Bob Ross: The Happy Painter - Full Documentary

Video Statistics and Information

Video
Captions Word Cloud
Reddit Comments

Founding father of ASMR

👍︎︎ 11 👤︎︎ u/Alamkara 📅︎︎ Jan 24 2019 🗫︎ replies

Bob Ross liked fast cars? Imagine him as a top gear host.

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/Burgoonius 📅︎︎ Jan 24 2019 🗫︎ replies

ahhhhh :)

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/_sonisalsonamedBort 📅︎︎ Jan 24 2019 🗫︎ replies

Uhhhh you mean he didn’t naturally have an Afro? My life is a lie.

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/Plagueground 📅︎︎ Jan 25 2019 🗫︎ replies
Captions
- Hi I'm certainly glad you could join me today. You ready to do another fantastic painting with me? (bright music) - [Narrator] You recognize his iconic image. - Who's this? This is Bob Ross. This is the most famous painter in the history of the universe. - [Narrator] Signature phrases. - A happy little cloud that floats around it, just has fun all day. - [Narrator] And soothing voice. - Anything that you want you can build here. This is your world. - [Narrator] Bob Ross is one of public television's most beloved personalities. - The Bob you see on the show, is the Bob that we all knew even behind the scenes. - I used to watch Bob Ross all the time. The thing I remember was his positivity. He made you want to do that. - He wasn't only a painter, he was an entertainer in his own right, without any flash, his paintings spoke for him and he kind of took you by the hand and led you along the way. - I talk to only one person when I'm filming and I'm really crazy about that person. - [Narrator] Some watched for his easy to learn painting technique. - When I watch his method, I go it is, wow how does he do that? It's amazing and he makes it look incredibly easy, but the interesting thing is that when people actually try to do it, they have success. - Once you have the technique down, all you need is a dream in your heart and a desire to put it on canvas. - [Narrator] And some we're just captivated by his calming demeanor. - And I think maybe that's part of the magic. I think his voice was part of it, his presence, his manner, his tone. I think his sincerity came across, and I think people relate to that, they still relate to that. - Every legend has an intangible aura or something and I just imagine whenever you're encompass of greatness you know people just want to be around it. - [Narrator] Bob Ross is public television's most recognizable artist. - Everybody knows Bob Ross and especially his hair. - [Narrator] This is the story of a young painter with a dream to share the joy of painting with everyone. - My father, he spent most of his time when he came home from work, watching public television. He would have us watch Bob Ross, where we would learn how to paint and learn how to use our imagination. - I'm sure the word magic gets used a lot but I mean it really is like magic. I mean, he'd mix up this color and I'm gonna take a little bit of this yellow and stick it in this black, and you think what, right. That's so counterintuitive, and then takes like a palette knife and gets a little thing and (whooshing) and there's a tree, and it's like how'd you do that? - People continually say I can't draw a straight line, I don't have the talent, Bob, to do what you're doing. That's baloney. Talent is a pursued interest. In other words, anything that you're willing to practice, you can do. - [Narrator] This is Bob Ross, the happy painter. (bright music) But before Bob became one of the most popular artists on television, Robert Norman Ross was just a boy from Daytona Beach, Florida. He was born on October 29, 1942 and grew up in the Orlando area. Each of Bob's parents helped shape his life in critical ways. His father Jack was a builder. - [Bob] I used to be a carpenter years ago. My father was a carpenter and he taught me that trade. I tell you what, it isn't that easy to make a shed on a barn. - He lost a finger helping his father. When there's a pallet shot you can see the missing finger, but because it was on his left hand and not his right hand, it didn't affect his ability to hold the brush. - Lender brushes are very very soft. My father used to say their tender as a mother's love and in my case that was certainly true. I'm very prejudiced but I think I had the greatest mother there was. - [Annette] She had the largest influence on him. She's the one who taught him the love of wildlife. Second to painting or maybe even more than painting, Bob loved wildlife. - [Bob] I think when I was a kid I must have had every kind of pet imaginable. I lived in Florida so I had access to a lot of creatures, but I had a pet snake. I mean he got out of the cage and was lost in a house for a long time. My mother got up and went to the bathroom one night, he was in there and scared her. - [Narrator] But Bob's childhood wasn't all that easy. - [Annette] Bob says that they were not wealthy and really I think he viewed these wild animals, anything he could get his hands on as toys and entertainment. - [Narrator] His mother and father separated when Bob was very young. His mother remarried briefly and had another son, Bob's brother Jim. - [Bob] When I was a kid I used to sit around and you know my brother and I we'd look at clouds and we'd pick out all kind of shapes, we'd see the mean old which or the or the Candy Man or whatever. - [Narrator] 20 years later, Bob's mom married his dad again, but they didn't have long together. Bob's father died soon after they remarried. School was also tough for Bob. - Do these little X's, see? Little X's. There, that's just the way the teacher used to grade my paper in school. She just run across it and go (clicking). - [Narrator] When he was just 18 years, old Bob joined the Air force. - I spent half my life in the military and I used to come home, take off my little soldier hat, put on my painter's hat. - [Narrator] He got married and had a son, Steven. - He has been painting I think since he was born. He was about 12 years old before he realized everybody didn't paint. - [Narrator] But Bob soon found himself raising a son on his own. His first marriage didn't last long. Bob and his son had a close relationship and years later after The Joy of Painting series took off, Steve would occasionally appear on the program and eventually became a certified Ross instructor, himself. - Steve travels all over the country, teaching hundreds and hundreds of people the joy of painting and I've asked him to come in today and show you what he can do in just a few minutes. So I'm gonna turn it over to Steve and I'll be back at the end of the show. Steve? - Thanks a lot, dad. - Steve was incredibly talented. Bob said he talks better than I do and he paints better than I do, but Steve never was someone we could convince to come on and work with the show, and I always regretted that because I thought he had enormous talent. - [Narrator] Bob and Steve lived in Florida for several years until the military transferred them to Alaska when Steve was a young boy. - I had been born and raised in Florida, and was 21 years old before I ever saw snow. - [Narrator] Bob remarried and settled down near Fairbanks, Alaska with his new wife, Jane. She was a civilian worker with the Air Force. For more than a decade Bob worked mainly as a medical records technician at the air base hospital and cultivated his love of painting. He was inspired by the snow capped mountains that surrounded him, and sold his paintings to tourists. (upbeat bright music) - He was a part time bartender, and he was painting gold pans in Alaska and selling them in the bar to make money. - [Narrator] One day the tavern's television was tuned to a PBS station. Bob looked up and saw a painting show hosted by a German man, named Bill Alexander. - How long can you hide a dream? How long can you have creative power? You need that almighty creative power. - [Narrator] Alexander was painting scenery that Bob was familiar with, and he was using a centuries old painting method called alla prima, which means direct painting or all at once. The basic premise is that a thin paint will stick to a thicker paint. Alexander called it the wet on wet technique. - Years ago Bill taught me this fantastic technique and I feel as though he gave me a precious gift, and I'd like to share that gift with you. - [Narrator] This method allows you to layer colors of paint on top of one another and blend them right on the canvas. Traditional oil painting requires you to wait for each application to dry before adding a new color, but the wet on wet technique is more user friendly because it allows you to paint very quickly and if you make a mistake you can just blend it away. - [Bob] Because as you know we don't make mistakes. In our world we only have happy accidents and very quickly, very quickly you learn to work with anything that happens on this canvas. Anything. - [Narrator] This painting style was exactly what Bob was looking for. - I remember when he was in the Air Force up in Alaska. We went up there and he was excited about watching someone on television and he says, "That's what I want. "I want to paint before the bubble bursts. "I want to get my painting on the canvas "before I lose my idea." - About 1975 I saw Alexander on television and like millions of other people I fell in love with him, and it took me about a year to find him. I studied with Bill and when I retired from the military they offered me a position with his Magic Art Company as a traveling art instructor. - [Narrator] Bob's wife Jane and his son Steve stayed in Alaska for a couple more years until Jane was eligible for retirement. - So she allowed Bob to leave Alaska with $1,000 and told him to either go out and make his fortune or come back home. He promised her, "I'll go and do this, "if it doesn't work I'll come back home "and do domestic stuff and be a good husband and father." And so she stayed in Alaska and waited. - [Narrator] Although he was leaving the land of snow covered mountains, they left an indelible mark on Bob. - I lived in Alaska for about a dozen years and it has some of the most beautiful mountain scenery there that I've ever seen. Absolutely gorgeous. - [Narrator] That breathtaking scenery would serve as his inspiration for the rest of his life and would eventually become Bob's signature subject. He took that thousand dollars and set out to try and spread the Joy of Painting. Bob was teaching Bill Alexander classes all over the country. He happened to land one in his native state of Florida and that's how he met Annette Kowalski, in one of his painting workshops, and Bob's life would never be the same. - I had just lost a child and was still in mourning. My husband would have done anything to pacify me and make me happy. So he said, "Okay, I'll drive you to Florida, "which is the only place you can "take a Bill Alexander class." So I called the Alexander Company in Oregon and they said, "Yes, we have some classes in February." Unfortunately Bill Alexander has retired and there's this guy named Bob Ross who's teaching his classes and I was so unhappy. - [Narrator] Annette enrolled in a seminar that was five full days of painting. - [Annette] During that five days, I became aware of an effect that Bob was having on these students. Very calming effect, very quiet. I had never seen anything like it I was mesmerized by him. - She kept insisting that there was some something there that had to be packaged or bottled and that's what I was hearing almost every single night as we had dinner and I think that was the driving force. - [Annette] So the last day that we were in Florida on a Friday night, we went to a local hamburger joint and we invited Bob to join us, and he agreed. I said to Bob, "I sure wish you would come "to Washington DC and teach a class." So he said, "Okay, okay. I'll do that." - [Narrator] So Bob quit working for the Alexander Magic Company and formed a partnership with Walt and Annette Kowalski, who were living in Northern Virginia. Teaching their own painting classes sounded like a good idea but getting people to enroll wasn't easy. No one had ever heard of Bob Ross. - [Walt] We tried to get Bob into a shopping mall and demonstrate and in turn try to recruit students for the classes that would occur maybe three days later. - [Annette] We didn't have much success, even though we ran expensive newspaper ads and paying all the salary, and no students. - [Narrator] They thought maybe the classes weren't filling up because people were working during the day. So Bob decided to offer an evening class. - One man came to our evening class, and I said, "Bob we're not gonna "stay here teach this one man." And he said, "Oh yes." And at the end of the class the man said, "I'm so impressed with you. "The idea that Bob would take the time "to teach just me to paint, "I'd like to make you a proposition. "I'm a business man," which was his way of saying I have a lot of money. "I would like to offer you a million dollars," and in return he wants 40% of what we do for the rest of our lives. - [Narrator] They turned down that offer and decided to keep pursuing their dream on their own terms, teaching painting classes in art stores and shopping malls, but they had meager attendance and mounting expenses. One of the ways Bob tried to save money was by getting his straight hair permed. - [Annette] He thought that if he got his hair permed he wouldn't have to pay for haircuts, and he could save the thousand dollars Jane had given him. - He was the best man in our wedding and one day a number of years later my kids were looking through our photo album. They kept saying who is this man in these wedding pictures? I said, "Well you know who that is." I said, "Well that's uncle Robert." They said, "Nah-ah." (laughs) And I said, "Yes, it is." And they said, "Well he don't have curly hair here. I said, "That came later." - [Annette] Probably one of the most important things Bob said to me was, "If you do what you love, the money will come. "Don't think about money, "just do what you like." - To me the first step of accomplishing anything is to believe that you can do it. - [Narrator] But they needed a next move, a turn in the right direction. So Annette called Bill Alexander and asked him to make a commercial with Bob promoting his classes. I hand over that almighty brush to our mighty man, Bob. - Thank you very much, Bill. We've had so many cards requesting classes in this area that we've decided to set one up here and we will have a class going in the near future. We'll produce some almighty painters. - [Narrator] But the commercial wasn't recorded on a standard size tape. It needed to be converted to a format that television stations could air. So they took the commercial to their local public television station in Northern Virginia, WNVC. - When they saw Bob painting on this tape, they got very excited and they came to us and said, "Wow this guy is wonderful. "Would you agree to do a television series?" And we said would we ever (laughs). - [Narrator] They came up with the idea for a show and called it The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. - Hi, I'm Bob Ross and for the next 13 weeks I'll be your host as we experience The Joy of Painting. - [Narrator] At the beginning of the show, Bob would start with a blank canvas and finish less than a half hour later with a completed oil painting. - [Annette] Bob told me that he went through every brush stroke in his head when he was in bed at night of how he would execute that painting on TV. - [Narrator] Every element of the show was thought out, from Bob's standard long sleeved dress shirt and jeans to the soothing tone of his voice. - [Annette] He said, "Annette, these television "programs could go on for years." Little did he know. "I want to be sure and wear something "on television that looks as good 30 years "from now as it does now." I think the hair he was a little sorry about, and he couldn't change that because we had made a logo out of it. - He hated his hair but it was his trademark and he had to do it, and it really really bothered him. - I talked to him about it a couple of times and said you know, "Have you thought "about changing your hair?" And he said, "No, this is my trademark," and he had decided that's what he would look like and people loved it. - What a signature look. Yeah, I mean, it's like fantastic. - [Narrator] Even the simplicity of the set was no accident. - It was just a black curtain environment. Bob and his easel, three cameras. I ran the camera that Bob talked to. - Richard's been with me since the first series and as you can see Richard has finally got smart and he now wears a raincoat. He got tired of all his clothes being painted. - Bob's original idea was to have this elaborate set that looked like a trapper's long cabin, whatever, and this was the original intent, but it finally dawned on Bob that he would not create the intimacy with the viewer with all of that in the background. - He liked the intimacy of the small space and it allowed him to feel the kind of intimacy and to sound intimate and be intimate with us, the audience. - [Annette] He said he pretends like he's talking to one woman in bed. - I talk to only one person when I'm filming, and I'm really crazy about that person. It's a one on one situation that I think people realize that and they do feel that they know me and I feel that I know them. - [Narrator] Bob wanted to publish a how to book to go along with The Joy of Painting program. - WNVC said, "I'm sorry we can't publish the book, "if you want a book you're gonna have to publish it," and it was going to cost thirty thousand dollars. So Walt mortgaged our house and we published Bob's first book. - [Narrator] The book had the same step by step approach of his television program. They would go on to produce a book for every series of The Joy of Painting, and Bob would dedicate each one to someone meaningful in his life. - [Annette] Bob gets all the credit for these books. After he filmed a painting in front of the cameras, we would then go back home and he would repaint that painting, and I would stand behind Bob with my Canon 35 millimeter camera and he would make me take about 50 photographs, the whole time he was painting, and those were the how to photos that he wanted in that book. - [Narrator] Series one aired on many public television stations on the East Coast but the audience was small. - And the time you sit around worrying about it and trying to plan a painting you could have completed a painting already. - [Narrator] And the quality of the audio and video was so poor that the first series of The Joy of Painting was never aired again, and the book that goes along with it is a rare find. The partnership with WNBC dissolved. - I think we'll call that finished and I want to thank you very very much for watching us. I hope to see you again in the near future. - [Narrator] Bob would have to look for a new home on public television. With series one of The Joy of Painting under his belt, Bob forged ahead teaching painting classes across the country and looking for a new television station to partner with. - Our dream was to move this inland to the Midwest. Walt was tracking where Bill Alexander's program was popular. Those were the cities that we wanted to hit with our classes. Phil Donahue was very big in those days and he was coming out of Chicago. We wanted to run commercials on the Phil Donahue Show, but where would we get a commercial? - [Narrator] Once again he turned to public television. This time in Muncie, Indiana, just across the state line from Chicago. - In 1981 funding for Public Television got really bad and a committee was formed in Congress called The Temporary Committee For Alternate Funding, we called it TCAF, and out of that committee there became a legislation that allowed for 10 public television stations to actually sell commercials. WIPB was one of those stations. Well I was sitting in my office which happened to be the upstairs bedroom of this television studio which was an old house, I look out the window and this VW bus pulls in the driveway and we're thinking okay and this bushy haired man gets out and this lady with him and they come walking up to the door. He says, "Well hi. "My name's Bob Ross and we're doing a demonstration "and some classes at your mall down the street, "and was wondering if you could give any publicity to us?" And I looked at our production manager and I said, "Have we got a deal for you." - [Narrator] WIPB be produced a commercial promoting Bob's painting classes and aired it before and after Bill Alexandra's program. Walt and Annette also bought airtime on the Phil Donahue Show. All that advertising paid off. The class was such a success that Bob thought about making WIPB be the permanent home of The Joy of Painting, so he went to see the general manager. - He said, "Well we we'd like to talk "to you about an idea we have." And I said, "What's that?" He said, "Would you would you go to lunch with me?" And I said sure so we took him to lunch. He said, "How about making a painting series?" - We did the first one and he made the painting in basically 26 minutes and 46 seconds and so we said well my goodness. How many of these can you do and he says how many you want to do? I said, "Well you realize we could "do 13, we'd have a series." So believe it or not in like a three day period we knocked out 13 programs. - [Narrator] The next step was to get The Joy of Painting picked up around the country. So they submitted the series to a national distributor to see if there was enough interest from other stations to carry the program. - It went up for a vote and basically Bob and Annette and I and a couple of others were in our office, we were actually watching this vote tally, and by golly you know it was a hit. They said oh yeah we'll take it. They designed a marketing campaign turning over Bill Alexander's technique and his legacy to Bob Ross. - I hand over now that almighty brush to a mighty man and that is Bob Ross. Congratulations. - Thank you very much, Bill. We look forward to seeing you right here on this channel for The Joy of Painting each week. - [Narrator] Now with a national audience, Bob was on the hook to produce a new program series every quarter. The production schedule was grueling. - We did the whole 13 programs that would be in a typical quarter, in one week here at WIPB. Bob would show up on Sundays, he'd place the paintings actually around the studio in which we're sitting right now, and he'd pick out the order in which he was going to produce them, and we would do the opens and closes of the shows, all of them on Monday, and then we'd do probably two or three programs on Monday. Then Tuesday we'd usually do eight or nine, and Wednesday we'd do what was left, and look at them again on Thursday and if we had two we did retakes. - The show was generally shot straight through live to tape. Occasionally if there was a technical problem or something like that they would go back and do an edit but he was producing those paintings as you saw it on television. - [Annette] He was very proud of that, that there's no trickery going on. And I should mention here that those paintings were not all that spontaneous. There was always a finished painting hanging off camera that Bob was referring to. - Tell you what let's get crazy today. - And he would say all these funny things like let's get crazy but he knew where he was going. He knew where he was going, but he's taking you on that ride with him, you know. He's keeping you entertained and painting all at the same time. - [Annette] But Bob insisted that nobody ever see the finished painting because sometimes he didn't have time to do everything that was in that painting. And he would have to leave out a big tree or a bush or a boat. - [Narrator] There is one exception to Bob's thoughtful planning, he did series two completely off the top of his head. - One night somebody broke into our motor home two days before we were to start taping, and they stole all 13 of the reference paintings. And that was the most spontaneous series that Bob ever did. - [Narrator] This new partnership with the PBS station in Muncie, Indiana was the right move for Bob. He would go on to produce the remaining 30 series of The Joy of Painting there. That's almost 400 episodes. - There's a lot of super people that put a lot of work into making this happen. It's not done just by coming up here and painting a little picture. There's a lot of people here in the studio that work very hard to bring you a nice production. They really do a good job. - It was always fun to work with Bob. It was always a week that I think we looked forward to when he would come back. - Bob had a wonderful sense of humor and so our days were spent more or less telling jokes and goofing off, and then when it came time to be serious and do the show you know then the Bob you see on the show is the Bob that we all knew even behind the scenes. - [Narrator] And when the work was done, Bob and some of the WIPB team would scour local antique shops for forgotten treasures. By 1984 The Joy of Painting could be seen in most parts of the country, but some stations still weren't carrying the program. While Bob was teaching classes in upstate New York, he gave every one of his students the home phone number of the local PBS station manager to convince him to carry Bob's show. - [Bob] Give your station a call. I don't know, let them know what you want to see, and when they need some help give him a hand. - [Narrator] Bob's wife Jane came down from Alaska to work with Walt on the business side of things. - Jane was very much involved. She did the secretarial work and the office work. - We were forever supplying Bob and Annette when they were on on the road teaching classes, and that's when we were in the basement of our home. - I was in college when they started this, you know crazy thing and came home one day for Thanksgiving or something and the house was just transformed it was no longer home. It was like a warehouse and a shipping dock. - [Narrator] At this point Bob and Annette were on the road teaching painting classes nearly non stop. - As Annette and I have traveled around the country teaching people we have made so many fantastic friends that have been with us for so long now, and that might truly be The Joy of Painting is the friends that you make doing it. - [Narrator] But all that travel was necessary for the sake of the business, because teaching painting classes was at the core of what they did. - [Annette] I think we all had a good relationship with our spouses, all of us did, but Jane allowed Bob to go out and do what he wanted to do. - My wife Jane, she's stood behind us and kept this thing going, and it takes a special lady to live with a crazy man. - It wasn't fun for them, it wasn't necessarily a lot of fun for us, but the encouragement was there from Jane and certainly I was going to all lengths to satisfy my wife as well. - [Narrator] The Oprah Winfrey Show called and asked if Bob would agree to appear and I said, "Oh, yes. "Should I bring the easel and the canvases and paint?" They said, "Paint? "No, we're just looking for couples that are "in business together but don't live together." - [Narrator] Without the opportunity to paint Bob turned down the guest appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. - [Annette] To Bob it was all about painting. It's always been about painting with Bob. - [Narrator] But the stress of turning this dream into a reality wore on them, and many times Annette, Walt, or Jane talked about throwing in the towel. - Fortunately there was never a consensus. Not all four of us agreed at the same time, so it just sort of, we were on a shift. Those who objected or wanted to quit were in favor, and then the others would switch over and decided let's cash it in. - [Narrator] But Bob's persistence kept them all going. - [Annette] Well he never wanted to quit. - No, he was probably one of the-- - And I was the one who most wanted out. - [Narrator] His complete dedication to painting and teaching others to paint was the driving force. What ultimately led to Bob's unprecedented success hosting a painting program, was his unwavering belief that anyone could learn to paint. - You often hear that to be an artist you have to be blessed with your own talent. I think Bob's really reversed that notion, anybody can paint. He said just a little bit of practice and anybody can paint. - You know just recently I was doing a demonstration in a mall, and I had a man come to me and he said, "Bob I could never paint because I'm color blind, "all I can see is gray tones." So I thought today we'd do a picture in gray just to show you that anyone can paint. - That's the miracle of Bob Ross. He starts very simply and it just layer and layer and he builds, and anyone can do it. - [Narrator] That was part of the magic, Bob's unyielding encouragement. He said all you need is a desire to take that first step. - I remember putting my knife out for the first time and just shaking. From where I came from with absolutely no background in art, not knowing anything about brushes, paints, canvases, I didn't know anything and I actually sat down in front of the canvas and did something. I was amazed that what I could do. - It's brought painting to the, or the ability to create something to the average person, and you know they know they're never gonna be a famous artist, I think, maybe they will be. But when they sit down they just get into their own world and it's a nice place to get. - [Narrator] Bob nurtured the confidence of his viewers and for many people painting gives them a feeling of accomplishment and that's part of the joy that Bob was trying to spread. - There is joy in that in painting and creating something and being proud of it, and you can see the looks on people's faces when they're proud of their painting. It's like they just can't believe they did that. - You feel so important when you're doing that. You know when you're putting that paint on that canvas, you are doing something that up until that moment was in a couple of tubes and a blank canvas sitting there. I mean it wasn't doing anything for anyone, and you're taking those same exact things and with just a little bit of energy you've taken this and made it into a creative and a wonderful thing. - [Narrator] But the fact that a first timer can achieve immediate success using the wet on wet technique is part of the criticism. Traditional artists chastise the method as being overly simplistic. And some say his landscapes use color combinations not found in the natural world. - Most people think that art is something that's very complicated that you have to go to school for a hundred years to learn, and we try to teach them that that you can do a very good painting with very little instruction, a lot of happiness, and teach them how to create. - People don't believe that he had any real talent, that he just put paint on a canvas. In actuality, he does everything that traditional artists do. He just doesn't talk about it. He just doesn't talk about it. He doesn't say, he doesn't use the word perspective, he'll say make the color light in the distance. - I think the hardest part with painting is is knowing the balance you know, where the foreground and the background and not putting things in the middle and of course when you watch what he does as a professional, you realize that he does all of that for you, but he's not telling you okay these are the rules, you don't do this and you don't do that. He just automatically does it. - [Narrator] But Bob never let the critics get to him, because it was not his goal to be regarded as a great artist or even to teach others to be. - You say out loud your work will never hang in a museum. Bob! - Well maybe it will but probably not this morning. - Because why, Bob? What's the deal here? What are you telling us? - Well I'm trying to teach people a form of art that anybody can do. This is art for anyone who's ever wanted to put a dream on canvas. It's not something, it's not traditional art, it's not fine art, and I don't try to tell anybody it is. - [Narrator] His goal was to get people to experience the joy of painting, and he did that by removing the fear of failure. - [Walt] I think that's probably the main ingredient of Bob's technique, that he dismissed that sort of fear of beginning. - I think that you have to believe in yourself and you need the confidence belief to carry on. - I'd probably say he's done more for art than anyone in the history of art. He's got more people involved just because of his nature and he told them they could do it and they can. - [Narrator] Bob even acknowledged those criticisms in a spoof he did as an HBO filler to run between movies. Bob interrupts a formal art class when he comes to paint the house. When the class takes a break, Bob gives it a try using his own tools. With each series of The Joy of Painting Bob's familiar image and soothing voice filled more and more homes across the country. - I think our first series we managed fifty stations around the country, and probably for the next two or three years we didn't rise much beyond seventy five of the public channels and then sort of exponentially we went to 300. - It's on almost every station in the country still. It's like 95% of stations which is the highest of any of the art programs. - [Narrator] But most people who watch The Joy of Painting are just watching, the Bob Ross Company estimates that only around 3% of the show's audience actually paints along with him. Millions and millions of people watch him all over the world and only a small percentage actually paint. They watch him because they just enjoy him. - I hear people to this day say you know I watched that just so that I can hear his voice. - My method of viewing Bob Ross was definitely turn on the TV and watch and listen and just be captivated. I couldn't possibly lift a brush while Bob Ross was talking and working because you just get so sucked into what he's doing. It was amazing because his subject matter didn't vary too much, but it never got old. It never cease to amaze me. - Every day I just come home from school and I like I really unwind when I watch his show. He's just like semi enchanting. He really puts like a good feeling into my heart. It's fantastic. - [Narrator] The secret to Bob's success was Bob himself. His warmth and gentleness were sincere but once he got in front of the camera he was well aware that his personality was part of the show. - His manner, he just seemed like the happiest guy in the world. I think that for me was very powerful seeing him and his happiness. The things that he used to say and the ways that he would always talk about the world and you can see the way he saw the world. - You just get swept off into this magical world where you're taken out of the present moment and you're taken into a fantasy reality, and yes it's his but it can become your own. - [Bob] You can make up stories, because this is your world and in your world you can have any fantasy that you want. - [Narrator] Bob cultivated a relationship with his viewers by engaging them in a one sided conversation. - If you think about what Joy of Painting was, it's TV death, right? It's a dude speaking softly and painting a picture, but it's one of the most beloved shows ever. - The instinct when you go on television, you see that red light go on, you know it's (babbling), entertain the people. The worst thing could happen to me was a moment of silence and all of a sudden comes along Bob Ross. Who's gonna put in a white cloud here you know, I remember thinking how'd this guy get a show? - [Narrator] And although Bob was speaking slowly and calmly he was painting rapidly. - Bob Ross for as mild as he was he painted like a bulldog. I mean he really like got in there was just, I mean he worked that canvas, he worked that painting, he expected a lot out of his materials and he got it. - There's things you pick up watching him like the way to do a pine tree with the fan brush where you just you know go straight up, get the little trunk and then you do little pieces all the way down with the fan brush and it's so fast and the next thing you know he takes a brush and he does a couple of swirls with gray and black and white and they're rocks. It was like so quick what he was doing and it's fascinating to watch. - [Narrator] Bob had a passion for life. - And of course he had a Corvette and he loved that Corvette. - [Narrator] And a passion for wildlife. He was known for having small animals or critters as he liked to call them on his show. - [Jim] This was not something we were happy with or encouraged but we allowed him to do it because Bob was Bob. - We had lots of creatures on the show, and squirrels of course became his trademark. He really loved squirrels and he had Peapod. - That's the one that just became famous and Peapod lived in his house with him for about two years and finally he said you know he really needs to be out in the wild and so he released him. - [Narrator] Bob was committed to rehabilitating injured or orphaned animals, and he would build elaborate cages for them. - Actually I lived a couple blocks from him and every now and then he'd say, "Oh I made you a cage today." And he would have made me one of these enormous wire cages and they were lifesavers. They helped me so much. - [Narrator] Bob rented an apartment in Muncie, near the television studio. It had a lake right out the backdoor filled with fish and Bob would feed them every day. - Well Bob had a heart attack while we were in Muncie. And he was bedridden for quite some time, and he worried about those fish. I stayed in Muncie with him while he was sick. So he said, "Annette, you have to go buy "the bread and feed the fish." - [Narrator] But even when he wasn't feeling well Bob always tried to stay positive. - He was always up, I mean he was a person that and I know he had bad days, he used to have terrible headaches, and I know that he'd have bad days but you would not know it if you didn't know Bob Ross. - [Narrator] He rose to stardom on the wings of public television and he wanted to give back to the system that had given him so much. - Most of these paintings are donated to PBS stations across the country. They auction them often, they make a happy buck for them. So if you'd like to have one you know get touch with your PBS station. You know NBC or ABC gets a thousand phone calls about a program and they say oh okay, we'll note that. PBS gets a half a dozen phone calls from you with a pledge especially they shut down and have a party. (laughter) - I'll never forget at an auction one time we were, he was painting a painting live and we sold it and the person that bought it said, "I'm coming in will you wait for me so I can meet you?" And the woman walked in with her walker about 11:30 at night and had driven for about an hour to get here, and she started crying, and she said, "I don't have too many good days anymore, "but when I watch your show it's the best part of that day. "I just want to thank you for that, "that's why I had to have your painting." And Bob thanked her and gave her a hug and he said, "That's why I do this." - [Narrator] But at this point the main source of income for Bob's business came from teaching painting classes and selling instruction books, and then a happy accident. The Alexander Company called and said they couldn't produce enough paint to keep up with the growing demand and suggested that Bob start his own line of products. - [Annette] Bob also took that opportunity to refine the product that Alexander had been using. - He reduced the size of the largest brush that Alexander was using, from two and a half inches down to two inches, and he adjusted the formula of the paint. - Bob was very adamant about what he wanted. He was kind of a perfectionist, because he knew the system that he developed would work for a beginner if it was formulated a certain way. - More than the colors being specific, is the consistency of the paint. It's very specific to the technique. They're very very firm. - [Narrator] Here's what it takes to make the Bob Ross landscape oil colors. - You measure, you put it in, you let it mix, and then thicker products go over a three roll mill, then the lab chemist comes and does a job on it and then if he approves it then it goes through to filling equipment. - [Narrator] Each tube of paint was printed with Bob's smiling face. As his products hit commercial shelves so did his image establishing his brand in the commercial art world. Now Bob could focus on growing his business and that meant training some instructors to go out and teach the method and the message of The Joy of Painting. As the demand for more television episodes plus more painting classes, both steadily increased Bob began to realize that he wouldn't have enough time to devote to both. In 1987 he created the first team of Bob Ross instructors. These students would go out and teach in Bob's place. - One of the things that we're trying to do is we travel around and teach this almighty method is we're trying to gather up an army of teachers and soon we'll have teachers that travel this entire beautiful country teaching this fantastic method of painting. - [Narrator] Seminars and demonstrations gave way to guest appearances in big cities. When he released his first hardcover book in 1989, Bob hit the talk-show circuit. - My next guest has been creating his magic for the past 10 years on his own show, The Joy of Painting which I watch all the time. He is the author of several books on the subject, his latest is called The Best of The Joy of Painting. Please welcome America's favorite art instructor, Bob Ross. (crowd cheering) Nice to have you on. - Thank you, very very much. - Why are you so popular? Most people can't paint, yet I find myself fascinated. I sit and watch you paint. - I think it's because that magic really does happen in 30 minutes and there's no editing to these shows. What happens really happens. - What is the easiest thing to paint, if somebody wants to start out, somebody in the audience or me, what would be the first thing you would say to somebody? - Probably just a little landscape because nobody knows if a tree is incorrect. If you put three eyes on there either you're Picasso or something's wrong. - [Joan] Show me, show me. - You know it's very funny you think that Bob would pull up in some big limousine and he would jump out and the paparazzi would be clipping and clip, clip, clip, but in fact we were like dragging easels and we were just a bunch of country folk just in the big city. - [Narrator] He was also invited to be a celebrity guest at the Grand Old Opry. Bob was a big fan of country music and his friend Hank Snow brought him up on stage. - And when they introduced him the crowd just went nuts. And he went up there and he was a little nervous at first and cracked a joke and everybody laughed and they cheered and he was on his way and they had a great interview. It was just a really cool thing to walk in there and have all these country music stars come up the Bob and say oh you're my favorite, I watch you all the time, I paint with you. - Annette Kowalski and I had a private class for one of country western's living legends Mr. Hanks Snow. - I've learned more in the last couple of days that I could learn in a year really. - [Bob] Well thank you. You're doing almighty things there. - [Narrator] By the early 90s nearly 300 episodes of The Joy of Painting were on the air in the US and then Canada. Soon translation started cropping up in Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Turkey, Iran, South Korea, and Japan. - It was on in Japan they said no take the soundtrack back up we've got to hear his voice. I think his sincerity came across even if you didn't understand the words. - [Narrator] By now Bob was arguably one of the biggest stars in the history of Public Television and host of the most popular art show of all time. - It's just wow. This guy has got it and that's kind of what it was, but he didn't let it go to his head, not at all. - I mean you would never know that he had this program that clearly had the attention nationally of people because he was just kind of under the radar. - [Narrator] When his second hardcover book came out Bob was once again called up to the networks. - Bob was looking at us and he's painting a mountain. I don't know. - Because he's famous for his landscapes. He says millions of people harbor a desire to paint and I think he's right. Wouldn't you love to be able to? - Well you know we've talked about this before I frankly have no, there's his book, I have no... - Artistic talent at all? - Absolutely not. None. - Tell you what if I can get you to pick up your palettes, we have a palette prepared for each of them. - That's this part, Reg. - And just sort of put your thumb right through the hole there, there you go. Hold it like, oh you look good. - Okay. - [Bob] This is the fun part of all this. We're just gonna paint a happy tree right here. - [Regis] Oh look, what I'm doing here. I'm painting. (audience cheers) - [Narrator] Bob rose to the status of pop culture icon with a series of promotional spots for MTV. - I do love to paint trees, you can make it wiggly. That's how I always do it. MTV, it's all just fluffy white clouds. - [Narrator] And a tongue in cheek commercial for hair care products. - Subtle color. - A little bit of color. - There's no ammonia or peroxide. Even conditions your hair. - You know people have done spoofs on Saturday Night Live, they've done all sorts of things and you know what can I say if you reach that stature, it means something in life, whether you actually like what they're doing or not, the point is that they know who you are, and he certainly had made a reputation of being a visible icon. - [Narrator] But Bob learned just how popular he was while demonstrating his products on QVC. When he got off the air a producer walked up to Bob and handed him a phone. He said, "Bob I got somebody on the phone "who wants to talk to you," and Bob said, "Who's that?" He said, "Marlon Brando's on the "phone and wants to talk to you." Bob, who was very humble, he was like, his jaw dropped. He just like, Marlon Brando wants to talk to me? It was phenomenal. That's the kind of magnet Bob was. - [Narrator] Although his career was at its pinnacle his personal life was starting to come apart. In 1992, he lost his wife Jane to cancer. And his own health was starting to fail as well. He was fighting his second bout of lymphoma. He'd had surgery for the original diagnosis long before The Joy of Painting started, and had been in remission for years, all of which was kept secret except to his closest friends. - He really got tired easily and that probably was a precursor to what was coming. - [Narrator] But when Bob knew he was losing the fight, he began making plans to carry on The Joy of Painting. - We had a couple of years warning that we were going to lose Bob. He worried that when he was gone the landscapes would go too and so he said, "Annette, I think you need to go "public with the florals that you're painting." - You know over the years I've got literally hundreds of letters from people saying teach us how to paint florals. Well, I'm not really a floral painter, I'm really a tree and mountain type person, so I've asked a very dear friend to come in today and help us with a little floral painting. I'd like to introduce you to my partner and longtime friend Annette Kowalski. Annette welcome to the show. - Thanks, Bob. - [Narrator] Around that same time they opened the Bob Ross workshop in New Smyrna Beach Florida to train the army of new instructors to carry on Bob's legacy. - It's viral. You teach five people to do it and they go out and they teach ten people to do it and then they teach 20 people to do it and it just keeps rolling. - That's what he wanted to happen is that everybody would still pass that joy on to the next person. - [Narrator] Then in 1994 about a year before he died, Bob was invited to be a guest on the Phil Donahue Show. - I recall thinking, you know when people watch the Donahue Show, you know, we hope we're interesting and then you know people will watch it and enjoy it. When they watch Bob Ross they went like this. You were mesmerized by what he was doing. I remember just leaning forward towards the television set. I couldn't get over this guy. I was crazy about the guy so, what do you do when you're impressed you invite him on your show which is what I did. You know you don't necessarily jump out of a cake, I mean you never were that kind of guy, put a lampshade on your head. - No. - You know you are so cool, you are so calm, you are yourself and you put together some of the most beautiful work I've ever seen. Look at the light shining in, I mean this is wonderful and so who's stupid to put his painting up after Bob Ross, the pro. All right, here I am, I'm about to embarrass the whole Donahue family here. All right? This is what you can do if you apply yourself and have more talent than I do. There you go. (audience applauds) The audience was just totally into this and you know when you're 29 years on the air with an audience every day, you get pretty good at reading audiences and this audience at the time that he did our show was totally wrapped. Sir, you wanted to ask. - [Man] Oh, my mom watches him all the time. - [Donahue] Yeah. - I go over there's she's always watching this guy paint, and she says he looks so good I wonder how they look in person and they look terrific, mom, in person, they look great. - [Donahue] Bob, thank you. - [Narrator] By the end of 94 Bob became too weak to continue to travel to Indiana from his home in Florida. - It was pretty clear as he started dealing with those issues that doing four or five shows in a matter of three or four hours was just getting be too much, and that's when we really just started saying we need to stop. - The the worst part of all for him was his hair, he was so upset because his hair, you know, he did go through a certain amount of radiation and chemo and his hair was falling out. Of course he had a wig at the end there but, you know, he had an image to keep and that was very important to him. - [Narrator] He had produced over 400 episodes of The Joy of Painting. The last series was number 31. - Bob was unable to complete series 32. I think he prepared ten or twelve of the paintings, and then he couldn't paint anymore and so we were never able to film or tape those programs but we do still have the paintings. - [Narrator] After he stopped recording The Joy of Painting, Bob went home to Florida and remained very private in his final months. Bob's life had always been about sharing the joy of painting with others. And even as his life was coming to an end, he wanted to find a way to share his love of painting and wildlife with children, and so he teamed up with a crew from Muncie to produce a children's program called The Adventures of Elmer and friends, but he was too ill to travel to Indiana to shoot the pilot. So the crew came to Florida and recorded Bob's parts from his home. - I'll bet the trees and animals knew all about old Walters treasure like it says. - But how does that help us? - I think you should talk to a tree. - Talk to a tree? We don't know any trees. - Oh yes we do. How about the happy little tree? - The happy little tree? You mean the one Bob always paints? - Yeah that's a great idea, we can ask him about the diamonds. - But where is he? - He's in your imagination but there might be a picture of him in this book. - It was really heartbreaking when we walked in and saw Bob because we hadn't seen Bob in so long. He lost a lot of weight, he'd lost a lot of hair. Just not the Bob Ross that we knew and God bless Bob he had the spirit and he had the willingness to do it, whether or not he had the energy was irrelevant. - [Narrator] In the end Bob was only able to participate in the pilot episode. On July 4th 1995, Bob Ross died of lymphoma. He was 52 years old. - He really touched a lot of people and made a difference in their lives and I think the painting made a difference but what he said made a difference. I think we're all looking for hope in life, even today and will always be and I think he was selling hope as much as he was selling painting. - He was just a wonderful wonderful man and we were so lucky to have him come and spend the time that he did with us. He was our friend. He was our best friend. - [Narrator] Bob's legacy lives on through the thousands of instructors who teach his method. - When I'm painting I feel like he's there with me, guiding me. It's so funny, it's an emotional thing. I can't describe how emotional painting can be for people and for me. - We continue to certify teachers at the same rate as when he was alive. There's probably 2,000 of them now and they're all over the world. - [Narrator] And Bob himself still lives on through his TV series The Best of The Joy of Painting. Blue Ridge PBS in Roanoke, Virginia presents the program to America's public television stations where more than 90% of the country can still watch bob paint happy little trees each week. - Who knew that like 30 some odd years later the shows are still running on TV. That's just fantastic. - There was a lot of pressure on us right after we lost Bob to replace him with another painter and we talked about it. I think the smartest decision we ever made was not to replace Bob with anybody else. He just will live forever. - This is 28 years later now and I can tell you the phone calls that we get today are identical to the calls we were getting 28 years ago, this is a new generation of viewers now. I don't think a lot of people understand the age range and the lives he's touched. College students, young kids, old, middle of the road, it's incredible, but yet the one thing is that man's legacy does not go away, nor should it. What he's given many people have imitated, never duplicated, but what a ride it was. - I miss him and I'm sure his millions of fans do as well. - Until next time, on behalf of all the personnel here, my partner's Walt and Annette Kowalski, I'd like to wish you happy painting. God bless my friend. (easy bright music) - The thing I love the most about it is he'll go, and then we'll put a little tree in here, dip dip dip do do, maybe it needs a friend, and maybe another friend. I just love that. - And you'd see like there'd be a part of the canvas that's done and he would be like oh I'm gonna put this here. All of a sudden there's a cottage. Where'd that come from? - I don't know if I agree with Bob on that that anyone can paint. I think anyone can do it anyone can enjoy it, so in that sense everybody should. I've seen some paintings that shouldn't have happened. (bright upbeat music)
Info
Channel: Bob Ross
Views: 2,316,859
Rating: 4.9325967 out of 5
Keywords: bob ross, bob ross inc, happy trees, coloring, art, bob ross asmr, bob ross marathon, twitch, happy accident, free, pbs, paint, joy of painting, kappaross, steven ross, wildlife, the joy of painting, stream, livestream, bob ross painting, asmr, painting, bob ross joy of painting, bob ross twitch, documentary, full, the happy painter, Phil Donahue, Jane Seymour, Terrence Howard, Duff Goldman, Brad Paisley, Jerrod Niemann, movie, full documentary
Id: MCwGOMloBPk
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 64min 16sec (3856 seconds)
Published: Mon Jun 11 2018
Related Videos
Note
Please note that this website is currently a work in progress! Lots of interesting data and statistics to come.