The Science Guy,

1126
01:08:33,120 --> 01:08:37,160
Speaker 1: where he did a self parodic segment entitled The Artistic

1127
01:08:37,280 --> 01:08:41,760
Speaker 1: I with Bob Ross and apparently a major country music fan,

1128
01:08:41,920 --> 01:08:45,800
Speaker 1: Bob appeared at the Grand Old Opry, even being called

1129
01:08:45,920 --> 01:08:49,360
Speaker 1: on stage to take a bow by a friend and fan,

1130
01:08:49,520 --> 01:08:54,559
Speaker 1: Hank Snow In seven and why Not Hard to find

1131
01:08:54,600 --> 01:08:58,479
Speaker 1: an enemy for Bob Ross. Everyone loved Bob. Bob made

1132
01:08:58,560 --> 01:09:03,559
Speaker 1: his final appearance in the same year. He died not

1133
01:09:03,720 --> 01:09:06,520
Speaker 1: on the Joy of Painting, but on the pilot episode

1134
01:09:06,560 --> 01:09:11,160
Speaker 1: of another PBS show, a children's series called The Adventures

1135
01:09:11,200 --> 01:09:14,519
Speaker 1: of Elmer and Friends. And this is so touching because

1136
01:09:14,640 --> 01:09:17,680
Speaker 1: it had been Bob's long term goal to host a

1137
01:09:17,760 --> 01:09:22,400
Speaker 1: kid's show. Series premiered in six just a year after

1138
01:09:22,479 --> 01:09:25,960
Speaker 1: his death, and that episode included a final message of

1139
01:09:26,000 --> 01:09:30,600
Speaker 1: thanks from Ross to his fans and viewers, along with

1140
01:09:30,640 --> 01:09:34,360
Speaker 1: the musical tribute. Bob's health had always been shaky. He

1141
01:09:34,400 --> 01:09:37,000
Speaker 1: was a cigarette smoker from most of his adult life,

1142
01:09:37,800 --> 01:09:40,320
Speaker 1: and he was apparently convinced for very many years that

1143
01:09:40,360 --> 01:09:43,320
Speaker 1: he would die young. In the mid eighties, he suffered

1144
01:09:43,320 --> 01:09:47,160
Speaker 1: a heart attack while in Indiana to film a season

1145
01:09:47,160 --> 01:09:50,520
Speaker 1: of The Joy of Painting. He was diagnosed with limphoma

1146
01:09:50,760 --> 01:09:55,639
Speaker 1: in early but he kept the diagnosis largely secret outside

1147
01:09:55,680 --> 01:09:59,240
Speaker 1: his immediate circle. He died the following year on the

1148
01:09:59,280 --> 01:10:03,479
Speaker 1: fourth of July in Orlando, Florida. And you're hard to

1149
01:10:03,479 --> 01:10:07,040
Speaker 1: find a more American death than dying on the fourth

1150
01:10:07,080 --> 01:10:13,080
Speaker 1: of July in Orlando. I say that without sarcasm. His

1151
01:10:13,160 --> 01:10:17,639
Speaker 1: remains are interred at Woodlawn Memorial Park in Gotha, Florida,

1152
01:10:17,960 --> 01:10:22,479
Speaker 1: under a plaque marked Bob Ross television artist, which I

1153
01:10:22,560 --> 01:10:27,759
Speaker 1: think doesn't a grave disservice. Strangely, none of his business partners,

1154
01:10:28,360 --> 01:10:32,240
Speaker 1: the Kooski's, attended the funeral, although they did send flowers.

1155
01:10:33,840 --> 01:10:38,320
Speaker 1: And this is where things get a little less happy. Yes,

1156
01:10:38,600 --> 01:10:42,920
Speaker 1: in the late tens, the documentary and Joshua Rofi wanted

1157
01:10:42,960 --> 01:10:44,960
Speaker 1: to make a film without the life of Bob Ross.

1158
01:10:45,479 --> 01:10:48,680
Speaker 1: He previously worked on a true crime series called Sasquatch

1159
01:10:48,720 --> 01:10:52,559
Speaker 1: and on two thousand nineteens Lorena about Lorena Bobbitt. So

1160
01:10:52,640 --> 01:10:55,080
Speaker 1: he was expecting that this was gonna be a nice

1161
01:10:55,240 --> 01:10:58,880
Speaker 1: palate cleanser in his CV, a sweet excursion into the

1162
01:10:58,880 --> 01:11:03,000
Speaker 1: world of happy trees and fluffy clouds. He thought wrong.

1163
01:11:04,120 --> 01:11:06,439
Speaker 1: He soon learned that very few people wanted to go

1164
01:11:06,439 --> 01:11:09,520
Speaker 1: on records speaking to him for fear of legal retributions.

1165
01:11:10,000 --> 01:11:13,639
Speaker 1: Dozens of people declined to go on camera to speak

1166
01:11:13,680 --> 01:11:19,600
Speaker 1: about a PBS painter, all expressed concerns over lawsuits. Obviously,

1167
01:11:19,640 --> 01:11:22,400
Speaker 1: he knew he hit a nerve here. This ultimately led

1168
01:11:22,439 --> 01:11:25,880
Speaker 1: to the creation of the documentary Bob Ross, Happy Accidents,

1169
01:11:25,920 --> 01:11:30,880
Speaker 1: Betrayal and Greed, which hit Netflix last year. In this film,

1170
01:11:30,920 --> 01:11:34,880
Speaker 1: he uncovered a massive schism between Bob's sons Steve, and

1171
01:11:35,000 --> 01:11:39,800
Speaker 1: Bob's business partners, the Kowalski's, who control Bob Ross Incorporated.

1172
01:11:40,200 --> 01:11:42,200
Speaker 1: The story it's a little convoluted, but it goes a

1173
01:11:42,200 --> 01:11:45,519
Speaker 1: little something like this. Bob Ross Incorporated was initially a

1174
01:11:45,560 --> 01:11:48,320
Speaker 1: four way partnership between the husband and wife a Neette

1175
01:11:48,360 --> 01:11:52,599
Speaker 1: and Want Kowalski, and Bob Ross and his wife. Bob's

1176
01:11:52,600 --> 01:11:55,760
Speaker 1: wife died in the early nineties, which gave the Kowalskis

1177
01:11:55,760 --> 01:11:58,960
Speaker 1: a controlling interest in the company. In other words, due

1178
01:11:59,000 --> 01:12:01,560
Speaker 1: to a quirk of b and its legalities, Bob was

1179
01:12:01,600 --> 01:12:05,400
Speaker 1: a minority shareholder in the company that controlled his own image.

1180
01:12:06,400 --> 01:12:09,559
Speaker 1: There have been allegations that when Bob was diagnosed with lymphoma,

1181
01:12:09,760 --> 01:12:12,080
Speaker 1: the Kowalski's tried to pressure him in the signing over

1182
01:12:12,120 --> 01:12:15,080
Speaker 1: the rights to his estate before he died, and there

1183
01:12:15,080 --> 01:12:17,680
Speaker 1: are stories of screaming matches on the phone. Well the

1184
01:12:17,800 --> 01:12:20,640
Speaker 1: man was literally dying with Bob going back to his

1185
01:12:20,680 --> 01:12:23,479
Speaker 1: Air Force days, screaming I am not giving you my name.

1186
01:12:24,640 --> 01:12:27,799
Speaker 1: Shortly before his death, Bob made a series of changes

1187
01:12:27,840 --> 01:12:31,120
Speaker 1: to his will, specifying that his name, likeness, and the

1188
01:12:31,160 --> 01:12:33,759
Speaker 1: rest of his intellectual property go to his two sons,

1189
01:12:34,280 --> 01:12:37,439
Speaker 1: supposedly at a spite against the Kowalskis because he was

1190
01:12:37,479 --> 01:12:39,240
Speaker 1: so annoyed that they were putting him through all this

1191
01:12:39,439 --> 01:12:43,639
Speaker 1: business stress when he was so sick. But after Bob's death,

1192
01:12:43,640 --> 01:12:47,120
Speaker 1: the Kowalski's countered this in court because when Bob died,

1193
01:12:47,640 --> 01:12:51,280
Speaker 1: they became the sole owners of Bob Ross Incorporated. And

1194
01:12:51,320 --> 01:12:54,360
Speaker 1: they claimed that virtually everything that Bob had ever done

1195
01:12:54,479 --> 01:12:57,200
Speaker 1: in his life was a work for hire, and thus

1196
01:12:57,560 --> 01:13:01,160
Speaker 1: Bob Ross had no right to bequeath his state, is,

1197
01:13:01,240 --> 01:13:04,480
Speaker 1: image and all that stuff to his sons. The Kowalski

1198
01:13:04,520 --> 01:13:08,120
Speaker 1: has won this lawsuit and there was an undisclosed settlement

1199
01:13:08,160 --> 01:13:12,479
Speaker 1: with Bob's son Steve, leaving him unable to financially benefit

1200
01:13:12,520 --> 01:13:16,800
Speaker 1: from his father's name or image. So legally the Kowalskis

1201
01:13:16,840 --> 01:13:21,080
Speaker 1: have one. But this documentary is basically about the moral

1202
01:13:21,120 --> 01:13:24,479
Speaker 1: ambiguities of the situation, which some of Bob's friends have

1203
01:13:24,600 --> 01:13:30,080
Speaker 1: dubbed Grand Theft Bob. This documentary it's very good, it's

1204
01:13:30,120 --> 01:13:34,320
Speaker 1: pretty nuts. It's told mostly from the perspective of Bob's son, Steve,

1205
01:13:34,439 --> 01:13:37,679
Speaker 1: because the Kowalski has refused to be interviewed. They claim

1206
01:13:37,720 --> 01:13:41,160
Speaker 1: that it's because the filmmakers weren't being transparent. Uh. Steve,

1207
01:13:41,760 --> 01:13:44,880
Speaker 1: Bob's son, says the Kowalski's called them two days after

1208
01:13:44,960 --> 01:13:47,960
Speaker 1: his dad died and said, according to him, I want

1209
01:13:48,040 --> 01:13:51,360
Speaker 1: you to listen to me carefully. Any Bob Ross art products,

1210
01:13:51,400 --> 01:13:54,839
Speaker 1: anything related to art or painting, you could never make those,

1211
01:13:54,920 --> 01:13:58,720
Speaker 1: distribute those, create a business around those. Nothing. But if

1212
01:13:58,720 --> 01:14:01,240
Speaker 1: you would like to do anything not painting or art related,

1213
01:14:01,439 --> 01:14:04,759
Speaker 1: that's fine. You can do Bob Ross pickles, Bob Ross, shoes,

1214
01:14:04,800 --> 01:14:07,679
Speaker 1: Bob Ross whatever, but you cannot put the Bob Ross

1215
01:14:07,800 --> 01:14:11,080
Speaker 1: name on a painting or an art related product ever, period,

1216
01:14:11,320 --> 01:14:14,160
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life. And so for years

1217
01:14:14,400 --> 01:14:19,360
Speaker 1: Steve Ross, Bob Ross's son, didn't paint, which was heartbreaking

1218
01:14:19,400 --> 01:14:22,000
Speaker 1: for him because he was damn good at it. Family

1219
01:14:22,040 --> 01:14:24,679
Speaker 1: friends said that he was better than his father. And

1220
01:14:24,920 --> 01:14:28,919
Speaker 1: it's doubly sad because when Bob was alive, he badly

1221
01:14:29,000 --> 01:14:32,280
Speaker 1: wanted to get Steve into the family business. But you know,

1222
01:14:32,360 --> 01:14:35,080
Speaker 1: as most young men are, he wanted to go his

1223
01:14:35,120 --> 01:14:37,240
Speaker 1: own way and wanted to do his own thing. And

1224
01:14:38,200 --> 01:14:40,680
Speaker 1: Bob would have his son Steve as a guest on

1225
01:14:40,720 --> 01:14:43,160
Speaker 1: the joy of painting, and you watched these episodes and

1226
01:14:43,240 --> 01:14:46,240
Speaker 1: Steve looks kind of embarrassed to be there. He's in

1227
01:14:46,280 --> 01:14:49,439
Speaker 1: his late teens or early twenties, and Steve told Vanity

1228
01:14:49,439 --> 01:14:52,559
Speaker 1: Fair last year, as kids, we all wanted defy our

1229
01:14:52,600 --> 01:14:54,800
Speaker 1: parents and hang out with our friends. But as we

1230
01:14:54,840 --> 01:14:57,280
Speaker 1: get older, we begin to understand that our parents are

1231
01:14:57,280 --> 01:15:00,240
Speaker 1: pushing us to be greater than themselves because they seek

1232
01:15:00,320 --> 01:15:02,559
Speaker 1: the best for us. Like all young kids who know

1233
01:15:02,560 --> 01:15:04,840
Speaker 1: a little about this world, I thought I knew everything

1234
01:15:04,840 --> 01:15:07,960
Speaker 1: as a teenager, but had limited reference concerting what this

1235
01:15:08,000 --> 01:15:11,280
Speaker 1: world had to offer. So by the time Steve came

1236
01:15:11,320 --> 01:15:13,880
Speaker 1: around and was ready to live up to his destiny

1237
01:15:13,880 --> 01:15:16,920
Speaker 1: as the son of Bob Ross and Paint, it was

1238
01:15:17,000 --> 01:15:20,400
Speaker 1: too late. His dad had died and the Kowalski's apparently

1239
01:15:20,479 --> 01:15:23,679
Speaker 1: warned him to stay away from art. So as a result,

1240
01:15:23,960 --> 01:15:27,840
Speaker 1: this poor guy, Steve fell into a deep depression for years,

1241
01:15:27,880 --> 01:15:30,719
Speaker 1: and he tells the story of driving on the highway

1242
01:15:30,800 --> 01:15:34,080
Speaker 1: one night, just trying desperately to fight off the urge

1243
01:15:34,160 --> 01:15:38,200
Speaker 1: to swerve in the oncoming traffic. And in this documentary,

1244
01:15:38,240 --> 01:15:41,040
Speaker 1: Steve claims that his father, Bob, had an affair with

1245
01:15:41,120 --> 01:15:44,120
Speaker 1: his business partner in that Kowalski despite the fact that

1246
01:15:44,160 --> 01:15:47,400
Speaker 1: they were both married, an affair that she strenuously denies.

1247
01:15:47,640 --> 01:15:50,920
Speaker 1: But Bob did name his pet squirrel bob At, a

1248
01:15:50,960 --> 01:15:53,960
Speaker 1: blend of both their names, which in some cultures means

1249
01:15:53,960 --> 01:15:59,479
Speaker 1: they're married. Um. For years, the Kowalski's only used Bob's

1250
01:15:59,560 --> 01:16:02,000
Speaker 1: name to market art supplies and books, but when their

1251
01:16:02,080 --> 01:16:04,680
Speaker 1: daughter took over the company in the twenty tens, she

1252
01:16:04,800 --> 01:16:07,640
Speaker 1: started to explore other ways of merchandizing, moving into the

1253
01:16:07,680 --> 01:16:11,080
Speaker 1: realm of toys, games, chea pads, breakfast cereals, all that.

1254
01:16:11,680 --> 01:16:15,120
Speaker 1: And that's when Bob's sons Steve sued because remember they

1255
01:16:15,160 --> 01:16:16,960
Speaker 1: told him, like, you know, you can do all Bob

1256
01:16:17,040 --> 01:16:19,040
Speaker 1: Ross pickles and all that stuff if you want, but

1257
01:16:19,200 --> 01:16:22,200
Speaker 1: now they're moving on to his turf. The settlement allowed

1258
01:16:22,240 --> 01:16:25,000
Speaker 1: Steve to resume a career in art at long last,

1259
01:16:25,240 --> 01:16:28,280
Speaker 1: But according to the end credits of this documentary quote,

1260
01:16:28,479 --> 01:16:32,800
Speaker 1: despite Bob's intentions, Steve has not received any of the

1261
01:16:32,840 --> 01:16:36,800
Speaker 1: profits from Bob Ross Incorporated to date. UM. We should add,

1262
01:16:36,800 --> 01:16:40,160
Speaker 1: for legal reasons that Bob Ross Incorporated denies these allegations.

1263
01:16:40,600 --> 01:16:43,479
Speaker 1: In a statement issued after the documentary was released on Netflix,

1264
01:16:43,520 --> 01:16:46,600
Speaker 1: it said Bob Ross Incorporated. Takes strong issue with the

1265
01:16:46,640 --> 01:16:49,400
Speaker 1: inaccurate and heavily slanted portrayal of our company in the

1266
01:16:49,439 --> 01:16:52,160
Speaker 1: Netflix film. If not for the efforts of the remaining

1267
01:16:52,160 --> 01:16:55,600
Speaker 1: founders and their dedication to his mission, Bob's artistic and

1268
01:16:55,640 --> 01:16:58,679
Speaker 1: cultural relevance and his express desire to become the world's

1269
01:16:58,680 --> 01:17:01,840
Speaker 1: most beloved painting teacher and friends would have been lost

1270
01:17:01,880 --> 01:17:06,400
Speaker 1: decades ago with his passing. In the end, it really

1271
01:17:06,400 --> 01:17:08,839
Speaker 1: does seem like the old battle between art and commerce.

1272
01:17:08,960 --> 01:17:12,240
Speaker 1: But the good news is that Steve bob Rass's son

1273
01:17:12,720 --> 01:17:15,479
Speaker 1: is painting again, and that's nice. He returned to his passion.

1274
01:17:15,920 --> 01:17:19,760
Speaker 1: And in the documentary, Bob comes out with his reputation

1275
01:17:20,080 --> 01:17:24,479
Speaker 1: as a secular saint generally intact, so that's good too.

1276
01:17:24,520 --> 01:17:29,519
Speaker 1: He's everything you want him to be. Just it's it's

1277
01:17:29,520 --> 01:17:33,040
Speaker 1: a reminder to make art because you want to. Yeah,

1278
01:17:33,920 --> 01:17:35,760
Speaker 1: and you should just do it because you love it,

1279
01:17:36,000 --> 01:17:39,080
Speaker 1: and you do it for the reason that touches you.

1280
01:17:39,479 --> 01:17:41,880
Speaker 1: And if other people respond to it, that's the cherry

1281
01:17:41,880 --> 01:17:44,920
Speaker 1: on top. What are your thoughts on Bob Brass. I'm

1282
01:17:44,960 --> 01:17:48,280
Speaker 1: I'm curious. Well, after going through this whole episode, I

1283
01:17:48,600 --> 01:17:51,320
Speaker 1: feel for the guy. You know. I mean, he had

1284
01:17:51,360 --> 01:17:53,800
Speaker 1: a he had a tough road to home and he

1285
01:17:53,840 --> 01:17:57,640
Speaker 1: found something that he loved. He inhabited it, he lived it.

1286
01:17:58,040 --> 01:18:01,920
Speaker 1: He arguably gave a lot more people an experience of

1287
01:18:01,920 --> 01:18:08,240
Speaker 1: it enjoy than his predecessor. And to see people who

1288
01:18:08,400 --> 01:18:13,160
Speaker 1: produce nothing, yeah and just did all the paperwork fighting

1289
01:18:13,280 --> 01:18:18,080
Speaker 1: vociferously over his life's work is sickening. Like I said,

1290
01:18:18,080 --> 01:18:21,240
Speaker 1: it's a good reminder to make the things you make

1291
01:18:21,400 --> 01:18:24,839
Speaker 1: for you and because you like them, and not because

1292
01:18:24,960 --> 01:18:27,120
Speaker 1: you think they're gonna get you rich. You want to

1293
01:18:27,120 --> 01:18:29,880
Speaker 1: teach people how to do them, that's even better. But

1294
01:18:30,120 --> 01:18:32,840
Speaker 1: even something as pure as Bob Ross will eventually get

1295
01:18:32,880 --> 01:18:37,840
Speaker 1: dragged through the muck of courts and finances. So I'm

1296
01:18:37,880 --> 01:18:40,320
Speaker 1: begging you do it because you love it. Don't do

1297
01:18:40,360 --> 01:18:44,240
Speaker 1: it to become an influencer or any that. Just do

1298
01:18:44,360 --> 01:18:48,639
Speaker 1: it because you want to make happy little mountains. Because

1299
01:18:48,720 --> 01:18:55,519
Speaker 1: something terrible, but Bob, more than twenty five years after

1300
01:18:55,560 --> 01:19:01,760
Speaker 1: his death, in people, people love I love Bob Ross,

1301
01:19:01,800 --> 01:19:04,719
Speaker 1: you love Barbros. We all love Bob Ross. His legend

1302
01:19:04,800 --> 01:19:08,760
Speaker 1: continues to grow with each passing year. His videos are

1303
01:19:08,840 --> 01:19:13,000
Speaker 1: viewed by millions on streaming platforms, target recently released a

1304
01:19:13,040 --> 01:19:16,880
Speaker 1: board game called Bob Ross The Art of Chill. Nintendo

1305
01:19:17,000 --> 01:19:19,800
Speaker 1: were preparing a Joy of Painting video game for we

1306
01:19:20,400 --> 01:19:23,599
Speaker 1: that ultimately fell through at the last minute, but thankfully,

1307
01:19:23,600 --> 01:19:26,840
Speaker 1: a limited edition Magic the Gathering Card debt came the

1308
01:19:26,880 --> 01:19:32,519
Speaker 1: fruition in Fans make and sell Bob Ross lego figures

1309
01:19:32,520 --> 01:19:37,000
Speaker 1: on Etsy. HDTV made a Halloween costume. There's even a

1310
01:19:37,000 --> 01:19:41,400
Speaker 1: Bob Ross slow cooker, and in Chicago there's an annual

1311
01:19:41,479 --> 01:19:45,280
Speaker 1: Bob Ross bar crawl where upwards of fifty people dress

1312
01:19:45,360 --> 01:19:48,600
Speaker 1: up in frizzy wigs and Oxford button downs and terrorized

1313
01:19:48,600 --> 01:19:52,640
Speaker 1: local pubs. What convinces people to do this? Why? Is

1314
01:19:52,680 --> 01:19:55,920
Speaker 1: the cult of Bob stronger than ever? His former station

1315
01:19:55,960 --> 01:19:58,960
Speaker 1: manager Jim Needum speculates that, in addition to the chill

1316
01:19:59,120 --> 01:20:02,680
Speaker 1: vibes and uncon sational support, Bob's brilliance was that he

1317
01:20:02,760 --> 01:20:06,360
Speaker 1: quote gave people a chance to have control over a

1318
01:20:06,400 --> 01:20:08,880
Speaker 1: small part of their world, and they could make it

1319
01:20:08,920 --> 01:20:12,320
Speaker 1: however they liked. When asked about is relaxed and calm approach,

1320
01:20:12,400 --> 01:20:14,960
Speaker 1: Bob said, I got a letter from somebody a while back,

1321
01:20:15,000 --> 01:20:17,400
Speaker 1: and they said, Bob, everything in your world seems to

1322
01:20:17,439 --> 01:20:20,639
Speaker 1: be happy, that's for sure. That's why I paint. It's

1323
01:20:20,640 --> 01:20:22,840
Speaker 1: because I can create the kind of world that I want,

1324
01:20:23,160 --> 01:20:25,040
Speaker 1: and I can make this world as happy as I

1325
01:20:25,080 --> 01:20:27,920
Speaker 1: want it. Shoot, if you want bad stuff, just watch

1326
01:20:27,960 --> 01:20:31,160
Speaker 1: the news, so I'd say, in a funny way, Bob

1327
01:20:31,280 --> 01:20:34,120
Speaker 1: Ross and his work. It's a potent reminder that the

1328
01:20:34,160 --> 01:20:38,639
Speaker 1: world could be whatever you wanted it to be. Yeah,

1329
01:20:38,680 --> 01:20:43,200
Speaker 1: it's you can um. Candid m Voltaire says, we should

1330
01:20:43,200 --> 01:20:46,040
Speaker 1: just tend to our gardens, you know, just focus on

1331
01:20:46,040 --> 01:20:48,639
Speaker 1: the joy you give people and what you can create

1332
01:20:48,840 --> 01:20:52,599
Speaker 1: in your own little happy world. You can substitute anything

1333
01:20:52,600 --> 01:20:58,400
Speaker 1: for painting and the joy of paint, the joy of jogging,

1334
01:20:58,479 --> 01:21:04,080
Speaker 1: the joy of whatever. What your Yeah, don McLean. No

1335
01:21:05,880 --> 01:21:10,040
Speaker 1: air conditioner repair. There's an art and air condition or repair. Anyway.

1336
01:21:10,120 --> 01:21:13,480
Speaker 1: This has been too much information in a very heartfelt

1337
01:21:14,280 --> 01:21:18,040
Speaker 1: deep dive into Bob Ross. Thank you folks for listening.

1338
01:21:18,120 --> 01:21:20,760
Speaker 1: I'm Alex Tagel and I'm Jordan run Talk. We'll catch

1339
01:21:20,760 --> 01:21:28,320
Speaker 1: you next time. Too Much Information was a production of

1340
01:21:28,360 --> 01:21:31,559
Speaker 1: I Heeart Radio. The show's executive producers are Noel Brown

1341
01:21:31,640 --> 01:21:34,639
Speaker 1: and Jordan run Talk. The supervising producer is Mike John's.

1342
01:21:34,840 --> 01:21:37,680
Speaker 1: The show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan run

1343
01:21:37,760 --> 01:21:41,000
Speaker 1: Talk and Alex Hegel, with original music by Seth Applebaumb

1344
01:21:41,040 --> 01:21:43,679
Speaker 1: and the Ghost Funk Orchestra. If you like what you heard,

1345
01:21:43,760 --> 01:21:46,480
Speaker 1: please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts

1346
01:21:46,479 --> 01:21:48,800
Speaker 1: and I heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,

1347
01:21:48,920 --> 01:21:51,839
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

1348
01:22:01,280 --> 01:22:03,439
Speaker 1: Eight five