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Bob Ross is used to painting a landscape in 26 minutes,
slightly less than the length of an episode
in his popular television series.
The series is The Joy of Painting.
Hello, I'm Bob Ross.
If this is your first time with us,
then let me extend a personal invitation for you to get brushes and paint along
and spend a relaxing half hour enjoying some of nature's masterpieces.
I think each of us, sometime during our life,
has wanted to paint a picture.
I think there's an artist hidden in the bottom of every single one of us.
Here, we will try to show you how to bring that artist out.
When you paint like this for any length of time,
you begin seeing things in your painting.
When you see these things, take advantage of 'em.
Take advantage of 'em, use 'em. They're like... they're like gifts.
Use 'em.
That's why I paint.
It's because I can create the kind of world that I want,
and I can make this world as happy as I want it.
Shoot, if you want bad stuff, watch the news.
Who's this?
- Bob Ross! - This is Bob Ross!
This is the most famous painter in the history of the universe.
Here's the man who does so much magic in one half hour on PBS every week.
Bob Ross painted this.
Is that fabulous?
Yeah.
I'd like to introduce you today to my son, Steve.
- Steve, glad to have you with us. - Well, thanks, Dad.
I've been wantin' to get this story out for all of these years.
Yeah, long time.
There have been some hard days in the past, no doubt about that.
I tell you, the best mountain painter in this technique
is probably my son, Steve.
Boy, that rascal. Whew.
He can paint some mountains.
Maybe we'll get him on here before the series is over.
Of course, he never could tell anybody... anything about it.
He was always...
pretty quiet... about the whole thing.
It's gonna be difficult to get people to do interviews for this film.
There's no doubt in my mind.
What they did was shameful.
And people should know that.
They should know.
On this canvas, I have absolute and total power.
I can always escape to this piece of canvas
and create any illusion that I want.
And now, here's Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford.
Hi, everybody.
Hi, Reeg.
Hi, everybody. Nice to see ya. Tuesday, December 3rd, 1991.
I'm just looking over here at, uh, Bob Ross.
I thought, for a minute, Bob was gonna do our portrait.
Bob is looking at us, and he's painting a mountain. I dunno...
He does... He's famous for his landscapes, mostly, Reeg.
- Bob, do you do portraits? - Not very well.
I... I do mostly trees and bushes.
Yeah, you do a great bush and tree.
Just out of memory, huh, Bob?
Yeah, I lived in Alaska about 12 years, so a lot of my scenes come out of Alaska.
Whew.
How you feelin'?
Uh... tired.
Yeah, this all happened so long ago.
Really havin' to pry the memories outta my head.
My father started out
painting the old metal gold miners' pans with my mother.
When we met, he loved to paint.
He would paint sometimes till two in the morning,
and he had to be at work at eight.
Bob was in the Air Force.
He got orders for Alaska.
We got married.
And then, a few months later,
I got pregnant with Steve.
Bob loved the forest, the animals, the trees.
I mean, he loved it.
I look at a lot of nature.
And if painting teaches you nothing else,
it'll teach you to look at nature with different eyes.
Bob believed in doing something worthwhile,
something he enjoyed.
The biggest thing was his painting.
What is he doing now? He's starting a new painting?
He's gonna finish it...
Within 30 minutes, he'll finish a painting.
Is that the background? You do background first?
Yeah, we're gonna use this tiny two-inch brush
- to put in a happy little background. - Yeah.
He's a happy guy, that Bob, isn't he?
I'll show you how to fix it.
Just a happy guy. Hey, Bob.
We'll give you double scale if you let us cut your hair in February.
The world is wondering if that's a perm.
- No? That's natural? - Well, you gonna tell my secret?
A lot of people spend an awful lot to get hair like that, and...
God gave that to you, right?
Well, God and my hairdresser did.
He was always a hair guy.
He loved messing around with different hairstyles,
as we can all see with his Afro on television.
The Afro was not real.
It was... a perm... a perm, and Bob liked to call that
"having his springs tightened" every few months.
And, of course, I remember him painting.
Every day, I would just have my jaw dropping open, you know,
looking at these beautiful works of art that just came outta nowhere.
Hi. Um... Do you wanna... Let's... let's start in the back.
- Yeah, sure. - We'll walk to the back.
Uh, show us the... old studio.
We'll go see where the joy really began.
Let's check it out.
My first meeting of Bob was 42 years ago.
He decided to take a painting class from me.
For the first assignment,
I just asked them to paint a picture of the thing that you love most.
Instantly, I knew he was an accomplished painter.
So, one thing that I definitely don't want to do
is... put forth the idea that I was Bob's teacher.
Many of the class would lay down their brushes
and come over to see what Bob was doing.
And you know, he loved an audience.
Always did.
My dad started off with traditional-style painting,
but he got tired of that.
My father was the type of man that, he would be on one project,
and in his mind,
he would be halfway through the next project
at the same time.
He had so many different plans
that those are the things he filled his head with,
rather than... uh, anything that was happening at the current time.
My parents, they had a pretty shaky relationship.
Eventually divorced.
We were livin' in Spokane, Washington, at that time.
Then he met Jane Zanardelli.
She had been base commander's secretary
on Air Force bases we lived on.
She was just head over heels for my father.
And he absolutely loved her to death.
But my father was always thinking about the next painting.
Hooray! That's what we have to do.
I have to put myself in that almighty bubble.
Bob saw a video done by William Alexander,
and he was very taken with what William was doing.
It almost made me angry the first time I saw Alexander on TV,
that he could do in a matter of minutes what took me days to do.
It got to be fast. Don't fiddle around for hours.
Too many details there.
People what don't paint,
they would think that guy works a whole year on that painting.
An oil painting can take days, months, even years to paint.
Bill Alexander accelerates everything with this wet-on-wet technique.
First, I put my almighty Magic White on.
He'll usually pre-prime a canvas with gesso, white, gray, or black.
Touch of Prussian blue.
See? Not too much paint.
And then he's putting oil paint on top of that.
The proper name for it is "alla prima," the first attempt.
It allows for certain things that you cannot achieve with dry paint.
In the mid-15th century,
it was used for hair
and certain fabrics,
just to give the effect of textures and movement.
The most famous instance, perhaps, of alla prima is Impressionism.
So, alla prima is a very, very, very old invention.
Bob said, "I really would like to meet this man."
He'd pretty much had enough of military life.
He just wanted to paint.
I knew a woman that would invite William Alexander
down to her studio for a workshop.
Bob and William hit it off nicely.
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 Magic Art Company
as a traveling art instructor.
He was teaching classes up and down the East Coast,
selling paint and selling canvases and brushes,
which were always a big part of these programs.
I met Bob Ross at the Muncie Mall in 1982,
and he was in there doin' a painting demonstration.
I was fascinated by him 'cause I already painted.
We had so much in common that... we just became friends.
There was a white-haired lady there with him.
She was there to help sell paintings.
Later, I found out that that was Annette Kowalski.
I'd like to introduce you to my partner and longtime friend, Annette Kowalski.
- Annette, welcome to the show. - Thanks, Bob.
My father met the Kowalskis through Annette,
who came to take a painting class from Bill Alexander.
Annette had already been a good artist.
There was no classes available from him,
but she found out there was a protégé of Bill Alexander
named Bob Ross.
She was... looking for something,
and, uh, she found it in... in Bob Ross.
And it wasn't just the painting. It was something bigger than that.
She felt renewed, inspired by Bob.
I had lost a son, and I was desperately grieving.
I was so devastated,
all I could do was lay on the couch and watch television.
She was changed forever, I think, by the death of her son.
Annette needed something to work her out of her depression.
I called Bob, and I said, "I don't know what you've got,
but I think we ought to bottle it and sell it."
She took him back home to Walt and said,
"Hey, you know, this guy's magical."
"We should try to do some kind of business with this guy."
I don't think Bob really understood what the future held for him at that time.
He was just not into it for the money.
But the Kowalskis certainly were.
The Kowalskis encouraged Bob to go out on his own
and that they were willing to invest in his own enterprise,
that, in many ways, were modeled on what he was doing with Bill Alexander,
teaching workshops.
They gave him his new career.
His new life, really.
That was before anybody even knew Bob Ross.
They'd say, "Who's Bob Ross?"
One day, he said, "Do you want to go to Chicago with me?"
"I think I'm gonna have a big class and I need help."
We get to Chicago. Guess how many people shows up.
To save money and to keep the business all in one place,
and everybody there to work, we moved in with the Kowalskis
for, I don't know, a year and a half, two years.
Which was, uh... very interesting.
Walt and Jane, they handled all the administrative work.
It's two married couples,
but one husband workin' with the other wife,
and then, you know, vice versa.
We got to know them more and more.
If there was something to be said within the family,
they would go to a separate room
and do their talking outside of the ears of other people.
Walter, at that time, had just retired from the CIA.
Like a lot of people who retire from the government,
he would use previous government connections
and ties in order to have success in business.
The Kowalskis always recorded their business phone calls
with a suction cup on the back of a telephone.
Which I always thought was pretty weird.
I just wonder sometimes how things would've worked out
if... if he had not hooked up with Annette and Walter.
That could've been better for him, and... I don't know.
It's... it's one of those unanswered questions.
At the tone, please record your message.
When you've finished recording, you may hang up.
Yeah, this is Dana Jester, returning your call.
Just give me a call back later.
Uh, thanks. Bye.
A lot of people are backin' out that agreed to do an interview for this
because they're scared of the Kowalskis.
The Kowalskis are really known for suing people,
so that's what they're afraid of.
Okay. In five, four...
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.
My parents decided to do a little ad spot.
And while Bob was painting,
the station manager walked by, and he said,
"What that guy is doing is remarkable. Let's do a series with him."
Knowing what Bill Alexander was able to achieve
through his broadcasts,
the Kowalskis thought that that could be a way
to create a... a newer audience,
which would, in turn, drive people to the workshops.
It was a very humble beginning, one that was not economically sustainable,
to one that became very economically sustainable.
We were in an old house, and... and we filmed in a living room.
That's the reason there's a black curtain, Because we were covering up the fireplace.
And the switcher, it was in the kitchen.
We start with a vision in our heart, and we put it on canvas,
and we're here to teach you to be able to do this too.
So, let's do it. Let's paint a picture, right here.
He filmed three shows in one day,
which was really a lot of work.
Painting in 28 minutes
and finishing an entire landscape was hard enough,
but that was just the beginning.
It was all the, "Turn the palette this direction,"
or "You've only got this much time left,"
or "Whoops. The example painting fell off the easel right in the middle of it."
"I don't know what to do. It's facedown."
And, "Where do I go from here?"
This is your creation. You can do anything here that you wanna do.
But he got better at it.
You gettin' excited yet? Are you ready to paint with us?
You can do it.
I don't even remember it from this angle.
It's been so many years.
This might be the very first place they filmed, and, uh, the place I was at
looked a little bit different than this one though.
Oh, lookie there.
Yep. They got all kinds of Bob Ross stuff right here.
This was the studio space.
So, we want to invite people to come in and celebrate Bob.
Mm-hmm.
Um, so, over here, we've got our X on the floor
where we're pretty sure the easel was.
Uh, we know it moved back and forth different times throughout the room.
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 you're willing to practice, you can do.
And this is no exception.
By the second series, he got rid of the glasses,
and he was pretty darn confident
that it was gonna go maybe even better than he thought.
I worked on Joy of Painting from the start.
I thought, "Wow. This is gonna be so much fun,"
'cause that was my favorite thing in... in production, directing.
I like tellin' people what to do.
At first, he'd have a painting off to the side,
so we kinda knew what it was gonna look like.
But eventually, he kinda just did away with that and had it in his head.
We got a minute or so left here.
But every time I gave him a two-minute cue,
"Oh, it's time for a big ol' tree!"
And I tell you, from the very last taping,
I always got nervous 'cause I wasn't sure if he'd get her done.
Okay, you ready? This is your bravery test, big-time.
Right here.
Pew.
But that's what makes it fun. Be brave. Take a chance.
All right. Here's your bravery test.
Pew.
There ought to be a big tree right here, though.
And by putting this tree in, it does two things.
It drives my director crazy, that's the first.
But the second thing is it pushes everything back.
It gives much more perspective.
It was like it was magic.
With Bob Ross, when something doesn't work out,
for the most part, he does what a good teacher would do.
You take it in stride.
Your next step is correction.
Hi. Glad you could join me today.
You sorta caught me piddlin' around here a little bit.
I get so many cards and letters from people all over the country saying,
"Bob, what should I do if I'm in the middle of a painting
and decide I don't like it?"
Over and over again, I say,
"We don't make mistakes. We have happy accidents."
And he's overcome this notion
that you have to have talent, born with talent,
blessed by the hand of God...
uh, to be able to paint, and it's absolutely false.
He believed that anybody can create things.
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 colorblind."
"All I can see is gray tones."
I thought today we'd do a picture in gray just to show you that anyone can paint.
It really spoke to Bob's heart that he was willing to do that.
Didn't know you had so much power, did you?
You really can do this.
Can move mountains, trees, mighty rivers.
We're gonna start off with a bit of the midnight black.
Maybe in our world, there's just a happy little cloud
that lives up here.
Shoot, when we were kids, my brother Jim and I, we used to...
we used to sorta lay on our back out in the field and
look up at clouds and see all kinds of crazy shapes in 'em.
I bet you've done that too, whether you'll admit it or not.
The Bob you see on TV is pretty darn close to his real attitude
about nature and about everything, really.
Today I have a couple of guests that I want to introduce you to.
These are two little baby robins. They're some of the cutest little rascals.
Hey. Ooh, what you gonna do? Huh?
He loved nature.
He had a canoe and would go out on a lake.
He would catch a few fish,
but he would always throw the fish back.
He wouldn't keep any of those fish.
He used to say he hunted with a camera.
This is Peapod. Peapod the pocket squirrel.
It fell out of a tree, and a very nice lady brought him to me
and asked me if I would take care of it till he got big enough to release.
You know, if he saw an injured animal,
he'd do whatever he could do to help.
One thing I've noticed as I travel across the country,
doing demonstrations and teaching classes...
only nice people paint.
Everybody I've ever met that's a painter, they're super people.
After the show started, every workshop was just blasted full.
'Cause there were so many people wanting to instruct, themselves.
So, he decided to do the teacher training.
I see most of you already have done it.
Like, the real thin coat of Liquid White on your canvas.
You guys been watching Bob so much, you already know all that.
Today, it's my privilege, as well as my pleasure,
to present to you
one of the finest teachers in the country, as well as one of my closest friends.
I'd like to present to you, today, Mr. Dana Jester.
Dana travels all over the country,
and he teaches literally thousands of people
The Joy of Painting.
We were the originate...
- We were there from the very beginning. - We were day one.
My son Steve, boy, he... he's a dynamite painter, and he just...
He's so young, and he gets so excited over this.
It's nice to see young people get excited over something like this.
We send Steve all over the country,
and he teaches hundreds of people The Joy of Painting.
Tap down into the paint.
And then, you know, these little areas that you have that are in between,
that are dark, you can just touch.
Bob liked the thrill of watching a new student smile
with a fresh, new, beautiful painting.
Bob would just make 'em so happy, it's... it's unreal.
It's like, "Man, did I do this? I couldn't have."
Yes, you did.
There's a lot going on besides painting, and I think people are aware of that,
and they enjoy that.
Despite Ross's success, he was not completely unique.
In the early '80s, other artists were also teaching on television.
We started on TV in '83,
the same year as Bob Ross.
Ross was doing his thing, his landscapes,
and we were doing flowers.
Bob would say, "I'm a mountain and tree guy."
He also said,
"If you wanna learn to paint flowers, go to the Jenkins."
At trade shows, Bob and I, uh, many times would have dinner together.
And after dinner,
we would walk around to see who got recognized the most.
'Course, Bob always won that.
Talk to me about what Bob was like away from the camera.
Oh, yeah, he's fun.
Well, I just wanna share a little secret.
He could be ornery.
He would tell us ornery jokes right before we started taping.
I think, just to loose... loosen us all up. But yeah, he was like he was on camera.
He was fun, and he had charisma like you've never seen before.
He was more energetic in life,
and he really liked fast cars.
The competition has nothing to match this car.
Chevrolet's incomparable Corvette.
He had a '69 Stingray,
all hand-molded fiberglass,
350 motor, built to the hilt.
Took me out one day in the Corvette. I said, "What are you doin'?"
He said, "Gonna take you on a thrill ride, dude."
It's not that he liked to scare people. He liked to thrill people.
Yeah, he was really into that.
The Kowalskis took care of the business aspects of the enterprise,
and they freed up Bob to do what he did best,
which was to connect with people.
Everybody just tried to work and do their job.
Jane, I mean, she was highly intelligent, you know,
and incredible at administrative work.
She taught me if you're gonna do a job, do it right, don't do it halfway.
And so, with Walt and Annette,
the two families, they had a really good thing going.
Within five years, everything seemed to be workin' pretty well.
His joy and his love just illuminated a room.
I just remember him making me feel like family.
Every morning that he got there for his show,
he would come into my office with his cup of coffee and tell jokes
and put his arms around us
and... and just tease us like a big brother.
He did have a heart of gold,
but he was also a showman.
I'm gonna get our little... our little soft blender brush,
very gentle, soft, little brush,
and just blend the base of that out a little bit.
Gentle, gentle, gentle.
Barely touching.
Just caress the canvas a little.
There we go.
I asked him, "Why do you talk this way on TV?"
And he said, "Well, you know, Bill Alexander was always kind of harsh."
You know, I use the other color already in my... in my brush here for the clouds.
They already have so much yellow. So, I like to have a change.
You know, his voice was harsh.
He was very hyper and energetic.
So, my father said,
"Well, uh, it seems to me that most of our audience is female."
"A lot of the audience is female,
so maybe I'll try to whisper."
In other words, he tried to create
almost exactly the opposite of what Bill Alexander was like.
Grab it and lift it.
Fluff it, tease it, pull it.
Mmm. There.
Make love to it here.
Very gentle. Very gentle.
The fact that he calls his show "The Joy of Painting,"
of course, is not coincidental
because that feeds into this whole tradition of how-to things
in the early '70s.
There's The Joy of Cooking,
but then The Joy of Sex.
That was a watershed publication.
It really makes sense that Bob Ross adopted a very similar title.
He's speaking with this liquid tranquilizer of a voice,
which is very sensual.
He pretends like he's talking to one woman, in bed.
It's true. He practiced.
He was trying to be a little sexy.
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.
And I think people realize that,
and they... they do feel that they know me, and I feel I know them.
Barely touching.
Just caress it.
Graze it. Caress it.
Shake off the excess.
And just beat the devil out of it.
Now also, if there's any questions we don't answer during the show,
drop us a line.
We'll be glad to try to answer almost any question you can come up with,
long as it's not too personal.
Let's see here. What's...
Oh. We're not gonna read that one on TV. We'll just... we'll set it aside and go on.
Bob was doin' a painting demonstration.
After he finished his painting, he goes,
"Steve, Dana, come here."
"Protect me. All these ladies are wantin' my autograph and followin' me."
- "I'm tryin' to go to the restroom." - They were rippin' his shirt off.
It's crazy.
Tryin' to get a piece of chest hair, even, or anything.
Bob was charismatic, but he was a little bit of a flirt.
He flirted with me, flirted with any female staff member.
That's just the way he was. He was just charming.
But I think he also did it to make people feel good.
Annette, uh, became quite enchanted with Bob.
I remember Bob Ross get-together in Daytona.
And everybody wanted to have their picture taken with Bob.
Annette was just jealous about relationships
that Bob had with others besides herself.
Bob would pay attention to someone else,
and Annette didn't like that.
That might've been a little... I'd say, little jealousy streak.
- I dunno. - Yep.
- Anybody that got close to Bob. - Yeah.
- She was like that. - Exactly.
Tell me a little bit about your impression
of what the relationship between Bob and Annette was.
Mmm.
I don't know. Do I go there?
Was Bob and Annette a thing?
Everybody always asks that question.
And the answer is...
Steve might know.
Mmm.
There was an affair between my father and Annette, yes.
When we were at the early trade shows in the '80s,
we'd go pick them up for dinner,
and they'd come out of the same little hotel room and all that.
We knew there was funny things goin' on there.
This was back in the '70s, I think.
No, '80s, honey. We weren't with Weber till '80.
It was... Everybody was sleeping with everybody else.
- Yeah, but okay. Let's get back to... - Okay?
You know, you can cut that out, but that's the way it was.
I remember it was Christmas night.
I heard some arguing in the bedroom.
Jane was asking him, uh,
"Are you having relations with that woman?"
The truth came out.
Bob and Jane, they worked it out.
But there was a rift that came between everybody.
Several months later,
when I was walkin' down the hallway, Annette was in the bathroom.
I walked by, and the door was open,
and she was in the dark, on the commode.
She had one cigarette in her mouth,
and, I think, two lit, sitting in the ashtray, just smoking away.
She said, "Steve,
you're the only one that loves me."
And I was like, "Wow."
Yeah.
There was infighting that started to happen.
When I first met Annette Kowalski, they seemed to be close friends.
But eventually, she stopped coming.
So, I don't know if that was kinda the beginning of the end
as far as their relationship.
I can just tell you that a lot of us relaxed.
We just... You... I just couldn't relax around her.
Um, and it just made it easier to interact with Bob with no filters.
Hi. Today marks a sort of an anniversary for us.
With this painting, we will have 100 Joy of Painting shows.
Isn't that fantastic?
I'd like to welcome you to the 10th Joy of Painting series.
- The 12th. - The 13th.
- The 15th. - The 17th.
...the 18th Joy of Painting series.
With the completion of this series,
there'll be over 230 Joy of Painting shows. Phew.
MTV. It's all just fluffy white clouds.
My next guest has been creating his magic for the past ten years on his own show,
The Joy of Painting, which I watch all the time.
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.
- Hi, Bob. Pleasure to have you on. - Thank you very, very much.
How did they find you?
We wanted to do a painting show. We went to a PBS station,
and, uh, they agreed to do one, and off we went.
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.
There's no editing to these shows. What... what happens really happens.
The sense people have is that as they watch you,
they really can learn how to do this themselves.
They really can do this.
We're getting 200 to 300 letters a day now
from people all over the United States and in foreign countries,
and they're doing this.
We had one lady that was 93 when she took her first class with us.
I got a letter from her when she was 94.
She just had her first one-man art show and started a whole new career.
Made it look easy. Just took a few minutes, really, and there it is.
Think you can teach anybody how to paint?
If I can get you to pick up your palettes,
and pull it through the dark color in one direction.
Make it thin.
All you do is just touch and give it a little push.
Good.
Very good.
- Hey, Bob. Check this out. - That's great. You're doing wonderful.
Hey, look what I'm doing here! I'm painting.
All right!
Recently, I had the opportunity to travel to New York City.
They have what they call Kids Day in the park,
and we were invited to come there
and participate and meet all the fantastic people from New York.
I was 12 years old at the time, and I had heard
that Bob Ross was going to appear in Central Park.
We ended up hopping on a train and going into Manhattan.
We didn't even know where he was.
We just started following crowds around Central Park, seeing,
carrying paintings that we had brought.
People came from all over to bring their paintings and show us
and to share a day with us that was spectacular.
Absolutely spectacular.
He took the time to come meet me.
I showed him some of my work.
He signed the back of my painting.
Everything you think Bob Ross would be is what he was when I met him.
Central Park was eye-opening for me.
And I was like, "Wow, this guy's really popular."
I couldn't believe it, how many people knew Bob Ross.
And no one ever would think he would be famous.
C'mon. It's the man who does the painting.
On the TV!
The Joy of Painting has become the most successful art show
in the history of television,
and I'd like to thank you very, very much for your support.
You've made an old man's dream come true.
People love to have heroes,
and that's what Bob became.
There's no doubt, on the commercial side of it,
Bob wanted to become bigger and more popular.
He was interested in success,
but, uh, not the way, the same way, the Kowalskis were.
The whole Bob Ross Corporation thing
was more about selling paint, canvas, and brushes
than it was instructing people how to become painters.
If you were to ask Bob Ross what was the price of a tube of paint
or, you know, "How many kits are you selling?"
he wouldn't know... not known any of that.
Welcome back. We're gonna run the colors across the screen,
in case you didn't get 'em last week,
and just let you see all the colors that we use on each series here.
When Bob got on TV, he had to find a paint distributor.
Ross and the Kowalskis knew that our sponsor was Weber.
Weber was a paint manufacturer,
so they thought, "Okay. Let's go to Weber and have them make our products."
He was really picky
and wanted a product that was exact to what his qualifications were.
The composition of the paint had to be just right
for this technique to work well.
But Walt wanted to make good money.
More profit is what it's all about.
He couldn't cut any corners 'cause Bob wouldn't let him.
Bob said, "I'm not havin' products out there that are bad
and, you know, have my reputation ruined for it."
The material end of things really was quite important,
but he wasn't into it for the money.
There was many, many arguments about this over the phone.
He wanted to teach people how to paint,
but through the selling of products,
they wanted to exploit that... for profit.
This is your world on this piece of canvas,
and you could do anything that your heart desires here.
You have absolute and total power.
This is the only place in the world I have any power.
Here, I'm the dictator. Boy, I can do anything here.
It's what's so fantastic about painting like this.
You have freedom here.
He called me and complained,
and he really, uh, was not happy with... with the way things were going.
Things just kinda went downhill from there.
Hey, there's my wife, Jane.
- Hi, Jane. - Hi.
And that's Annette with her, my partner.
And I would like to...
I'd like to dedicate this painting
to a couple of people that have really made The Joy of Painting possible.
There's been several that I'd... I'd really like to... to mention by name.
First of all, uh, my wife, Jane.
She's stood behind us and... and kept this thing going.
And it takes a special lady to live with a crazy man.
I remember walking into the back bedroom,
and, uh, for probably only the second time in my life,
I saw my dad crying.
And, uh...
uh...
in the fetal position on the ground.
Jane found out that she had cancer.
It wasn't long after that that Jane was gone.
I would like to take just a second and thank you.
I happened to mention that I had lost my wife.
I have received hundreds and hundreds of cards
from people all over the country, expressing their sympathy and support.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for sharing my grief
and... for making my wife a very special person in your life too.
Jane's death hit him really hard.
I can remember him sayin', um,
"My whole life went to hell in a handbasket."
Sometimes when you're not in such a good mood,
paintings have a tendency to get a little darker
because paintings reflect your mood.
Sometimes you're not even conscious of it. It happens.
You have light on light, you have nothing.
If you have dark on dark, you basically have nothing.
There we are. You know, it's like in life. If...
You gotta have sadness once in a while, so you know when the good times come.
I'm waitin' on the good times now.
Two or three weeks after Jane died,
the doctor said my dad had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
And then we wash our brushes, as you know, with odorless thinner.
Shake it off.
Beat the devil out of it.
That wet-on-wet technique does require quite a bit of paint thinner.
Almost every episode, he'd be smackin' that brush around.
Shake him off.
All the effervescence of the paint thinner
would float up right into his nostrils.
And cover the whole room.
Even while he was doing it, I had reservations about it.
Add the least little touch of paint thinner to your brush
and then go through the paint.
Now, I always wondered
if maybe that didn't have something to do with the lymphoma.
Uh, I'm not a doctor, but it's... it's speculation.
We'll wash 'em both while we got it goin'.
There.
He decided, "Well, if I don't have long left to live,
I'm going to do as much as I can."
It was "the show must go on."
Hello. I'm Bob Ross, and I'd like to welcome you to the 26th...
- To the 28th. - To the 30th Joy of Painting series.
And we just work all the way across the canvas.
Maybe in our world...
There live some little trees, far back here in the distance.
When I look back on it, Bob was really in a work mode.
He wanted to get at least three shows a day in.
And, uh, some days, he got a lot more than that.
Just have some fun.
This is a day you can just be crazy. Just spin things around.
When you see all those later series,
he was literally suffering from cancer.
He was very private about everything.
That was just what Bob wanted.
A little practice with this, and you'll be amazed
at what you can accomplish.
Every day is like a gift.
Something new happens on the canvas.
Here's a happy little tree.
Maybe there's a happy little cloud floatin' around.
Just little happy duders.
This show is playing in numerous foreign countries now.
Often wonder how they translate "duders."
The people all over the world, there's a common denominator.
Everyone loves to paint.
We knew that right at the moment when he was becoming
the best he ever could,
he was kinda being shut down.
All right, let's wash the old brush.
I think, partially, he used the work to keep his mind off of it.
Every day, I get letters from people all over the country
who have never picked up a paintbrush in their life,
and they've tried this, and it works,
and they've experienced a whole new world.
A whole new world.
I've known so many depressed people
that came out of their depression through painting and drawing.
It's important to express yourself through that kind of symbolism
and get out those emotions.
I'll never forget when I got the news that Bob had cancer.
My program manager called me into his office, and he closed the door,
and I believe he told me before the crew.
And he said Bob had cancer,
and I was, like, shocked because he hadn't shared that he was sick.
He didn't want me thinkin' about that while doing the show.
There.
This is really the highlight of my whole life,
is to make these shows and to join you in your home or wherever you happen to be
and paint along with you.
I really enjoyed being with you for the past 13 shows.
The old clock on the wall tells me it's about time to bring this show
and this series to a close.
During that time, I think the Kowalskis became worried.
If Bob dies, their business dies.
Hi, I'm Annette Kowalski,
and Bob Ross has invited me to share with you The Joy of Painting Flowers.
At our art retreat in Florida one day,
a lady throws a book on my table,
and it's Annette Kowalski's flower book.
And it says Annette has worked so hard
for so many years developing this new style of painting.
I just about had a heart attack.
Annette took my same diagrams
and almost copied 'em completely.
She uses almost the exact wording that we use.
In Kathwren's book, she's sitting in this peacock chair.
Annette is sitting in the same peacock chair
in the same pose.
Are you ready to start painting? I hope so.
We're going to angle strokes back.
You wiggle your color down the middle.
Angle the stroke towards the back.
Annette was doin' those floral paintings.
I said, "Those look like Jenkins paintings."
They're so eerily close,
and it's kind of funny that the brushes all look about the same.
Since the early '80s, we had designed badger hair brushes
for our signature line,
and then the vice president of Weber says,
"I'm sorry. You can't have these badger hair brushes anymore."
"They're on the endangered species list."
The big excitement around here is Bob's new floral brushes.
But guess what?
When Annette came out with her product line,
they had a beautiful line of badger hair brushes.
Bob was around Annette... uh, so much.
How could he not know?
We're gonna have Annette paint a little flower for you,
and I'm just gonna turn the show over to her and I'll see you later.
Thank you.
But what is he gonna do about it?
She just wanted to control the whole art market.
Our sales went down,
and the stations stopped our shows.
She did it so that there would be no competition from us.
She wanted us gone.
Dad was getting a little bit sicker,
and we all knew that we were gonna have to take care of him.
That really changed a lot of my thinking.
You know, "Why is he doing the things he did?"
"Why did he want what he did for me?"
Uh, "Why was he pushing me so hard?"
It's a great, great privilege to me
to be able to introduce the pride and joy of my life.
This is my son, Steve.
Steve, certainly glad to have you with us, my son.
- Thanks, Dad. - Tell you what. Do a super painting,
- and I'll see you later. - Okay.
My dad wanted me to do a lot of shows,
and I didn't want to.
Told me, "I'm tryin' to do the best for you."
He wanted me to be more successful than him.
Heck, one time, he even told me that on the painting show,
he didn't paint as well as he could because he wanted to make it easier for me
in the future when I took over.
And I thought, "What?"
Got one young feller that out-paints me when it comes to mountains.
That's my son, Steve. You might have saw him on some of the other shows.
He's just one of the most dynamite mountain painters
I've ever seen.
We didn't get him on this series.
Maybe next series, I'll get him back in here.
There was a power struggle between us, I guess you would say.
There was a little bit of a fight that broke out between us.
I wanted to go off and do my own thing, and he wanted me to do what he did.
It was probably a few years that we didn't talk much at all.
I'm still a little bit angry inside with myself over that.
If your parents are tellin' you to do something,
it's not 'cause they're trying to be mean.
It's because they care.
You know, they love you, and they want the best for you.
When he was getting weaker and weaker,
we started to do a lot more talking again.
We sat down and had a whole lot of discussions
about stuff that he'd never told me before.
In the beginning...
there was a voting system set up.
When Jane died,
he lost a vote.
Suddenly, Bob's opinion didn't really matter anymore.
It was more or less like, "We're gonna do what we wanna do,
and you're gonna do what we tell you to do."
After Jane had passed away,
I know that there were many hard feelings
from not giving Bob the latitude to be Bob.
He'd decided he was definitely not going to do
another series with the Kowalskis.
♪ So step right in This is where it begins ♪
♪ The Adventures of Elmer and Friends ♪
Hi, kids.
Bob!
How is everyone today?
- I'm all right. - Okay.
My father had always wanted to do a TV show for children.
He wanted to bring the art world even to the young.
By the time a kid gets to be 11 or 12 years old,
if he gets some negativity concerning his artistic endeavors,
uh, oftentimes, he gives it up.
Bob felt that there was a built-in audience for children.
I was just reading a good old-fashioned storybook.
I know he was excited about doin' it
and wanted to do it so bad,
but then that's when he became really ill.
He was wearin' a wig.
The Kowalskis got angry that Bob looked sick.
But he insisted, you know,
that he would be able to do the television show.
Walt and Annette were totally against it.
They both thought of Bob as something that they had packaged
and that they had made from the beginning.
They didn't want people to know he was sick.
When my dad was, uh, just about on his deathbed,
my dad and I went over to the Kowalskis' house.
We went back to the back bedroom,
and I laid Bob down in bed.
Annette started talking to me
while the door was closed, so Bob couldn't hear.
And she said, "You need to go in there and get Bob to sign this."
She said, "It's a contract for a memorial that we wanna build to Bob."
It looked to me like they were trying to get Bob to sign his name over to them.
I refused, and Annette became very angry and frustrated.
He didn't want to sign away the full rights to his name.
But that didn't stop them from trying to get it.
They knew he was gettin' closer to death,
and as he did, they got more desperate.
They were having big arguments
over who's going to possess his name after he died.
This went on daily for weeks.
I like painting because it gives me total freedom,
and it's the only place in my whole life that I've had total freedom.
Bob had decided that the way he was gonna circumvent problems
with the Kowalskis
was by marrying a nurse that he had known for a few months
while he was in the hospital.
He was trying to make some preparations for his half brother
and his son, Steve, to continue on.
For him to yell, he had to be extremely angry.
That's the most fun part of this technique.
Take out all your frustrations and hostilities.
You could hear him screaming,
"I'm not giving you my name."
"You're not getting my name."
The last phone conversation I had with Bob was in June of 1995.
He knew what was happenin'.
He said he wanted nothing to do with BRI or The Joy of Painting.
He said, "They're trying to steal my name on my deathbed."
And then I talked to him a bit longer and said,
"Well, I'll come down and visit you."
And he said, "No, I don't want you to come down and see me like this."
"I weigh a whole 85 pounds."
"I just want you to remember me as you saw me last."
He...
He didn't have any hair.
And he was skinny, so skinny.
And we had to wet his lips.
He couldn't drink.
His throat was... locked up.
I was watching my hero disintegrate.
We tried so hard to keep him comfortable...
...but, he was in so much pain.
I had to hold him up.
And he said,
"You're so strong."
After my dad passed, Annette said something to me I'll never forget.
She said, uh, "Aren't you glad it's over?"
And I thought, "What do you mean? Am I glad my dad is dead?"
I... I didn't understand what she was talkin' about
because every second that I could've had...
Every second...
would've been...
I mean, I would've given everything.
The Kowalskis did not show up at his funeral, at Bob's funeral.
Even worse, they tried to keep the fact
that the funeral was even happening a secret.
I can't even remember who called me.
They said, "Bob passed," and "Don't tell anybody,"
and "Get on the next flight to Florida."
It was crazy.
There was only, like, 30 or 40 people there, total.
I found out that he'd passed away by reading it in Newsweek.
I was always a little bitter towards the company
for not having gotten in touch with me.
I would've loved to have attended his funeral.
Uh, but that... that didn't happen.
They wanted people, I think, to believe that he was still alive.
And many people did.
Even to this day, I've had to tell people, you know,
that he's... he's gone.
After he died, things changed permanently for me
in the way I thought about everything.
The way I thought about life and death
and, uh, pretty much everything in between.
I think I had a small nervous breakdown.
After Bob's passing,
I kinda wondered,
"Now what?"
I started working for Bob Ross Inc. in 1995.
After he died, they asked me if I could introduce Bob Ross in Europe.
I was able to sell it in the public television of Germany.
I would collect the orders for paints and brushes, books.
Walt Kowalski was my prime contact,
but when we talked about the business, it was only very limited to my department.
In the beginning, I thought that, you know,
Bob died, and the Kowalskis were very, you know, sad about this.
But I started to notice, uh, changes at the Bob Ross Company.
They were becoming much more demanding on the Certified Ross Instructors.
Ross students told me
it was like walking on eggs in those certification classes.
The first day, their management shoots a contract in front of 'em.
The students were all asked to sign what were called "guidelines,"
which really were a contract.
You cannot promote any other artist.
You cannot use any other products except for the Ross products.
They had a suggestion box.
I called it the spy box.
You were supposed to call if any of your students or other teachers
had, uh, gone against the guidelines in some regard.
One particular friend of ours, the first day,
she gets tapped on the shoulder.
They said, "We want you to pack your paints and brushes."
"Don't say a word to anyone and leave."
She was mentioning to the other students,
"I really want to go to Jenkins's class."
Now, this was reported in that little suggestion box.
They were in complete control,
and they could act in the name of Bob Ross,
where Bob Ross never was involved.
One time, I was walking around in the warehouse.
There was a big table with a lot of paintings all over the place.
And I saw a guy painting, uh, with a script liner brush,
signing the signature of Bob Ross on the painting.
I thought, "Hey, wait a minute."
"This guy died, and now somebody's signing a Bob Ross painting."
"What's going on here?"
A lot of people are able to paint
almost exact copies of Bob Ross, and you don't see the difference.
I don't see the difference. Nobody can see the difference.
The difference, probably, is the signature,
but even then, you don't know if it is, uh, valid.
Walt, is that a Bob Ross over there?
That is a Bob Ross painting.
Because somebody told me that it was.
I can pretty much recognize a Bob Ross painting.
What do you think about the idea
that the only person that is qualified
to authenticate a Bob Ross painting is, in fact, Annette Kowalski?
It's bullshit, BS.
Sorry, baloney.
When I saw that guy, that was, for me, one of the triggers to say,
"There's something very wrong here."
The Bob Ross Company knew
that they were the largest client of Weber company.
Walt told me, "We have the right to audit the Martin F. Weber company."
And they audited the books of Martin F. Weber,
and they found some stuff which was not correct.
The management of BRI said,
"The only thing you have to do is kick out Jenkins."
"Destroy his line of painting,
don't support his TV show anymore,
and basically kick him out."
We were under contract with Weber, 16 years.
Super loyal to Dennis Kapp,
even though they stopped booking our workshops.
We finally said to Dennis, "We know what the Kowalskis are doing."
He said, "You know, it's just business."
"It's nothing personal."
It sure was personal to us.
We were such pioneers in the hobby craft industry.
We live, breathe, eat, sleep art 24/7.
We woke up one morning, and we were out of a job.
Being under contract with Weber
was the biggest, worst thing that could've happened to us.
The Kowalskis had no desire whatsoever
to spread happiness and feel-goods.
They only were interested in money.
There's so many Bob Ross products that are made now.
Coffee cups,
T-shirts, pajamas,
blankets, lunch boxes,
jigsaw puzzles,
ink pens.
Do you want me to keep goin'?
Your favorite painter, Bob Ross, Chia Pet.
- Fantastic. - Just spread the seeds.
As the interest has risen,
we've been very happy to supply people with Bob Ross products.
Like, so that they can smile every day as they drink out of their Bob Ross mug.
Everything what the Bob Ross Company communicated to the world was,
"Bob Ross this, Bob Ross that."
Bob died. Bob was not involved at all.
They care about control.
They wanna own the whole dang kit and caboodle.
I mean, I've had enough of it, to be honest with you.
Good morning. We're on the record
in the matter of RSR Art, LLC v. Bob Ross Inc.
This is the video deposition of Robert Steven Ross.
This is the video deposition of Dana Jester.
I'd had decided to put my name on paint and brushes,
but even using my own name was scary for me
because they believe they are the full owners of the name Ross.
I knew I would immediately be sued.
Our lawyer told us it's better to sue them.
It's cheaper than to have them sue you later
because they like to sue people.
Okay, let's, um, talk about um, my client, Bob Ross Inc.,
which I will refer to as BRI.
- An abbreviation you're familiar with? - That's fine. That's fine.
Was there more than one person who came up with the idea of creating RSR?
- It's a group effort. - M'kay. And who was the group?
That would be Lawrence, Steve, and myself.
- And Lawrence is Lawrence Kapp? - Yes.
My father owned Martin F. Weber Company,
oldest manufacturer of fine artist materials in the United States.
This is a video-recorded deposition of Mr. Lawrence Kapp.
For how long after you joined Martin F. Weber in 2001
did Martin F. Weber continue to produce Bob Ross licensed products for BRI?
Till... 2016.
Did you, uh, have any, uh, emotions or feelings...
- Well, uh... - ...about the decision
to let the contract expire when you learned about it?
I was very concerned.
Uh, I came up with the possibility of doing
Robert Stephen Ross brushes and paint.
Steve and I talked in July of 2016.
Lawrence approached him and said they could produce the paints, so...
I was told that, uh... uh,
you can't do something like that,
you know, because of his last name,
unless he owns the rights to his dad's name
and the rights to publicity.
The Bob Ross Company, the year after Bob passed,
sued both Bob's third wife, Lynda Ross, and Jimmie Cox,
going after, primarily, the paintings and physical objects.
Brushes that Bob Ross used,
palette that Bob used on TV.
They wanted all the paintings hanging in his house.
How would you describe your relationship with your uncle Jim?
Shaky.
Has it always been that way?
Yes, I'd say it has, come to think of it.
Never really thought about it before now, but yeah.
Steve was trying to figure out
if he owned the rights to his dad's name.
And in digging, he said,
"Oh my gosh. You're not gonna believe what I just found."
It was the first amendment to the Bob Ross non-revocable trust.
It literally said that Uncle Jim and I owned almost all the IP rights.
Everything my father didn't sign over to BRI.
He set up the trust that way because I was young,
and he knew that Jim was probably more responsible than I was
and it would be smart for him to control things.
Did your uncle Jim ever tell you about the settlement that he entered into
with BRI to... to settle this dispute?
Absolutely not. No.
It's correct, is it not, that in the settlement agreement
from 1997 that we just reviewed,
Jimmie Cox, on behalf of the trust,
assigns all rights of incidents and ownership,
creative works, or other assets of BRI of any kind of character to BRI, correct?
That is what this document purports.
What is... what is all this?
My own uncle had signed over those rights to them,
totally against my father's wishes.
When the Bob Ross company, in '96,
sued both the estate as well as the trust,
Jimmie, to make the lawsuit go away, signs the papers BRI put in front of him.
Lynda does the same, apparently,
signing over all rights to BRI.
In this settlement agreement was also mentioned some tapes.
My father didn't discuss a lot of business things
with us because, you know, the Kowalskis didn't want that,
but he was recording them on the phone.
They literally taught him how to do this,
and he knew that, in the future,
there was going to be a war with the Kowalskis.
All of those tapes were part of what they sued his wife
that married him two months before he died.
They probably disposed of those
so that nobody could discover
exactly what was said.
They literally wanted to steal Dad's name.
And did.
I was still hopeful I could file appeal.
What we ran into was a lack of funding.
My attorney said 90 grand
should get us through the appeal and win the case.
I was unable to come up with the 90 grand in funding,
and it did not go the way I expected.
The appeal portion really added a dollar figure onto it
we weren't capable of handling.
Steve went back to Florida and went into seclusion
and didn't respond to phone calls.
But finally, I called him and woke him up.
Just shook him a little bit.
I said, "Don't waste your life."
"I know that's not what your dad would want you to do."
Once I started to paint again...
...I realized I can take these emotions that I had
and turn them into something.
The Kowalskis made millions of dollars
from, I would say, exploiting his name and image.
But he brought so much happiness to people.
And that's what's important.
It's unbelievable what you can do with a big ol' two-inch brush
if you'll devote just a little bit of time to practice.
And it doesn't take a great deal.
We get letters from people every day that have never painted,
who are doing some of the most beautiful things.
They've learnt to create their own masterpieces.
It's what makes all this worthwhile.
The fact that people are doing this
and enjoying a tremendous amount of success.
All right.
To me, the first step of accomplishing anything
is to believe that you can do it, and I know you can do it.
I was in a deep depression which brewed for about ten years.
I tried to commit suicide, like, three or four times.
I tried to... I tried to commit suicide.
I was sitting in my living room one day, actually debating a way
that I could get through this and do this, and Bob Ross appeared on TV.
All you have to do is create a vision in your mind
and believe that you can do it.
Because we can do anything in this life that we believe we can do.
If you believe strong enough, anything is possible.
Anything is possible.
For somebody like Bob Ross to come on
and make that personal connection with you.
He cares.
He saved my life. He really did.
I had to go to the emergency room
because I was havin' problems with my pregnancy.
My kidneys had stopped functioning.
My liver had stopped functioning.
And the only thing that they could do
was to terminate my pregnancy.
And... that was a hard...
It was hard to accept.
The first time I turned on the television, there was Bob Ross.
When doing the painting, you look at it and you decide what makes you happy.
This is your world right here.
And there's no right or wrong
as long as it makes you happy and doesn't hurt anybody.
Bob brought the life back into my mind
and my heart,
and the joy that I never knew I could feel by painting.
That was the whole idea behind Bob Ross and his painting
is that he was going to teach people that they could be valuable.
They could be important... in this world.
Beautiful, Steve. Absolutely beautiful.
Why, this son of a gun is quite a painter.
I better watch out, or he'll be on TV, and I'll be home by myself.
I don't think my father ever knew the impact that he was having,
uh, even towards the end, even once it got huge.
He never really absorbed how much he was loved.
It's hard to describe exactly what Bob's appeal was.
It had to do with his painting abilities,
it had to do with his voice
and his personal way of talking to people.
He just had a tremendous effect on everybody that got to know him.
The memory of Bob lives on through all of us,
and his legacy lives on
through all of his fans.
He told me before he died
that, uh, he actually wanted people to remember him
but not to be sad.
We all miss you, Dad.
We all miss you.
I asked him one time,
"What are you trying to prove to the world?"
And he said,
"What we do here and now, people will remember forever."
Libraries across the country are filling each week
with folks yearning to create.
We painted like Bob Ross
while watching Bob Ross, dressed as Bob Ross.
- Do you guys know Bob Ross? - Yeah!
He's almost like a... like a friend.
Okay, watch this.
Just like him.
Is Bob Ross an art therapist?
Because watching him is incredibly relaxing.
Hello there. Welcome back. I'm glad you could join me today.
And we're gonna put a happy little bush right down over here.
I'm Bob Ross.
Just stickin' with the same old colors that we used before.
Instead of lifting the knife off the canvas, jiggle it as you go down.
And then tilt it as you go.
It's hard to tell people their faults
and maybe even harder to accept
that you have made a happy accident.
A lot of times, I've wondered if it's not your mistakes
that teach you a lot more than your successes.
A success, you just move on to the next thing.
But when you make a mistake
or have a "happy accident," as Bob called it,
uh, suddenly you learn all kinds of new ways to correct it,
and through that learning process, you really start developing in new ways.
Well Steve, what do you think of this painting?
Well, I think it's pretty good.
That's very nice.
And I hope that everyone has enjoyed
watching you do a beautiful little painting here.
So on behalf of all of us here at the station,
we'd like to wish each and every one of you happy painting.
God bless.
On behalf of my son Steve, thanks for watchin'.
See you next time.
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