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[ominous music playing]

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[paint brush scraping and tapping]

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[man] Bob Ross is used to painting
a landscape in 26 minutes,

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slightly less than
the length of an episode

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in his popular television series.

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The series is The Joy of Painting.

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-[clicks]
-Hello, I'm Bob Ross.

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If this is your first time with us,

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then let me extend a personal invitation
for you to get brushes and paint along

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and spend a relaxing half hour
enjoying some of nature's masterpieces.

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I think each of us,
sometime during our life,

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has wanted to paint a picture.

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I think there's an artist hidden
in the bottom of every single one of us.

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Here, we will try to show you
how to bring that artist out.

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When you paint like this
for any length of time,

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you begin seeing things in your painting.

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When you see these things,
take advantage of 'em.

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Take advantage of 'em, use 'em.
They're like-- they're like gifts.

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Use 'em.

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-[paint brush scraping]
-That's why I paint.

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It's because I can create
the kind of world that I want,

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and I can make this world
as happy as I want it.

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Shoot, if you want bad stuff,
watch the news.

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[man] Who's this?

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-[audience] Bob Ross!
-This is Bob Ross!

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This is the most famous painter
in the history of the universe.

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Here's the man who does so much magic
in one half hour on PBS every week.

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Bob Ross painted this.

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-Is that fabulous?
-[cheering and applause]

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Yeah.

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I'd like to introduce you today
to my son, Steve.

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-Steve, glad to have you with us.
-Well, thanks, Dad.

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[Steve] I've been wantin' to get
this story out for all of these years.

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Yeah, long time.

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[lighter clicks]

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There have been some hard days
in the past, no doubt about that.

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[Bob] I tell you, the best 
mountain painter in this technique

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is probably my son, Steve.

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Boy, that rascal. Whew.

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He can paint some mountains.

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Maybe we'll get him on here
before the series is over.

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Of course, he never could tell anybody…
anything about it.

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He was always…

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pretty quiet… about the whole thing.

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It's gonna be difficult to get people
to do interviews for this film.

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There's no doubt in my mind.

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What they did was shameful.

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And people should know that.

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They should know.

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[Bob] On this canvas,
I have absolute and total power.

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I can always escape
to this piece of canvas

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and create any illusion that I want.

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[announcer] And now, here's Regis Philbin
and Kathie Lee Gifford.

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[cheering]

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Hi, everybody.

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Hi, Reeg.

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Hi, everybody. Nice to see ya.
Tuesday, December 3rd, 1991.

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I'm just looking over here
at, uh, Bob Ross.

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I thought, for a minute,
Bob was gonna do our portrait.

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Bob is looking at us,
and he's painting a mountain. I dunno-- 

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He does-- He's famous
for his landscapes, mostly, Reeg.

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-Bob, do you do portraits?
-Not very well.

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I-- I do mostly trees and bushes.

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[Kathie Lee] 
Yeah, you do a great bush and tree.

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[Regis] Just out of memory, huh, Bob?

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Yeah, I lived in Alaska about 12 years,
so a lot of my scenes come out of Alaska.

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[inhales and exhales deeply] Whew.

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-[sighs]
-[interviewer] How you feelin'?

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Uh… tired.

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Yeah, this all happened so long ago.

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Really havin' to pry
the memories outta my head.

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My father started out

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painting the old metal
gold miners' pans with my mother.

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[Vicky] When we met, he loved to paint.

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He would paint sometimes
till two in the morning,

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and he had to be at work at eight.

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Bob was in the Air Force.

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He got orders for Alaska.

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We got married.

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And then, a few months later,

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I got pregnant with Steve. [chuckles]

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Bob loved the forest,
the animals, the trees.

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I mean, he loved it.

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[Bob] I look at a lot of nature.

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And if painting teaches you nothing else,

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it'll teach you to look at nature
with different eyes.

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[Vicky] Bob believed in
doing something worthwhile,

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something he enjoyed.

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The biggest thing was his painting.

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What is he doing now?
He's starting a new painting?

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[man] He's gonna finish it--

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[Kathie Lee] Within 30 minutes,
he'll finish a painting.

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Is that the background?
You do background first?

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Yeah, we're gonna use
this tiny two-inch brush

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-to put in a happy little background.
-[Kathie Lee] Yeah.

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[Regis] He's a happy guy, 
that Bob, isn't he?

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-I'll show you how to fix it.
-[audience laughing]

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[Regis] Just a happy guy. Hey, Bob.

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We'll give you double scale
if you let us cut your hair in February.

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-[all laughing]
-[light applause]

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[Kathie Lee] 
The world is wondering if that's a perm.

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-No? That's natural?
-Well, you gonna tell my secret?

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[all chuckle]

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[Kathie Lee] A lot of people spend
an awful lot to get hair like that, and--

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God gave that to you, right?

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Well, God and my hairdresser did.
[chuckles]

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[all laughing]

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[Steve] He was always a hair guy.

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He loved messing around
with different hairstyles,

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as we can all see
with his Afro on television.

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The Afro was not real.

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[chuckling] It was… a perm-- a perm,
and Bob liked to call that

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"having his springs tightened"
every few months.

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And, of course, I remember him painting.

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Every day, I would just have
my jaw dropping open, you know,

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looking at these beautiful works of art
that just came outta nowhere.

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[birds chirping]

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[interviewer] Hi. Um… Do you wanna-- 
Let's-- let's start in the back.

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-Yeah, sure.
-[interviewer] We'll walk to the back.

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Uh, show us the… old studio.

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We'll go see where the joy really began.

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-[interviewer] Let's check it out.
-[all laughing]

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[John] My first meeting of Bob 
was 42 years ago.

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He decided
to take a painting class from me.

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For the first assignment,

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I just asked them to paint a picture
of the thing that you love most.

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Instantly, I knew
he was an accomplished painter.

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So, one thing
that I definitely don't want to do

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is… put forth the idea
that I was Bob's teacher.

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Many of the class
would lay down their brushes

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and come over to see what Bob was doing.
[chuckling]

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And you know, he loved an audience.

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Always did.

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[Steve] My dad started off
with traditional-style painting,

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but he got tired of that.

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My father was the type of man that,
he would be on one project,

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and in his mind,

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he would be
halfway through the next project

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at the same time.

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He had so many different plans

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that those are the things
he filled his head with,

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rather than… uh, anything
that was happening at the current time.

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My parents,
they had a pretty shaky relationship.

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Eventually divorced.

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We were livin'
in Spokane, Washington, at that time.

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Then he met Jane Zanardelli.

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She had been base commander's secretary

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on Air Force bases we lived on.

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She was just head over heels
for my father.

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And he absolutely loved her to death.

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But my father was always thinking
about the next painting.

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[theme music playing]

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Hooray! That's what we have to do.

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I have to put myself
in that almighty bubble.

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[John] Bob saw a video 
done by William Alexander,

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and he was very taken with
what William was doing.

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[Bob] It almost made me angry 
the first time I saw Alexander on TV,

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that he could do in a matter of minutes
what took me days to do.

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[William] It got to be fast.
Don't fiddle around for hours.

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Too many details there.

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People what don't paint,

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they would think that guy
works a whole year on that painting.

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An oil painting can take days,
months, even years to paint.

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00:10:01,644 --> 00:10:05,856
Bill Alexander accelerates everything
with this wet-on-wet technique.

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00:10:05,939 --> 00:10:08,317
First, I put my almighty Magic White on.

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[Ian] He'll usually pre-prime a canvas
with gesso, white, gray, or black.

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[William] Touch of Prussian blue.

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See? Not too much paint.

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[Ian] And then he's putting oil paint
on top of that.

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00:10:22,081 --> 00:10:25,376
The proper name for it is
"alla prima," the first attempt.

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It allows for certain things
that you cannot achieve with dry paint.

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In the mid-15th century,

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it was used for hair

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and certain fabrics,

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00:10:38,806 --> 00:10:42,059
just to give the effect
of textures and movement.

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The most famous instance,
perhaps, of alla prima is Impressionism.

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00:10:48,232 --> 00:10:52,194
So, alla prima is 
a very, very, very old invention.

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[John] Bob said,
"I really would like to meet this man."

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He'd pretty much
had enough of military life.

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He just wanted to paint.

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[John] I knew a woman
that would invite William Alexander

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00:11:09,503 --> 00:11:12,172
down to her studio for a workshop.

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00:11:13,507 --> 00:11:17,469
Bob and William hit it off nicely.

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I saw Alexander on television,

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and like millions of other people,
I fell in love with him.

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00:11:22,433 --> 00:11:24,435
And it took me about a year to find him.

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I studied with Bill,
and when I retired from the military,

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they offered me a position
with Magic Art Company

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as a traveling art instructor.

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00:11:34,361 --> 00:11:38,323
[John] He was teaching classes
up and down the East Coast,

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00:11:38,407 --> 00:11:41,535
selling paint
and selling canvases and brushes,

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00:11:41,618 --> 00:11:45,914
which were always a big part
of these programs.

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00:11:55,382 --> 00:11:59,595
I met Bob Ross at the Muncie Mall in 1982,

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00:12:00,095 --> 00:12:03,140
and he was in there
doin' a painting demonstration.

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00:12:03,891 --> 00:12:06,810
I was fascinated by him
'cause I already painted.

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00:12:07,394 --> 00:12:10,856
We had so much in common
that… we just became friends.

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00:12:16,612 --> 00:12:18,614
There was a white-haired lady
there with him.

198
00:12:19,865 --> 00:12:22,576
She was there to help sell paintings.

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00:12:23,410 --> 00:12:26,830
Later, I found out
that that was Annette Kowalski.

200
00:12:27,831 --> 00:12:31,710
I'd like to introduce you to my partner
and longtime friend, Annette Kowalski.

201
00:12:31,794 --> 00:12:33,921
-Annette, welcome to the show.
-Thanks, Bob.

202
00:12:35,088 --> 00:12:37,758
[Steve] My father met the Kowalskis
through Annette,

203
00:12:37,841 --> 00:12:41,678
who came to take a painting class
from Bill Alexander.

204
00:12:42,137 --> 00:12:44,473
Annette had already been a good artist.

205
00:12:44,556 --> 00:12:47,309
There was no classes available from him,

206
00:12:47,810 --> 00:12:51,271
but she found out
there was a protégé of Bill Alexander

207
00:12:51,355 --> 00:12:52,648
named Bob Ross.

208
00:12:58,821 --> 00:13:01,406
She was… looking for something,

209
00:13:01,490 --> 00:13:04,451
and, uh, she found it in-- in Bob Ross.

210
00:13:04,535 --> 00:13:07,996
And it wasn't just the painting.
It was something bigger than that.

211
00:13:09,665 --> 00:13:13,502
She felt renewed, inspired by Bob.

212
00:13:16,547 --> 00:13:21,468
I had lost a son,
and I was desperately grieving.

213
00:13:24,638 --> 00:13:27,057
I was so devastated,

214
00:13:27,558 --> 00:13:32,855
all I could do was lay on the couch
and watch television.

215
00:13:35,232 --> 00:13:39,069
[Steve] She was changed forever,
I think, by the death of her son.

216
00:13:40,696 --> 00:13:45,325
Annette needed something
to work her out of her depression.

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00:13:45,868 --> 00:13:49,496
[Annette] I called Bob, and I said,
"I don't know what you've got,

218
00:13:49,580 --> 00:13:52,165
but I think
we ought to bottle it and sell it."

219
00:13:53,876 --> 00:13:56,461
[Steve] She took him back home
to Walt and said,

220
00:13:56,545 --> 00:13:58,547
"Hey, you know, this guy's magical."

221
00:13:58,630 --> 00:14:01,341
"We should try to do some kind
of business with this guy."

222
00:14:02,801 --> 00:14:08,682
[John] I don't think Bob really understood
what the future held for him at that time.

223
00:14:09,474 --> 00:14:12,144
He was just not into it for the money.

224
00:14:13,520 --> 00:14:16,398
[chuckling]
But the Kowalskis certainly were.

225
00:14:18,775 --> 00:14:22,070
The Kowalskis encouraged Bob
to go out on his own

226
00:14:22,154 --> 00:14:25,866
and that they were willing to invest
in his own enterprise,

227
00:14:25,949 --> 00:14:29,411
that, in many ways, were modeled
on what he was doing with Bill Alexander,

228
00:14:29,494 --> 00:14:31,079
teaching workshops.

229
00:14:34,249 --> 00:14:36,084
They gave him his new career.

230
00:14:36,168 --> 00:14:37,628
His new life, really.

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00:14:39,546 --> 00:14:42,299
[Dana] That was
before anybody even knew Bob Ross.

232
00:14:42,382 --> 00:14:44,009
They'd say, "Who's Bob Ross?"

233
00:14:45,510 --> 00:14:48,430
One day, he said,
"Do you want to go to Chicago with me?"

234
00:14:48,513 --> 00:14:51,224
"I think I'm gonna have a big class
and I need help."

235
00:14:52,267 --> 00:14:55,479
We get to Chicago.
Guess how many people shows up.

236
00:14:57,731 --> 00:15:01,610
[Steve] To save money
and to keep the business all in one place,

237
00:15:01,693 --> 00:15:05,948
and everybody there to work,
we moved in with the Kowalskis

238
00:15:06,031 --> 00:15:08,617
for, I don't know,
a year and a half, two years.

239
00:15:09,868 --> 00:15:12,329
Which was, uh… very interesting.

240
00:15:15,165 --> 00:15:18,752
Walt and Jane,
they handled all the administrative work.

241
00:15:19,670 --> 00:15:21,088
It's two married couples,

242
00:15:21,171 --> 00:15:23,966
but one husband workin'
with the other wife,

243
00:15:24,049 --> 00:15:25,634
and then, you know, vice versa.

244
00:15:27,010 --> 00:15:30,055
We got to know them more and more.

245
00:15:31,348 --> 00:15:33,809
If there was something
to be said within the family,

246
00:15:33,892 --> 00:15:35,811
they would go to a separate room

247
00:15:35,894 --> 00:15:40,190
and do their talking
outside of the ears of other people.

248
00:15:42,776 --> 00:15:47,614
[John] Walter, at that time,
had just retired from the CIA.

249
00:15:48,991 --> 00:15:51,576
[Steve] Like a lot of people
who retire from the government,

250
00:15:51,660 --> 00:15:53,912
he would use
previous government connections

251
00:15:53,996 --> 00:15:57,624
and ties in order to have
success in business.

252
00:15:58,458 --> 00:16:00,377
[phone dial tone]

253
00:16:00,460 --> 00:16:03,964
[Steve] The Kowalskis always
recorded their business phone calls

254
00:16:05,048 --> 00:16:08,552
with a suction cup
on the back of a telephone.

255
00:16:08,635 --> 00:16:11,972
-[rotary phone dialing]
-Which I always thought was pretty weird.

256
00:16:12,764 --> 00:16:16,476
-[tape recorder starts]
-[line ringing]

257
00:16:17,519 --> 00:16:21,440
I just wonder sometimes
how things would've worked out

258
00:16:21,523 --> 00:16:27,070
if… if he had not hooked up
with Annette and Walter.

259
00:16:30,323 --> 00:16:33,035
That could've been better for him, and--
I don't know.

260
00:16:33,118 --> 00:16:38,081
It's… it's one of those 
unanswered questions.

261
00:16:44,671 --> 00:16:47,007
[female voice]
At the tone, please record your message.

262
00:16:47,090 --> 00:16:49,342
When you've finished recording,
you may hang up. [beeps]

263
00:16:49,426 --> 00:16:51,845
Yeah, this is Dana Jester,
returning your call.

264
00:16:51,928 --> 00:16:53,638
Just give me a call back later.

265
00:16:54,139 --> 00:16:55,557
Uh, thanks. Bye.

266
00:16:56,516 --> 00:16:57,350
[phone beeps]

267
00:16:57,434 --> 00:17:01,354
A lot of people are backin' out
that agreed to do an interview for this

268
00:17:01,438 --> 00:17:03,482
because they're scared of the Kowalskis.

269
00:17:03,565 --> 00:17:05,984
The Kowalskis
are really known for suing people,

270
00:17:06,068 --> 00:17:07,819
so that's what they're afraid of.

271
00:17:16,078 --> 00:17:18,663
Okay. In five, four…

272
00:17:19,498 --> 00:17:23,335
I hand over that almighty brush
to our mighty man, Bob.

273
00:17:23,418 --> 00:17:24,628
Thank you very much, Bill.

274
00:17:24,711 --> 00:17:27,172
We've had so many cards
requesting classes in this area

275
00:17:27,255 --> 00:17:29,132
that we've decided to set one up here,

276
00:17:29,216 --> 00:17:31,551
and we will have a class going
in the near future.

277
00:17:31,635 --> 00:17:33,970
We'll produce some almighty painters.

278
00:17:34,554 --> 00:17:37,766
My parents decided to do a little ad spot.

279
00:17:37,849 --> 00:17:40,310
And while Bob was painting,

280
00:17:40,393 --> 00:17:43,021
the station manager walked by,
and he said,

281
00:17:43,105 --> 00:17:48,151
"What that guy is doing is remarkable.
Let's do a series with him."

282
00:17:49,694 --> 00:17:52,364
[Doug] Knowing what Bill Alexander
was able to achieve

283
00:17:52,447 --> 00:17:53,573
through his broadcasts,

284
00:17:53,657 --> 00:17:56,201
the Kowalskis thought
that that could be a way

285
00:17:56,284 --> 00:17:58,954
to create a-- a newer audience,

286
00:17:59,037 --> 00:18:03,625
which would, in turn,
drive people to the workshops.

287
00:18:04,126 --> 00:18:08,588
It was a very humble beginning,
one that was not economically sustainable,

288
00:18:08,672 --> 00:18:12,217
to one that became
very economically sustainable.

289
00:18:12,717 --> 00:18:15,637
[Bob] We were in an old house,
and-- and we filmed in a living room.

290
00:18:15,720 --> 00:18:19,474
That's the reason there's a black curtain,
Because we were covering up the fireplace.

291
00:18:19,558 --> 00:18:21,935
And the switcher, it was in the kitchen.

292
00:18:22,561 --> 00:18:26,898
We start with a vision in our heart,
and we put it on canvas,

293
00:18:26,982 --> 00:18:29,985
and we're here to teach you
to be able to do this too.

294
00:18:30,485 --> 00:18:33,530
So, let's do it.
Let's paint a picture, right here.

295
00:18:34,030 --> 00:18:36,533
[Steve] He filmed three shows in one day,

296
00:18:37,117 --> 00:18:39,661
which was really a lot of work.

297
00:18:40,162 --> 00:18:42,247
Painting in 28 minutes

298
00:18:42,330 --> 00:18:46,251
and finishing an entire landscape
was hard enough,

299
00:18:46,334 --> 00:18:48,211
but that was just the beginning.

300
00:18:48,295 --> 00:18:51,339
It was all the,
"Turn the palette this direction,"

301
00:18:51,423 --> 00:18:53,592
or "You've only got this much time left,"

302
00:18:53,675 --> 00:18:57,804
or "Whoops. The example painting fell
off the easel right in the middle of it."

303
00:18:57,888 --> 00:18:59,764
"I don't know what to do. It's facedown."

304
00:18:59,848 --> 00:19:01,433
And, "Where do I go from here?"

305
00:19:01,516 --> 00:19:05,103
[Bob] This is your creation. You can do
anything here that you wanna do.

306
00:19:05,187 --> 00:19:06,813
[Steve] But he got better at it.

307
00:19:07,314 --> 00:19:09,900
You gettin' excited yet?
Are you ready to paint with us?

308
00:19:10,567 --> 00:19:11,693
You can do it.

309
00:19:17,365 --> 00:19:19,326
[Steve] I don't even remember it 
from this angle.

310
00:19:19,409 --> 00:19:20,952
It's been so many years.

311
00:19:21,536 --> 00:19:25,540
This might be the very first place
they filmed, and, uh, the place I was at

312
00:19:25,624 --> 00:19:27,876
looked a little bit different
than this one though.

313
00:19:27,959 --> 00:19:28,793
Oh, lookie there.

314
00:19:28,877 --> 00:19:32,297
Yep. They got all kinds
of Bob Ross stuff right here.

315
00:19:32,380 --> 00:19:33,423
[chuckling]

316
00:19:33,506 --> 00:19:35,342
[man] This was the studio space.

317
00:19:35,425 --> 00:19:37,802
So, we want to invite people
to come in and celebrate Bob.

318
00:19:37,886 --> 00:19:38,720
[Steve] Mm-hmm.

319
00:19:38,803 --> 00:19:41,056
Um, so, over here,
we've got our X on the floor

320
00:19:41,139 --> 00:19:43,099
where we're pretty sure the easel was.

321
00:19:43,183 --> 00:19:46,228
Uh, we know it moved back and forth
different times throughout the room.

322
00:19:46,311 --> 00:19:49,481
People continually say,
"I can't draw a straight line."

323
00:19:49,564 --> 00:19:52,234
"I don't have the talent,
Bob, to do what you're doing."

324
00:19:52,734 --> 00:19:53,693
That's baloney.

325
00:19:54,236 --> 00:19:56,196
Talent is a pursued interest.

326
00:19:56,947 --> 00:20:00,533
In other words, anything
you're willing to practice, you can do.

327
00:20:01,034 --> 00:20:02,494
And this is no exception.

328
00:20:03,161 --> 00:20:06,122
[Steve] By the second series,
he got rid of the glasses,

329
00:20:06,206 --> 00:20:08,792
and he was pretty darn confident

330
00:20:09,292 --> 00:20:12,629
that it was gonna go
maybe even better than he thought.

331
00:20:14,005 --> 00:20:16,424
[Sally] I worked on Joy of Painting
from the start.

332
00:20:16,508 --> 00:20:18,927
I thought,
"Wow. This is gonna be so much fun,"

333
00:20:19,010 --> 00:20:21,805
'cause that was my favorite thing
in-- in production, directing.

334
00:20:21,888 --> 00:20:23,431
I like tellin' people what to do.

335
00:20:24,933 --> 00:20:27,560
At first,
he'd have a painting off to the side,

336
00:20:27,644 --> 00:20:30,230
so we kinda knew
what it was gonna look like.

337
00:20:32,232 --> 00:20:35,443
But eventually, he kinda just did away 
with that and had it in his head.

338
00:20:35,527 --> 00:20:37,779
We got a minute or so left here.

339
00:20:37,862 --> 00:20:40,490
[Sally] But every time
I gave him a two-minute cue,

340
00:20:40,573 --> 00:20:42,993
"Oh, it's time for a big ol' tree!"

341
00:20:43,076 --> 00:20:45,203
And I tell you, from the very last taping,

342
00:20:45,287 --> 00:20:49,624
I always got nervous
'cause I wasn't sure if he'd get her done.

343
00:20:50,208 --> 00:20:52,836
Okay, you ready?
This is your bravery test, big-time.

344
00:20:53,336 --> 00:20:54,296
Right here.

345
00:20:54,379 --> 00:20:56,798
[whistling] Pew.

346
00:20:56,881 --> 00:21:00,510
But that's what makes it fun.
Be brave. Take a chance.

347
00:21:01,011 --> 00:21:03,096
All right. Here's your bravery test.

348
00:21:03,179 --> 00:21:06,099
[making sound effects]

349
00:21:06,182 --> 00:21:07,100
Pew.

350
00:21:07,183 --> 00:21:09,102
There ought to be a big tree 
right here, though.

351
00:21:09,185 --> 00:21:12,105
And by putting this tree in,
it does two things.

352
00:21:12,188 --> 00:21:15,233
[chuckles] It drives my director crazy,
that's the first.

353
00:21:15,734 --> 00:21:17,819
But the second thing
is it pushes everything back.

354
00:21:17,902 --> 00:21:20,071
It gives much more perspective.

355
00:21:20,572 --> 00:21:22,240
[woman] It was like it was magic.

356
00:21:24,326 --> 00:21:26,828
With Bob Ross,
when something doesn't work out,

357
00:21:26,911 --> 00:21:29,664
for the most part,
he does what a good teacher would do.

358
00:21:30,498 --> 00:21:32,125
You take it in stride.

359
00:21:32,876 --> 00:21:35,086
Your next step is correction.

360
00:21:36,629 --> 00:21:38,381
[chuckles] Hi. 
Glad you could join me today.

361
00:21:38,465 --> 00:21:40,633
You sorta caught me 
piddlin' around here a little bit.

362
00:21:40,717 --> 00:21:44,262
I get so many cards and letters
from people all over the country saying,

363
00:21:44,346 --> 00:21:46,681
"Bob, what should I do 
if I'm in the middle of a painting

364
00:21:46,765 --> 00:21:47,891
and decide I don't like it?"

365
00:21:47,974 --> 00:21:49,559
Over and over again, I say,

366
00:21:49,642 --> 00:21:52,312
"We don't make mistakes.
We have happy accidents."

367
00:21:53,897 --> 00:21:55,440
[man] And he's overcome this notion

368
00:21:55,523 --> 00:21:58,151
that you have to have talent,
born with talent,

369
00:21:58,234 --> 00:22:00,028
blessed by the hand of God…

370
00:22:00,695 --> 00:22:03,198
uh, to be able to paint,
and it's absolutely false.

371
00:22:04,741 --> 00:22:07,786
He believed
that anybody can create things.

372
00:22:07,869 --> 00:22:10,747
You know, just recently
I was doing a demonstration in a mall,

373
00:22:10,830 --> 00:22:12,707
and I had a man come to me, and he said,

374
00:22:12,791 --> 00:22:15,877
"Bob, I could never paint,
because I'm colorblind."

375
00:22:15,960 --> 00:22:18,088
"All I can see is gray tones."

376
00:22:18,171 --> 00:22:22,425
I thought today we'd do a picture in gray
just to show you that anyone can paint.

377
00:22:23,468 --> 00:22:27,680
[Sally] It really spoke to Bob's heart
that he was willing to do that.

378
00:22:28,515 --> 00:22:30,809
[Bob] Didn't know
you had so much power, did you?

379
00:22:31,393 --> 00:22:33,228
You really can do this.

380
00:22:33,978 --> 00:22:37,232
-[brush tapping canvas]
-Can move mountains, trees, mighty rivers.

381
00:22:37,816 --> 00:22:40,402
We're gonna start off
with a bit of the midnight black.

382
00:22:40,485 --> 00:22:43,113
Maybe in our world,
there's just a happy little cloud

383
00:22:43,196 --> 00:22:44,447
that lives up here.

384
00:22:44,531 --> 00:22:47,826
Shoot, when we were kids, 
my brother Jim and I, we used to--

385
00:22:47,909 --> 00:22:50,829
we used to sorta lay on our back
out in the field and

386
00:22:50,912 --> 00:22:54,290
look up at clouds and see
all kinds of crazy shapes in 'em.

387
00:22:54,374 --> 00:22:57,001
I bet you've done that too, 
whether you'll admit it or not.

388
00:22:57,836 --> 00:23:03,883
The Bob you see on TV
is pretty darn close to his real attitude

389
00:23:03,967 --> 00:23:07,762
about nature and about everything, really.

390
00:23:07,846 --> 00:23:10,932
Today I have a couple of guests
that I want to introduce you to.

391
00:23:11,057 --> 00:23:15,061
These are two little baby robins.
They're some of the cutest little rascals.

392
00:23:15,145 --> 00:23:17,522
-Hey. Ooh, what you gonna do? Huh?
-[tweeting]

393
00:23:17,605 --> 00:23:19,524
[Steve] He loved nature.

394
00:23:22,652 --> 00:23:25,864
He had a canoe and would go out on a lake.

395
00:23:26,990 --> 00:23:28,491
He would catch a few fish,

396
00:23:28,575 --> 00:23:31,161
but he would always throw the fish back.
[chuckles]

397
00:23:31,244 --> 00:23:33,538
He wouldn't keep any of those fish.

398
00:23:36,166 --> 00:23:38,209
He used to say he hunted with a camera.

399
00:23:40,753 --> 00:23:42,964
[Bob] This is Peapod.
Peapod the pocket squirrel.

400
00:23:43,047 --> 00:23:46,593
It fell out of a tree,
and a very nice lady brought him to me

401
00:23:46,676 --> 00:23:50,138
and asked me if I would take care of it
till he got big enough to release.

402
00:23:50,847 --> 00:23:53,099
[John] You know, 
if he saw an injured animal,

403
00:23:53,183 --> 00:23:55,685
he'd do whatever he could do to help.

404
00:23:56,227 --> 00:23:58,855
[Bob] One thing I've noticed
as I travel across the country,

405
00:23:58,938 --> 00:24:01,232
doing demonstrations and teaching classes…

406
00:24:02,358 --> 00:24:04,068
only nice people paint.

407
00:24:04,861 --> 00:24:08,072
Everybody I've ever met that's a painter,
they're super people.

408
00:24:08,656 --> 00:24:11,826
After the show started,
every workshop was just blasted full.

409
00:24:13,703 --> 00:24:17,332
'Cause there were so many people
wanting to instruct, themselves.

410
00:24:17,916 --> 00:24:20,418
So, he decided to do the teacher training.

411
00:24:21,794 --> 00:24:24,339
I see most of you already have done it.

412
00:24:24,422 --> 00:24:27,133
Like, the real thin coat
of Liquid White on your canvas.

413
00:24:28,635 --> 00:24:31,554
You guys been watching Bob so much,
you already know all that.

414
00:24:31,638 --> 00:24:32,680
[all chuckling]

415
00:24:32,764 --> 00:24:35,558
Today, it's my privilege,
as well as my pleasure,

416
00:24:35,642 --> 00:24:36,851
to present to you

417
00:24:36,935 --> 00:24:40,563
one of the finest teachers in the country,
as well as one of my closest friends.

418
00:24:40,647 --> 00:24:43,107
I'd like to present to you,
today, Mr. Dana Jester.

419
00:24:43,191 --> 00:24:44,609
Dana travels all over the country,

420
00:24:44,692 --> 00:24:46,528
and he teaches
literally thousands of people

421
00:24:46,611 --> 00:24:48,238
The Joy of Painting.

422
00:24:48,988 --> 00:24:50,365
[Steve] We were the originate--

423
00:24:50,448 --> 00:24:52,742
-We were there from the very beginning.
-We were day one.

424
00:24:54,702 --> 00:24:58,957
[Bob] My son Steve, boy, he--
he's a dynamite painter, and he just…

425
00:24:59,499 --> 00:25:02,085
He's so young,
and he gets so excited over this.

426
00:25:02,168 --> 00:25:06,339
It's nice to see young people
get excited over something like this.

427
00:25:06,422 --> 00:25:07,882
We send Steve all over the country,

428
00:25:07,966 --> 00:25:10,843
and he teaches hundreds of people
The Joy of Painting.

429
00:25:10,927 --> 00:25:13,221
Tap down into the paint.

430
00:25:15,723 --> 00:25:19,269
And then, you know, these little areas
that you have that are in between,

431
00:25:19,352 --> 00:25:22,105
that are dark, you can just touch.

432
00:25:22,188 --> 00:25:27,443
[Dana] Bob liked the thrill
of watching a new student smile

433
00:25:27,944 --> 00:25:30,822
with a fresh, new, beautiful painting.

434
00:25:32,991 --> 00:25:35,910
Bob would just make 'em so happy,
it's-- it's unreal.

435
00:25:38,246 --> 00:25:41,374
It's like,
"Man, did I do this? I couldn't have."

436
00:25:42,375 --> 00:25:43,501
Yes, you did.

437
00:25:44,836 --> 00:25:49,173
There's a lot going on besides painting,
and I think people are aware of that,

438
00:25:49,257 --> 00:25:50,800
and they enjoy that.

439
00:25:52,093 --> 00:25:56,723
[Julia] Despite Ross's success,
he was not completely unique.

440
00:25:57,807 --> 00:26:02,395
In the early '80s, other artists
were also teaching on television.

441
00:26:04,772 --> 00:26:07,692
We started on TV in '83,

442
00:26:07,775 --> 00:26:10,069
the same year as Bob Ross.

443
00:26:10,862 --> 00:26:14,407
Ross was doing his thing, his landscapes,

444
00:26:15,033 --> 00:26:16,951
and we were doing flowers.

445
00:26:18,036 --> 00:26:20,997
[Gary] Bob would say,
"I'm a mountain and tree guy."

446
00:26:21,998 --> 00:26:23,082
He also said,

447
00:26:23,166 --> 00:26:25,918
"If you wanna learn to paint flowers,
go to the Jenkins."

448
00:26:28,212 --> 00:26:33,092
At trade shows, Bob and I, uh, 
many times would have dinner together.

449
00:26:34,927 --> 00:26:37,055
And after dinner,

450
00:26:37,138 --> 00:26:42,268
we would walk around
to see who got recognized the most.

451
00:26:42,352 --> 00:26:43,353
[laughing]

452
00:26:43,436 --> 00:26:45,521
'Course, Bob always won that.

453
00:26:50,360 --> 00:26:53,738
[interviewer] Talk to me about 
what Bob was like away from the camera.

454
00:26:53,821 --> 00:26:55,156
Oh, yeah, he's fun.

455
00:26:55,657 --> 00:26:57,659
Well, I just wanna share a little secret.

456
00:26:57,742 --> 00:26:59,535
[chuckling] He could be ornery.

457
00:26:59,619 --> 00:27:02,330
He would tell us ornery jokes
right before we started taping.

458
00:27:02,413 --> 00:27:06,959
I think, just to loose-- loosen us all up.
But yeah, he was like he was on camera.

459
00:27:07,043 --> 00:27:12,715
He was fun, and he had charisma
like you've never seen before.

460
00:27:15,009 --> 00:27:18,262
[Steve] He was more energetic in life,

461
00:27:18,763 --> 00:27:21,391
and he really liked fast cars.

462
00:27:22,016 --> 00:27:25,395
[narrator] The competition
has nothing to match this car.

463
00:27:25,895 --> 00:27:29,273
Chevrolet's incomparable Corvette.

464
00:27:29,774 --> 00:27:31,859
[Steve] He had a '69 Stingray,

465
00:27:31,943 --> 00:27:34,612
all hand-molded fiberglass,

466
00:27:35,363 --> 00:27:38,491
350 motor, built to the hilt.

467
00:27:38,991 --> 00:27:42,453
Took me out one day in the Corvette.
I said, "What are you doin'?"

468
00:27:42,537 --> 00:27:44,747
He said,
"Gonna take you on a thrill ride, dude."

469
00:27:44,831 --> 00:27:47,583
[engine revving]

470
00:27:50,211 --> 00:27:54,048
It's not that he liked to scare people.
He liked to thrill people.

471
00:27:54,132 --> 00:27:55,883
Yeah, he was really into that.

472
00:27:55,967 --> 00:27:56,926
[chuckles]

473
00:28:02,181 --> 00:28:06,811
[Doug] The Kowalskis took care
of the business aspects of the enterprise,

474
00:28:06,894 --> 00:28:10,106
and they freed up Bob
to do what he did best,

475
00:28:10,189 --> 00:28:12,066
which was to connect with people.

476
00:28:14,444 --> 00:28:17,280
[Dana] Everybody just tried to work
and do their job.

477
00:28:18,531 --> 00:28:21,868
Jane, I mean,
she was highly intelligent, you know,

478
00:28:21,951 --> 00:28:24,912
and incredible at administrative work.

479
00:28:26,414 --> 00:28:31,377
She taught me if you're gonna do a job,
do it right, don't do it halfway.

480
00:28:33,212 --> 00:28:35,131
And so, with Walt and Annette,

481
00:28:35,214 --> 00:28:38,801
the two families,
they had a really good thing going.

482
00:28:39,427 --> 00:28:43,931
Within five years, everything
seemed to be workin' pretty well.

483
00:28:46,100 --> 00:28:49,729
[woman] His joy and his love
just illuminated a room.

484
00:28:50,396 --> 00:28:53,733
I just remember him
making me feel like family.

485
00:28:53,816 --> 00:28:56,694
Every morning
that he got there for his show,

486
00:28:56,778 --> 00:29:01,449
he would come into my office
with his cup of coffee and tell jokes

487
00:29:01,532 --> 00:29:03,576
and put his arms around us

488
00:29:03,659 --> 00:29:07,538
and-- and just tease us 
like a big brother.

489
00:29:09,791 --> 00:29:11,876
[John] He did have a heart of gold,

490
00:29:13,127 --> 00:29:15,922
but he was also a showman.

491
00:29:16,631 --> 00:29:19,926
I'm gonna get our little--
our little soft blender brush,

492
00:29:20,510 --> 00:29:22,553
very gentle, soft, little brush,

493
00:29:22,637 --> 00:29:25,848
and just blend the base of that
out a little bit.

494
00:29:26,390 --> 00:29:28,017
Gentle, gentle, gentle.

495
00:29:28,601 --> 00:29:29,727
Barely touching.

496
00:29:30,228 --> 00:29:32,563
Just caress the canvas a little.

497
00:29:33,564 --> 00:29:34,732
There we go.

498
00:29:35,733 --> 00:29:38,778
I asked him,
"Why do you talk this way on TV?"

499
00:29:38,861 --> 00:29:44,200
And he said, "Well, you know,
Bill Alexander was always kind of harsh."

500
00:29:44,283 --> 00:29:48,538
You know, I use the other color already
in my-- in my brush here for the clouds.

501
00:29:48,621 --> 00:29:53,125
They already have so much yellow.
So, I like to have a change.

502
00:29:53,209 --> 00:29:55,336
[Steve] You know, his voice was harsh.

503
00:29:55,419 --> 00:29:58,214
He was very hyper and energetic.

504
00:29:58,297 --> 00:29:59,632
So, my father said,

505
00:29:59,715 --> 00:30:03,719
"Well, uh, it seems to me
that most of our audience is female."

506
00:30:03,803 --> 00:30:06,222
"A lot of the audience is female,

507
00:30:06,305 --> 00:30:09,183
so maybe I'll try to whisper."

508
00:30:09,684 --> 00:30:11,477
In other words, he tried to create

509
00:30:11,561 --> 00:30:16,148
almost exactly the opposite
of what Bill Alexander was like.

510
00:30:16,858 --> 00:30:18,776
Grab it and lift it.

511
00:30:18,860 --> 00:30:21,654
Fluff it, tease it, pull it.

512
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:23,990
Mmm. There.

513
00:30:24,991 --> 00:30:26,242
Make love to it here.

514
00:30:26,325 --> 00:30:29,370
Very gentle. Very gentle.

515
00:30:30,496 --> 00:30:33,416
[Julia] The fact that he calls his show
"The Joy of Painting,"

516
00:30:33,499 --> 00:30:34,917
of course, is not coincidental

517
00:30:35,001 --> 00:30:38,754
because that feeds into
this whole tradition of how-to things

518
00:30:38,838 --> 00:30:40,464
in the early '70s.

519
00:30:40,548 --> 00:30:42,258
There's The Joy of Cooking,

520
00:30:42,341 --> 00:30:43,885
but then The Joy of Sex.

521
00:30:43,968 --> 00:30:46,512
That was a watershed publication.

522
00:30:47,013 --> 00:30:51,225
It really makes sense that
Bob Ross adopted a very similar title.

523
00:30:51,726 --> 00:30:54,979
He's speaking
with this liquid tranquilizer of a voice,

524
00:30:55,062 --> 00:30:56,564
which is very sensual.

525
00:30:56,647 --> 00:31:01,319
He pretends like he's talking
to one woman, in bed.

526
00:31:02,361 --> 00:31:04,614
[Steve] It's true. He practiced.

527
00:31:04,697 --> 00:31:06,908
He was trying to be a little sexy.

528
00:31:06,991 --> 00:31:09,577
[Bob] I talk to only one person
when I'm filming,

529
00:31:09,660 --> 00:31:12,288
and I'm really crazy about that person.

530
00:31:12,371 --> 00:31:14,165
It's a one-on-one situation.

531
00:31:14,248 --> 00:31:15,917
And I think people realize that,

532
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:18,711
and they-- they do feel that they know me,
and I feel I know them.

533
00:31:19,712 --> 00:31:21,047
Barely touching.

534
00:31:21,547 --> 00:31:23,007
Just caress it.

535
00:31:23,507 --> 00:31:25,343
Graze it. Caress it.

536
00:31:25,426 --> 00:31:27,136
Shake off the excess.

537
00:31:28,137 --> 00:31:29,013
[chuckling]

538
00:31:29,639 --> 00:31:31,849
And just beat the devil out of it.

539
00:31:31,933 --> 00:31:34,810
Now also, if there's any questions 
we don't answer during the show,

540
00:31:34,894 --> 00:31:35,770
drop us a line.

541
00:31:35,853 --> 00:31:39,732
We'll be glad to try to answer
almost any question you can come up with,

542
00:31:39,815 --> 00:31:41,442
long as it's not too personal.

543
00:31:41,525 --> 00:31:42,860
Let's see here. What's--

544
00:31:42,944 --> 00:31:47,198
Oh. We're not gonna read that one on TV.
We'll just-- we'll set it aside and go on.

545
00:31:48,199 --> 00:31:50,534
[Dana] Bob was doin'
a painting demonstration.

546
00:31:50,618 --> 00:31:52,662
After he finished his painting, he goes,

547
00:31:52,745 --> 00:31:54,372
"Steve, Dana, come here."

548
00:31:54,455 --> 00:31:57,708
"Protect me. All these ladies are wantin'
my autograph and followin' me."

549
00:31:57,792 --> 00:32:01,128
-"I'm tryin' to go to the restroom."
-They were rippin' his shirt off.

550
00:32:01,212 --> 00:32:02,213
[laughing] It's crazy.

551
00:32:02,296 --> 00:32:04,924
Tryin' to get a piece of chest hair,
even, or anything.

552
00:32:07,093 --> 00:32:10,471
[Sally] Bob was charismatic,
but he was a little bit of a flirt.

553
00:32:11,138 --> 00:32:14,850
He flirted with me,
flirted with any female staff member.

554
00:32:14,934 --> 00:32:17,520
That's just the way he was.
He was just charming.

555
00:32:18,062 --> 00:32:20,982
But I think he also did it
to make people feel good.

556
00:32:21,524 --> 00:32:23,150
[indistinct chatter]

557
00:32:25,277 --> 00:32:28,572
[John] Annette, uh, became
quite enchanted with Bob.

558
00:32:28,656 --> 00:32:33,035
I remember
Bob Ross get-together in Daytona.

559
00:32:33,119 --> 00:32:36,747
And everybody wanted
to have their picture taken with Bob.

560
00:32:36,831 --> 00:32:41,168
Annette was just jealous
about relationships

561
00:32:41,252 --> 00:32:44,422
that Bob had with others besides herself.

562
00:32:44,505 --> 00:32:45,881
[laughing]

563
00:32:47,425 --> 00:32:49,635
[Dana] Bob would pay attention 
to someone else,

564
00:32:49,719 --> 00:32:51,637
and Annette didn't like that.

565
00:32:51,721 --> 00:32:55,224
That might've been a little…
I'd say, little jealousy streak.

566
00:32:55,307 --> 00:32:56,142
-I dunno.
-Yep.

567
00:32:56,225 --> 00:32:58,227
-Anybody that got close to Bob.
-Yeah.

568
00:32:58,310 --> 00:33:00,062
-[Steve] She was like that.
-[Dana] Exactly.

569
00:33:02,773 --> 00:33:05,151
[interviewer 2]
Tell me a little bit about your impression

570
00:33:05,234 --> 00:33:08,279
of what the relationship
between Bob and Annette was.

571
00:33:09,989 --> 00:33:10,948
Mmm.

572
00:33:11,532 --> 00:33:12,450
[clicks tongue]

573
00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:16,328
[exhales] I don't know. Do I go there?

574
00:33:18,706 --> 00:33:20,708
Was Bob and Annette a thing?

575
00:33:21,417 --> 00:33:23,461
Everybody always asks that question.

576
00:33:24,670 --> 00:33:25,713
And the answer is…

577
00:33:27,381 --> 00:33:28,674
Steve might know.

578
00:33:31,177 --> 00:33:32,303
Mmm.

579
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:41,520
[Steve] There was an affair
between my father and Annette, yes.

580
00:33:42,563 --> 00:33:46,192
[Kathwren] When we were
at the early trade shows in the '80s,

581
00:33:46,275 --> 00:33:47,860
we'd go pick them up for dinner,

582
00:33:47,943 --> 00:33:50,905
and they'd come out of
the same little hotel room and all that.

583
00:33:51,739 --> 00:33:54,533
We knew there was
funny things goin' on there.

584
00:33:55,367 --> 00:33:57,244
This was back in the '70s, I think.

585
00:33:57,328 --> 00:33:59,747
No, '80s, honey.
We weren't with Weber till '80.

586
00:33:59,830 --> 00:34:03,042
It was-- Everybody was
sleeping with everybody else.

587
00:34:03,125 --> 00:34:05,169
-Yeah, but okay. Let's get back to--
-Okay?

588
00:34:05,252 --> 00:34:08,589
You know, you can cut that out,
but that's the way it was.

589
00:34:10,633 --> 00:34:13,302
[Steve] I remember it was Christmas night.

590
00:34:13,803 --> 00:34:16,639
I heard some arguing in the bedroom.

591
00:34:17,139 --> 00:34:19,600
Jane was asking him, uh,

592
00:34:20,392 --> 00:34:23,270
"Are you having relations
with that woman?"

593
00:34:24,438 --> 00:34:26,023
The truth came out.

594
00:34:37,993 --> 00:34:40,496
Bob and Jane, they worked it out.

595
00:34:42,081 --> 00:34:46,627
But there was a rift
that came between everybody.

596
00:34:52,883 --> 00:34:54,510
Several months later,

597
00:34:55,803 --> 00:35:00,307
when I was walkin' down the hallway,
Annette was in the bathroom.

598
00:35:02,017 --> 00:35:04,436
I walked by, and the door was open,

599
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:07,940
and she was in the dark, on the commode.

600
00:35:09,024 --> 00:35:11,026
She had one cigarette in her mouth,

601
00:35:11,110 --> 00:35:15,322
and, I think, two lit,
sitting in the ashtray, just smoking away.

602
00:35:16,782 --> 00:35:18,367
She said, "Steve,

603
00:35:19,493 --> 00:35:21,954
you're the only one that loves me."

604
00:35:26,917 --> 00:35:28,669
And I was like, "Wow."

605
00:35:29,461 --> 00:35:30,546
Yeah.

606
00:35:35,050 --> 00:35:37,803
There was infighting
that started to happen.

607
00:35:41,348 --> 00:35:45,060
[Sally] When I first met Annette Kowalski,
they seemed to be close friends.

608
00:35:45,144 --> 00:35:47,521
But eventually, she stopped coming.

609
00:35:47,605 --> 00:35:51,150
So, I don't know
if that was kinda the beginning of the end

610
00:35:51,233 --> 00:35:52,776
as far as their relationship.

611
00:35:52,860 --> 00:35:55,654
I can just tell you
that a lot of us relaxed.

612
00:35:55,738 --> 00:35:58,949
We just-- [clears throat] You--
I just couldn't relax around her.

613
00:35:59,158 --> 00:36:04,496
Um, and it just made it easier
to interact with Bob with no filters.

614
00:36:04,997 --> 00:36:06,999
[theme music playing]

615
00:36:10,419 --> 00:36:13,714
Hi. Today marks
a sort of an anniversary for us.

616
00:36:13,797 --> 00:36:17,676
With this painting,
we will have 100 Joy of Painting shows.

617
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:18,928
Isn't that fantastic?

618
00:36:19,678 --> 00:36:22,848
I'd like to welcome you
to the 10th Joy of Painting series.

619
00:36:22,932 --> 00:36:24,391
-The 12th.
-The 13th.

620
00:36:24,475 --> 00:36:25,935
-The 15th.
-The 17th.

621
00:36:26,018 --> 00:36:27,978
…the 18th Joy of Painting series.

622
00:36:28,729 --> 00:36:30,356
With the completion of this series,

623
00:36:30,439 --> 00:36:33,651
there'll be
over 230 Joy of Painting shows. Phew.

624
00:36:34,693 --> 00:36:37,780
MTV. It's all just fluffy white clouds.

625
00:36:39,156 --> 00:36:43,452
My next guest has been creating his magic
for the past ten years on his own show,

626
00:36:43,535 --> 00:36:46,205
The Joy of Painting,
which I watch all the time.

627
00:36:46,288 --> 00:36:48,123
Author of several books on the subject.

628
00:36:48,207 --> 00:36:50,834
His latest is called
The Best of The Joy of Painting.

629
00:36:50,918 --> 00:36:54,380
Please welcome America's
favorite art instructor, Bob Ross.

630
00:36:54,463 --> 00:36:55,547
[cheering and applause]

631
00:36:55,631 --> 00:36:58,300
-Hi, Bob. Pleasure to have you on.
-Thank you very, very much.

632
00:36:58,384 --> 00:36:59,677
[Joan] How did they find you?

633
00:36:59,760 --> 00:37:02,721
We wanted to do a painting show.
We went to a PBS station,

634
00:37:02,805 --> 00:37:05,516
and, uh, they agreed to do one,
and off we went.

635
00:37:06,350 --> 00:37:09,645
Most people can't paint,
yet I find myself fascinated.

636
00:37:09,728 --> 00:37:11,313
I sit and watch you paint.

637
00:37:11,397 --> 00:37:14,316
I think it's because that magic
really does happen in 30 minutes.

638
00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:17,361
There's no editing to these shows.
What-- what happens really happens.

639
00:37:17,444 --> 00:37:19,822
The sense people have
is that as they watch you,

640
00:37:19,905 --> 00:37:22,700
they really can learn
how to do this themselves.

641
00:37:22,783 --> 00:37:24,285
[Bob] They really can do this.

642
00:37:24,368 --> 00:37:26,161
We're getting 200 to 300 letters a day now

643
00:37:26,287 --> 00:37:29,290
from people all over the United States
and in foreign countries,

644
00:37:29,373 --> 00:37:30,457
and they're doing this.

645
00:37:30,541 --> 00:37:33,711
We had one lady that was 93
when she took her first class with us.

646
00:37:34,211 --> 00:37:36,547
I got a letter from her when she was 94.

647
00:37:36,630 --> 00:37:39,842
She just had her first one-man art show
and started a whole new career.

648
00:37:47,683 --> 00:37:49,977
[audience applauding]

649
00:37:50,060 --> 00:37:53,605
Made it look easy. Just took
a few minutes, really, and there it is.

650
00:37:53,689 --> 00:37:55,649
Think you can teach anybody how to paint?

651
00:37:55,733 --> 00:37:57,818
If I can get you to pick up your palettes,

652
00:37:57,901 --> 00:38:00,070
and pull it through the dark color
in one direction.

653
00:38:01,196 --> 00:38:02,489
Make it thin.

654
00:38:03,365 --> 00:38:06,160
All you do is just touch
and give it a little push.

655
00:38:07,494 --> 00:38:08,662
Good.

656
00:38:08,746 --> 00:38:09,580
Very good.

657
00:38:09,663 --> 00:38:12,458
-[Regis] Hey, Bob. Check this out.
-That's great. You're doing wonderful.

658
00:38:12,541 --> 00:38:14,960
[Regis] Hey, look what I'm doing here!
I'm painting.

659
00:38:15,044 --> 00:38:17,087
-[cheering and applause]
-[Bob] All right!

660
00:38:22,384 --> 00:38:25,721
Recently, I had the opportunity
to travel to New York City.

661
00:38:25,804 --> 00:38:28,098
They have what they call
Kids Day in the park,

662
00:38:28,182 --> 00:38:29,975
and we were invited to come there

663
00:38:30,059 --> 00:38:34,271
and participate and meet
all the fantastic people from New York.

664
00:38:34,772 --> 00:38:37,024
[overlapping chatter]

665
00:38:38,317 --> 00:38:42,112
[man] I was 12 years old
at the time, and I had heard

666
00:38:42,196 --> 00:38:44,698
that Bob Ross was going to appear
in Central Park.

667
00:38:44,782 --> 00:38:47,117
We ended up hopping on a train
and going into Manhattan.

668
00:38:47,868 --> 00:38:49,203
We didn't even know where he was.

669
00:38:49,286 --> 00:38:52,081
We just started following crowds
around Central Park, seeing,

670
00:38:52,164 --> 00:38:53,999
carrying paintings that we had brought.

671
00:38:54,917 --> 00:38:58,587
[Bob] People came from all over
to bring their paintings and show us

672
00:38:58,670 --> 00:39:01,298
and to share a day with us
that was spectacular.

673
00:39:01,382 --> 00:39:03,425
Absolutely spectacular.

674
00:39:07,805 --> 00:39:10,140
[painter] He took the time 
to come meet me.

675
00:39:10,224 --> 00:39:11,809
I showed him some of my work.

676
00:39:13,018 --> 00:39:15,771
He signed the back of my painting.

677
00:39:17,689 --> 00:39:21,026
Everything you think Bob Ross would be
is what he was when I met him.

678
00:39:21,110 --> 00:39:23,112
[muted chatter]

679
00:39:26,448 --> 00:39:28,575
[Sally] Central Park 
was eye-opening for me.

680
00:39:30,661 --> 00:39:33,288
[chuckling] And I was like,
"Wow, this guy's really popular."

681
00:39:34,540 --> 00:39:37,376
[Dana] I couldn't believe it,
how many people knew Bob Ross.

682
00:39:37,876 --> 00:39:40,921
And no one ever would think
he would be famous.

683
00:39:42,381 --> 00:39:45,217
[fan] C'mon.
It's the man who does the painting.

684
00:39:45,300 --> 00:39:46,885
On the TV!

685
00:39:47,678 --> 00:39:50,347
[Bob] The Joy of Painting
has become the most successful art show

686
00:39:50,431 --> 00:39:52,516
in the history of television,

687
00:39:53,016 --> 00:39:57,521
and I'd like to thank you
very, very much for your support.

688
00:39:59,064 --> 00:40:01,442
You've made an old man's dream come true.

689
00:40:03,694 --> 00:40:06,321
People love to have heroes,

690
00:40:07,948 --> 00:40:10,159
and that's what Bob became.

691
00:40:17,541 --> 00:40:20,961
[Steve] There's no doubt,
on the commercial side of it,

692
00:40:21,044 --> 00:40:24,339
Bob wanted to become bigger
and more popular.

693
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:26,967
He was interested in success,

694
00:40:27,551 --> 00:40:31,096
but, uh, not the way,
the same way, the Kowalskis were.

695
00:40:32,598 --> 00:40:35,767
[John]
The whole Bob Ross Corporation thing

696
00:40:36,310 --> 00:40:41,523
was more about selling paint,
canvas, and brushes

697
00:40:41,607 --> 00:40:46,278
than it was instructing people
how to become painters.

698
00:40:46,987 --> 00:40:51,325
If you were to ask Bob Ross
what was the price of a tube of paint

699
00:40:51,408 --> 00:40:55,162
or, you know,
"How many kits are you selling?"

700
00:40:55,245 --> 00:40:57,706
he wouldn't know-- not known any of that.

701
00:40:58,916 --> 00:41:01,835
[Bob] Welcome back. We're gonna run 
the colors across the screen,

702
00:41:01,919 --> 00:41:03,670
in case you didn't get 'em last week,

703
00:41:03,754 --> 00:41:07,216
and just let you see all the colors
that we use on each series here.

704
00:41:07,716 --> 00:41:12,596
When Bob got on TV,
he had to find a paint distributor.

705
00:41:13,847 --> 00:41:17,351
Ross and the Kowalskis knew
that our sponsor was Weber.

706
00:41:18,894 --> 00:41:21,355
Weber was a paint manufacturer,

707
00:41:21,855 --> 00:41:26,151
so they thought, "Okay. Let's go to Weber
and have them make our products."

708
00:41:28,904 --> 00:41:30,572
[Dana] He was really picky

709
00:41:30,656 --> 00:41:34,993
and wanted a product that was exact
to what his qualifications were.

710
00:41:37,204 --> 00:41:41,208
The composition of the paint
had to be just right

711
00:41:41,291 --> 00:41:43,585
for this technique to work well.

712
00:41:45,128 --> 00:41:47,548
[Dana] But Walt wanted to make good money.

713
00:41:49,550 --> 00:41:51,885
More profit is what it's all about.

714
00:41:55,931 --> 00:41:58,850
He couldn't cut any corners
'cause Bob wouldn't let him.

715
00:41:59,768 --> 00:42:02,771
Bob said, "I'm not havin' products
out there that are bad

716
00:42:02,854 --> 00:42:06,275
and, you know,
have my reputation ruined for it."

717
00:42:06,775 --> 00:42:11,113
[John] The material end of things
really was quite important,

718
00:42:11,196 --> 00:42:14,741
but he wasn't into it for the money.

719
00:42:14,825 --> 00:42:16,243
[phone receiver slams]

720
00:42:16,326 --> 00:42:20,581
[Steve] There was many, many arguments
about this over the phone.

721
00:42:21,456 --> 00:42:23,917
He wanted to teach people how to paint,

722
00:42:25,127 --> 00:42:27,462
but through the selling of products,

723
00:42:27,546 --> 00:42:32,092
they wanted to exploit that… for profit.

724
00:42:32,801 --> 00:42:35,220
[Bob] This is your world
on this piece of canvas,

725
00:42:35,304 --> 00:42:38,015
and you could do anything
that your heart desires here.

726
00:42:38,098 --> 00:42:40,892
You have absolute and total power.

727
00:42:41,810 --> 00:42:44,229
This is the only place in the world
I have any power.

728
00:42:44,313 --> 00:42:46,732
Here, I'm the dictator.
Boy, I can do anything here.

729
00:42:46,815 --> 00:42:49,401
It's what's so fantastic
about painting like this.

730
00:42:49,484 --> 00:42:51,069
You have freedom here.

731
00:42:53,071 --> 00:42:54,740
[John] He called me and complained,

732
00:42:54,823 --> 00:43:00,746
and he really, uh, was not happy
with-- with the way things were going.

733
00:43:00,829 --> 00:43:03,248
[brush tapping]

734
00:43:03,332 --> 00:43:06,043
[Steve] Things just kinda
went downhill from there.

735
00:43:06,126 --> 00:43:08,253
[indistinct chattering]

736
00:43:10,380 --> 00:43:12,341
[Bob] Hey, there's my wife, Jane.

737
00:43:12,424 --> 00:43:14,217
-Hi, Jane.
-Hi.

738
00:43:14,301 --> 00:43:16,178
[Bob] And that's Annette with her, 
my partner.

739
00:43:16,887 --> 00:43:18,972
-And I would like to…
-[paint brush tapping]

740
00:43:19,056 --> 00:43:20,557
I'd like to dedicate this painting

741
00:43:20,641 --> 00:43:25,437
to a couple of people that have
really made The Joy of Painting possible.

742
00:43:26,730 --> 00:43:31,193
There's been several that I'd-- 
I'd really like to-- to mention by name.

743
00:43:31,943 --> 00:43:34,321
First of all, uh, my wife, Jane.

744
00:43:34,404 --> 00:43:38,617
She's stood behind us
and-- and kept this thing going.

745
00:43:39,660 --> 00:43:42,788
And it takes a special lady
to live with a crazy man.

746
00:43:51,129 --> 00:43:54,132
[Steve] I remember walking 
into the back bedroom,

747
00:43:54,633 --> 00:43:59,888
and, uh, for probably
only the second time in my life,

748
00:43:59,971 --> 00:44:01,306
I saw my dad crying.

749
00:44:03,850 --> 00:44:05,477
[gulps] And, uh…

750
00:44:07,521 --> 00:44:08,480
uh…

751
00:44:09,439 --> 00:44:12,442
in the fetal position on the ground.

752
00:44:13,235 --> 00:44:14,444
[exhales]

753
00:44:18,907 --> 00:44:21,576
Jane found out that she had cancer.

754
00:44:24,955 --> 00:44:29,167
[voice trembling] It wasn't long
after that that Jane was gone.

755
00:44:30,127 --> 00:44:32,963
[Bob] I would like to take
just a second and thank you.

756
00:44:33,046 --> 00:44:36,842
I happened to mention
that I had lost my wife.

757
00:44:36,925 --> 00:44:40,345
I have received
hundreds and hundreds of cards

758
00:44:40,429 --> 00:44:45,475
from people all over the country,
expressing their sympathy and support.

759
00:44:45,976 --> 00:44:49,646
From the bottom of my heart,
thank you for sharing my grief

760
00:44:50,147 --> 00:44:54,735
and… for making my wife
a very special person in your life too.

761
00:45:02,242 --> 00:45:04,953
[Steve] Jane's death hit him really hard.

762
00:45:06,204 --> 00:45:08,206
I can remember him sayin', um,

763
00:45:08,874 --> 00:45:11,668
"My whole life
went to hell in a handbasket."

764
00:45:13,336 --> 00:45:14,546
[paint brush tapping]

765
00:45:14,629 --> 00:45:16,631
[Bob] Sometimes when 
you're not in such a good mood,

766
00:45:16,715 --> 00:45:18,633
paintings have a tendency 
to get a little darker

767
00:45:19,843 --> 00:45:22,012
because paintings reflect your mood.

768
00:45:23,013 --> 00:45:26,057
Sometimes you're not even
conscious of it. It happens.

769
00:45:31,104 --> 00:45:33,356
You have light on light, you have nothing.

770
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:36,818
If you have dark on dark,
you basically have nothing.

771
00:45:37,944 --> 00:45:40,697
There we are.
You know, it's like in life. If…

772
00:45:40,781 --> 00:45:44,701
You gotta have sadness once in a while,
so you know when the good times come.

773
00:45:45,410 --> 00:45:46,912
I'm waitin' on the good times now.

774
00:46:02,969 --> 00:46:05,555
[Steve] Two or three weeks 
after Jane died,

775
00:46:05,639 --> 00:46:11,269
the doctor said
my dad had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

776
00:46:22,155 --> 00:46:25,408
And then we wash our brushes,
as you know, with odorless thinner.

777
00:46:26,201 --> 00:46:27,577
Shake it off.

778
00:46:27,661 --> 00:46:29,830
[chuckling] Beat the devil out of it.

779
00:46:29,913 --> 00:46:34,876
[John] That wet-on-wet technique
does require quite a bit of paint thinner.

780
00:46:36,795 --> 00:46:41,132
Almost every episode,
he'd be smackin' that brush around.

781
00:46:41,216 --> 00:46:42,300
[Bob] Shake him off.

782
00:46:43,301 --> 00:46:47,097
[John] All the effervescence 
of the paint thinner

783
00:46:47,180 --> 00:46:49,599
would float up right into his nostrils.

784
00:46:49,683 --> 00:46:50,642
[brush flapping]

785
00:46:50,725 --> 00:46:52,561
[chuckling] And cover the whole room.

786
00:46:52,644 --> 00:46:56,982
[John] Even while he was doing it,
I had reservations about it.

787
00:46:57,941 --> 00:47:00,485
[Bob] Add the least little touch
of paint thinner to your brush

788
00:47:00,569 --> 00:47:02,070
and then go through the paint.

789
00:47:02,153 --> 00:47:03,655
[John] Now, I always wondered

790
00:47:03,738 --> 00:47:07,659
if maybe that didn't have
something to do with the lymphoma.

791
00:47:08,410 --> 00:47:13,373
Uh, I'm not a doctor,
but it's-- it's speculation.

792
00:47:14,124 --> 00:47:16,668
We'll wash 'em both while we got it goin'.

793
00:47:16,751 --> 00:47:18,378
[flapping brush]

794
00:47:18,461 --> 00:47:19,546
There.

795
00:47:20,463 --> 00:47:23,508
He decided,
"Well, if I don't have long left to live,

796
00:47:23,592 --> 00:47:26,136
I'm going to do as much as I can."

797
00:47:27,679 --> 00:47:29,389
[Dana] It was "the show must go on."

798
00:47:30,682 --> 00:47:34,436
Hello. I'm Bob Ross,
and I'd like to welcome you to the 26th…

799
00:47:34,519 --> 00:47:37,314
-To the 28th.
-To the 30th Joy of Painting series.

800
00:47:37,397 --> 00:47:40,358
And we just work
all the way across the canvas.

801
00:47:40,442 --> 00:47:41,902
Maybe in our world…

802
00:47:41,985 --> 00:47:44,863
There live some little trees,
far back here in the distance.

803
00:47:45,989 --> 00:47:49,743
[Dana] When I look back on it,
Bob was really in a work mode.

804
00:47:50,785 --> 00:47:53,371
He wanted to get
at least three shows a day in.

805
00:47:53,872 --> 00:47:56,166
And, uh, some days,
he got a lot more than that.

806
00:47:56,249 --> 00:47:57,709
Just have some fun.

807
00:47:58,209 --> 00:48:01,755
This is a day you can just be crazy.
Just spin things around.

808
00:48:03,715 --> 00:48:06,092
[Dana] When you see 
all those later series,

809
00:48:06,176 --> 00:48:09,804
he was literally suffering from cancer.

810
00:48:11,348 --> 00:48:14,351
He was very private about everything.

811
00:48:14,976 --> 00:48:17,187
That was just what Bob wanted.

812
00:48:17,270 --> 00:48:19,481
A little practice with this, 
and you'll be amazed

813
00:48:19,564 --> 00:48:21,232
at what you can accomplish.

814
00:48:21,316 --> 00:48:23,818
Every day is like a gift.

815
00:48:23,902 --> 00:48:26,363
Something new happens on the canvas.

816
00:48:27,113 --> 00:48:28,615
Here's a happy little tree.

817
00:48:28,698 --> 00:48:31,159
Maybe there's a happy little cloud
floatin' around.

818
00:48:31,242 --> 00:48:32,661
Just little happy duders.

819
00:48:33,411 --> 00:48:36,498
This show is playing
in numerous foreign countries now.

820
00:48:36,581 --> 00:48:39,000
Often wonder how they translate "duders."

821
00:48:39,084 --> 00:48:41,169
[male voice speaking Japanese]

822
00:48:41,252 --> 00:48:43,505
[male voice speaking Spanish]

823
00:48:43,588 --> 00:48:46,967
[male voice speaking Turkish]

824
00:48:47,926 --> 00:48:51,262
[Bob] The people all over the world,
there's a common denominator.

825
00:48:51,763 --> 00:48:54,057
Everyone loves to paint.

826
00:49:00,522 --> 00:49:04,401
[Steve] We knew that right at the moment
when he was becoming

827
00:49:04,484 --> 00:49:06,236
the best he ever could,

828
00:49:06,319 --> 00:49:08,905
he was kinda being shut down.

829
00:49:10,657 --> 00:49:12,867
All right, let's wash the old brush.

830
00:49:13,952 --> 00:49:17,747
[Steve] I think, partially, he used 
the work to keep his mind off of it.

831
00:49:19,541 --> 00:49:22,085
[Bob] Every day, I get letters 
from people all over the country

832
00:49:22,168 --> 00:49:25,255
who have never picked up
a paintbrush in their life,

833
00:49:25,338 --> 00:49:27,799
and they've tried this, and it works,

834
00:49:27,882 --> 00:49:30,135
and they've experienced a whole new world.

835
00:49:30,969 --> 00:49:32,262
A whole new world.

836
00:49:33,096 --> 00:49:35,265
[Steve] I've known 
so many depressed people

837
00:49:35,348 --> 00:49:39,102
that came out of their depression
through painting and drawing.

838
00:49:40,270 --> 00:49:45,400
It's important to express yourself
through that kind of symbolism

839
00:49:45,483 --> 00:49:47,402
and get out those emotions.

840
00:49:54,034 --> 00:49:56,536
[inhales and exhales deeply]

841
00:49:56,619 --> 00:49:59,831
[Sally] I'll never forget
when I got the news that Bob had cancer.

842
00:49:59,914 --> 00:50:03,543
My program manager called me
into his office, and he closed the door,

843
00:50:03,626 --> 00:50:06,087
and I believe he told me before the crew.

844
00:50:07,630 --> 00:50:09,215
[shudders]

845
00:50:09,299 --> 00:50:10,717
And he said Bob had cancer,

846
00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:14,345
and I was, like, shocked because
he hadn't shared that he was sick.

847
00:50:16,765 --> 00:50:19,517
He didn't want me thinkin' about that
while doing the show.

848
00:50:20,018 --> 00:50:20,977
There.

849
00:50:23,104 --> 00:50:25,482
This is really the highlight
of my whole life,

850
00:50:25,565 --> 00:50:29,402
is to make these shows and to join you
in your home or wherever you happen to be

851
00:50:29,486 --> 00:50:30,945
and paint along with you.

852
00:50:34,532 --> 00:50:37,869
I really enjoyed being with you
for the past 13 shows.

853
00:50:37,952 --> 00:50:41,706
The old clock on the wall tells me
it's about time to bring this show

854
00:50:41,790 --> 00:50:43,583
and this series to a close.

855
00:50:55,470 --> 00:50:59,599
[Steve] During that time,
I think the Kowalskis became worried.

856
00:51:00,183 --> 00:51:02,769
If Bob dies, their business dies.

857
00:51:03,645 --> 00:51:05,355
[theme music playing]

858
00:51:08,650 --> 00:51:11,111
[chuckling] Hi, I'm Annette Kowalski,

859
00:51:11,194 --> 00:51:16,825
and Bob Ross has invited me to share
with you The Joy of Painting Flowers.

860
00:51:17,784 --> 00:51:20,286
[Kathwren] At our art retreat 
in Florida one day,

861
00:51:20,370 --> 00:51:22,997
a lady throws a book on my table,

862
00:51:23,498 --> 00:51:25,917
and it's Annette Kowalski's flower book.

863
00:51:27,085 --> 00:51:29,754
And it says Annette has worked so hard

864
00:51:29,838 --> 00:51:35,260
for so many years
developing this new style of painting.

865
00:51:36,261 --> 00:51:38,012
I just about had a heart attack.

866
00:51:39,264 --> 00:51:42,267
Annette took my same diagrams

867
00:51:42,350 --> 00:51:45,520
and almost copied 'em completely.

868
00:51:51,693 --> 00:51:57,615
She uses almost
the exact wording that we use.

869
00:51:58,908 --> 00:52:03,288
[Gary] In Kathwren's book,
she's sitting in this peacock chair.

870
00:52:03,788 --> 00:52:07,292
Annette is sitting
in the same peacock chair

871
00:52:07,375 --> 00:52:09,252
in the same pose.

872
00:52:09,335 --> 00:52:11,880
Are you ready to start painting?
I hope so.

873
00:52:11,963 --> 00:52:15,133
We're going to angle strokes back.

874
00:52:15,216 --> 00:52:17,594
[Gary] You wiggle your color 
down the middle.

875
00:52:17,677 --> 00:52:19,804
Angle the stroke towards the back.

876
00:52:19,888 --> 00:52:22,640
[Dana] Annette was doin'
those floral paintings.

877
00:52:22,724 --> 00:52:25,185
I said,
"Those look like Jenkins paintings."

878
00:52:26,144 --> 00:52:28,438
They're so eerily close,

879
00:52:28,521 --> 00:52:31,900
and it's kind of funny that
the brushes all look about the same.

880
00:52:32,901 --> 00:52:36,070
[Kathwren] Since the early '80s,
we had designed badger hair brushes

881
00:52:36,154 --> 00:52:38,323
for our signature line,

882
00:52:38,406 --> 00:52:41,993
and then the vice president of Weber says,

883
00:52:42,076 --> 00:52:44,954
"I'm sorry. You can't have
these badger hair brushes anymore."

884
00:52:45,038 --> 00:52:47,332
"They're on the endangered species list."

885
00:52:47,415 --> 00:52:52,003
The big excitement around here
is Bob's new floral brushes.

886
00:52:52,962 --> 00:52:54,631
[Kathwren] But guess what?

887
00:52:54,714 --> 00:52:57,383
When Annette
came out with her product line,

888
00:52:57,467 --> 00:53:00,803
they had a beautiful line
of badger hair brushes.

889
00:53:01,804 --> 00:53:05,642
Bob was around Annette… uh, so much.

890
00:53:05,725 --> 00:53:07,143
How could he not know?

891
00:53:07,227 --> 00:53:10,104
We're gonna have Annette
paint a little flower for you,

892
00:53:10,188 --> 00:53:13,024
and I'm just gonna turn the show
over to her and I'll see you later.

893
00:53:13,107 --> 00:53:14,108
Thank you.

894
00:53:14,192 --> 00:53:16,152
[Gary] But what is he gonna do about it?

895
00:53:16,236 --> 00:53:20,865
She just wanted to control
the whole art market.

896
00:53:21,491 --> 00:53:23,243
[Kathwren] Our sales went down,

897
00:53:23,326 --> 00:53:26,746
and the stations stopped our shows.

898
00:53:27,247 --> 00:53:30,541
She did it so that there would be
no competition from us.

899
00:53:31,542 --> 00:53:33,336
She wanted us gone.

900
00:53:33,419 --> 00:53:35,421
[ominous music fades out]

901
00:53:43,763 --> 00:53:45,765
[birds squawking]

902
00:53:47,809 --> 00:53:50,186
[Steve] Dad was getting
a little bit sicker,

903
00:53:50,270 --> 00:53:53,773
and we all knew that
we were gonna have to take care of him.

904
00:53:54,274 --> 00:53:57,193
That really changed a lot of my thinking.

905
00:53:57,277 --> 00:53:59,737
You know,
"Why is he doing the things he did?"

906
00:53:59,821 --> 00:54:02,949
"Why did he want what he did for me?"

907
00:54:03,032 --> 00:54:06,661
Uh, "Why was he pushing me so hard?"

908
00:54:07,161 --> 00:54:09,789
It's a great, great privilege to me

909
00:54:09,872 --> 00:54:12,667
to be able to introduce
the pride and joy of my life.

910
00:54:12,750 --> 00:54:14,377
This is my son, Steve.

911
00:54:14,877 --> 00:54:16,838
Steve, certainly glad 
to have you with us, my son.

912
00:54:16,921 --> 00:54:19,048
-Thanks, Dad.
-Tell you what. Do a super painting,

913
00:54:19,132 --> 00:54:20,967
-and I'll see you later.
-Okay.

914
00:54:21,634 --> 00:54:24,679
[Steve] My dad wanted me to do
a lot of shows,

915
00:54:25,555 --> 00:54:27,515
and I didn't want to.

916
00:54:29,309 --> 00:54:31,978
Told me,
"I'm tryin' to do the best for you."

917
00:54:32,478 --> 00:54:35,398
He wanted me to be
more successful than him.

918
00:54:35,481 --> 00:54:39,110
Heck, one time, he even told me
that on the painting show,

919
00:54:39,193 --> 00:54:43,990
he didn't paint as well as he could
because he wanted to make it easier for me

920
00:54:44,073 --> 00:54:46,701
in the future when I took over.

921
00:54:47,827 --> 00:54:49,412
And I thought, "What?"

922
00:54:49,495 --> 00:54:52,749
Got one young feller that out-paints me
when it comes to mountains.

923
00:54:52,832 --> 00:54:57,295
That's my son, Steve. You might have
saw him on some of the other shows.

924
00:54:57,378 --> 00:55:00,381
He's just one
of the most dynamite mountain painters

925
00:55:00,882 --> 00:55:02,008
I've ever seen.

926
00:55:02,091 --> 00:55:03,801
We didn't get him on this series.

927
00:55:03,885 --> 00:55:07,180
Maybe next series,
I'll get him back in here.

928
00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:10,975
There was a power struggle
between us, I guess you would say.

929
00:55:13,061 --> 00:55:17,065
There was a little bit of a fight
that broke out between us.

930
00:55:18,941 --> 00:55:24,697
I wanted to go off and do my own thing,
and he wanted me to do what he did.

931
00:55:27,784 --> 00:55:32,372
It was probably a few years
that we didn't talk much at all.

932
00:55:32,455 --> 00:55:37,335
I'm still a little bit angry inside
with myself over that.

933
00:55:39,545 --> 00:55:42,090
If your parents
are tellin' you to do something,

934
00:55:42,173 --> 00:55:44,842
it's not 'cause they're trying to be mean.

935
00:55:44,926 --> 00:55:46,552
It's because they care.

936
00:55:47,220 --> 00:55:51,474
You know, they love you,
and they want the best for you.

937
00:55:57,230 --> 00:55:59,899
When he was getting weaker and weaker,

938
00:56:01,192 --> 00:56:04,904
we started to do a lot more talking again.

939
00:56:08,866 --> 00:56:12,036
We sat down
and had a whole lot of discussions

940
00:56:12,120 --> 00:56:15,581
about stuff that
he'd never told me before.

941
00:56:18,209 --> 00:56:19,585
In the beginning…

942
00:56:21,629 --> 00:56:23,798
there was a voting system set up.

943
00:56:26,801 --> 00:56:28,219
When Jane died,

944
00:56:29,137 --> 00:56:31,180
he lost a vote.

945
00:56:33,766 --> 00:56:37,478
Suddenly, Bob's opinion
didn't really matter anymore.

946
00:56:37,979 --> 00:56:42,066
It was more or less like,
"We're gonna do what we wanna do,

947
00:56:42,150 --> 00:56:45,027
and you're gonna do
what we tell you to do."

948
00:56:47,405 --> 00:56:49,824
[John] After Jane had passed away,

949
00:56:49,907 --> 00:56:53,327
I know that there were many hard feelings

950
00:56:53,411 --> 00:56:58,040
from not giving Bob
the latitude to be Bob.

951
00:56:58,916 --> 00:57:01,961
He'd decided
he was definitely not going to do

952
00:57:02,044 --> 00:57:05,339
another series with the Kowalskis.

953
00:57:06,340 --> 00:57:08,718
[theme music playing]

954
00:57:10,261 --> 00:57:13,347
♪ So step right in
This is where it begins ♪

955
00:57:13,431 --> 00:57:15,892
♪ The Adventures of Elmer and Friends ♪

956
00:57:16,934 --> 00:57:17,768
Hi, kids.

957
00:57:17,852 --> 00:57:19,645
[kids] Bob!

958
00:57:19,729 --> 00:57:21,189
How is everyone today?

959
00:57:21,272 --> 00:57:22,523
-I'm all right.
-Okay.

960
00:57:23,024 --> 00:57:27,153
[Steve] My father had always wanted
to do a TV show for children.

961
00:57:27,653 --> 00:57:31,824
He wanted to bring
the art world even to the young.

962
00:57:34,452 --> 00:57:37,997
[John] By the time a kid
gets to be 11 or 12 years old,

963
00:57:38,080 --> 00:57:42,752
if he gets some negativity
concerning his artistic endeavors,

964
00:57:43,461 --> 00:57:46,297
uh, oftentimes, he gives it up.

965
00:57:47,089 --> 00:57:52,637
Bob felt that there was
a built-in audience for children.

966
00:57:53,638 --> 00:57:56,849
I was just reading
a good old-fashioned storybook.

967
00:57:56,933 --> 00:57:59,268
[Dana] I know he was 
excited about doin' it

968
00:57:59,352 --> 00:58:00,811
and wanted to do it so bad,

969
00:58:00,895 --> 00:58:02,730
but then that's when he became really ill.

970
00:58:06,025 --> 00:58:07,777
[Steve] He was wearin' a wig.

971
00:58:09,529 --> 00:58:13,157
The Kowalskis got angry
that Bob looked sick.

972
00:58:13,658 --> 00:58:15,618
But he insisted, you know,

973
00:58:15,701 --> 00:58:18,621
that he would
be able to do the television show.

974
00:58:19,539 --> 00:58:22,124
Walt and Annette were totally against it.

975
00:58:24,043 --> 00:58:27,296
They both thought of Bob
as something that they had packaged

976
00:58:27,380 --> 00:58:30,132
and that they had made from the beginning.

977
00:58:31,634 --> 00:58:34,387
They didn't want people
to know he was sick.

978
00:58:46,440 --> 00:58:50,403
When my dad was, uh,
just about on his deathbed,

979
00:58:51,112 --> 00:58:54,949
my dad and I went over
to the Kowalskis' house.

980
00:58:57,994 --> 00:59:00,913
We went back to the back bedroom,

981
00:59:01,414 --> 00:59:03,791
and I laid Bob down in bed.

982
00:59:06,210 --> 00:59:08,504
Annette started talking to me

983
00:59:08,588 --> 00:59:11,841
while the door was closed,
so Bob couldn't hear.

984
00:59:14,135 --> 00:59:18,598
And she said, "You need to go in there
and get Bob to sign this."

985
00:59:21,767 --> 00:59:26,939
She said, "It's a contract for a memorial
that we wanna build to Bob."

986
00:59:29,817 --> 00:59:35,281
It looked to me like they were trying
to get Bob to sign his name over to them.

987
00:59:37,700 --> 00:59:42,371
I refused, and Annette
became very angry and frustrated.

988
00:59:45,041 --> 00:59:48,544
He didn't want to sign away
the full rights to his name.

989
00:59:49,920 --> 00:59:52,757
But that didn't stop them
from trying to get it.

990
00:59:52,840 --> 00:59:55,301
[phone ringing]

991
00:59:55,384 --> 00:59:57,637
They knew he was gettin' closer to death,

992
00:59:59,597 --> 01:00:01,641
and as he did, they got more desperate.

993
01:00:03,184 --> 01:00:04,977
They were having big arguments

994
01:00:05,061 --> 01:00:08,648
over who's going to possess
his name after he died.

995
01:00:10,650 --> 01:00:13,486
This went on daily for weeks.

996
01:00:13,569 --> 01:00:15,946
[phone continues ringing]

997
01:00:16,030 --> 01:00:18,783
[Bob] I like painting
because it gives me total freedom,

998
01:00:19,367 --> 01:00:22,995
and it's the only place in my whole life
that I've had total freedom.

999
01:00:23,746 --> 01:00:28,292
Bob had decided that the way
he was gonna circumvent problems

1000
01:00:28,376 --> 01:00:29,835
with the Kowalskis

1001
01:00:30,586 --> 01:00:35,132
was by marrying a nurse
that he had known for a few months

1002
01:00:35,216 --> 01:00:37,051
while he was in the hospital.

1003
01:00:38,761 --> 01:00:42,640
He was trying to make some
preparations for his half brother

1004
01:00:42,723 --> 01:00:47,436
and his son, Steve, to continue on.

1005
01:00:48,104 --> 01:00:50,022
[phone ringing]

1006
01:00:50,106 --> 01:00:53,651
[Steve] For him to yell,
he had to be extremely angry.

1007
01:00:54,443 --> 01:00:56,696
[Bob] That's the most fun part
of this technique.

1008
01:00:56,779 --> 01:00:59,407
Take out all your frustrations
and hostilities.

1009
01:01:01,200 --> 01:01:02,952
[Steve] You could hear him screaming,

1010
01:01:03,035 --> 01:01:04,870
"I'm not giving you my name."

1011
01:01:04,954 --> 01:01:07,164
"You're not getting my name."

1012
01:01:07,832 --> 01:01:09,041
[receiver clicks]

1013
01:01:13,337 --> 01:01:15,339
[bugs chirring]

1014
01:01:21,512 --> 01:01:27,476
[Dana] The last phone conversation
I had with Bob was in June of 1995.

1015
01:01:29,270 --> 01:01:30,855
He knew what was happenin'.

1016
01:01:31,355 --> 01:01:36,777
He said he wanted nothing to do
with BRI or The Joy of Painting.

1017
01:01:37,653 --> 01:01:42,700
He said, "They're trying
to steal my name on my deathbed."

1018
01:01:44,410 --> 01:01:46,579
And then I talked to him
a bit longer and said,

1019
01:01:46,662 --> 01:01:48,789
"Well, I'll come down and visit you."

1020
01:01:49,290 --> 01:01:52,710
And he said, "No, I don't want you
to come down and see me like this."

1021
01:01:52,793 --> 01:01:55,463
"I weigh a whole 85 pounds."

1022
01:01:55,963 --> 01:01:59,049
"I just want you to remember me
as you saw me last."

1023
01:02:19,320 --> 01:02:21,030
He… [sighs]

1024
01:02:21,113 --> 01:02:22,573
[sniffles]

1025
01:02:22,656 --> 01:02:24,325
He didn't have any hair.

1026
01:02:30,414 --> 01:02:34,251
And he was skinny, so skinny.

1027
01:02:35,127 --> 01:02:37,588
And we had to wet his lips.

1028
01:02:38,088 --> 01:02:39,465
He couldn't drink.

1029
01:02:39,548 --> 01:02:42,885
His throat was… locked up.

1030
01:02:51,894 --> 01:02:54,772
I was watching my hero disintegrate.

1031
01:02:59,151 --> 01:03:02,279
We tried so hard to keep him comfortable…

1032
01:03:02,363 --> 01:03:03,739
[sniffles]

1033
01:03:04,490 --> 01:03:07,326
…but, he was in so much pain.

1034
01:03:13,040 --> 01:03:14,583
I had to hold him up.

1035
01:03:20,840 --> 01:03:22,007
And he said,

1036
01:03:23,384 --> 01:03:24,844
"You're so strong."

1037
01:03:25,594 --> 01:03:26,762
[inhales sharply]

1038
01:03:26,846 --> 01:03:28,848
[shuddering]

1039
01:03:34,103 --> 01:03:35,229
[sighs softly]

1040
01:03:35,312 --> 01:03:37,314
[somber music playing]

1041
01:04:13,350 --> 01:04:17,688
[Steve] After my dad passed, Annette said
something to me I'll never forget.

1042
01:04:17,771 --> 01:04:20,816
She said, uh, "Aren't you glad it's over?"

1043
01:04:23,360 --> 01:04:27,865
And I thought, "What do you mean?
Am I glad my dad is dead?"

1044
01:04:28,991 --> 01:04:32,870
I-- I didn't understand
what she was talkin' about

1045
01:04:33,370 --> 01:04:36,290
because every second that I could've had…

1046
01:04:37,958 --> 01:04:40,210
[sighs] Every second…

1047
01:04:42,338 --> 01:04:43,505
would've been…

1048
01:04:44,840 --> 01:04:46,717
I mean, I would've given everything.

1049
01:04:46,800 --> 01:04:47,801
[inhales sharply]

1050
01:04:52,431 --> 01:04:57,519
The Kowalskis did not show up
at his funeral, at Bob's funeral.

1051
01:04:57,603 --> 01:05:00,606
[sniffles] Even worse, 
they tried to keep the fact

1052
01:05:00,689 --> 01:05:03,776
that the funeral
was even happening a secret.

1053
01:05:06,236 --> 01:05:08,405
[Dana] I can't even remember 
who called me.

1054
01:05:09,073 --> 01:05:13,827
They said, "Bob passed,"
and "Don't tell anybody,"

1055
01:05:13,911 --> 01:05:16,413
and "Get on the next flight to Florida."

1056
01:05:18,749 --> 01:05:19,917
It was crazy.

1057
01:05:21,293 --> 01:05:24,254
There was only, like,
30 or 40 people there, total.

1058
01:05:26,882 --> 01:05:31,971
[John] I found out that he'd passed away
by reading it in Newsweek.

1059
01:05:32,471 --> 01:05:35,599
I was always a little bitter
towards the company

1060
01:05:35,683 --> 01:05:38,560
for not having gotten in touch with me.

1061
01:05:38,644 --> 01:05:41,438
I would've loved
to have attended his funeral.

1062
01:05:43,941 --> 01:05:46,527
Uh, but that-- that didn't happen.

1063
01:05:48,779 --> 01:05:52,241
They wanted people, I think,
to believe that he was still alive.

1064
01:05:52,324 --> 01:05:53,867
And many people did.

1065
01:05:53,951 --> 01:05:57,830
[sniffles] Even to this day,
I've had to tell people, you know,

1066
01:05:57,913 --> 01:05:59,665
that he's-- he's gone.

1067
01:06:16,140 --> 01:06:21,061
After he died,
things changed permanently for me

1068
01:06:21,687 --> 01:06:24,148
in the way I thought about everything.

1069
01:06:24,231 --> 01:06:26,859
The way I thought about life and death

1070
01:06:26,942 --> 01:06:29,570
and, uh, pretty much
everything in between.

1071
01:06:33,741 --> 01:06:37,494
I think I had a small nervous breakdown.

1072
01:06:42,666 --> 01:06:44,668
[Dana] After Bob's passing,

1073
01:06:45,502 --> 01:06:47,087
I kinda wondered,

1074
01:06:47,629 --> 01:06:49,048
"Now what?"

1075
01:06:49,798 --> 01:06:51,800
[bells tolling]

1076
01:06:54,428 --> 01:06:56,430
[ducks quacking]

1077
01:06:59,683 --> 01:07:04,188
[Bert] I started working
for Bob Ross Inc. in 1995.

1078
01:07:04,688 --> 01:07:09,860
After he died, they asked me
if I could introduce Bob Ross in Europe.

1079
01:07:11,070 --> 01:07:15,282
I was able to sell it
in the public television of Germany.

1080
01:07:15,866 --> 01:07:20,621
I would collect the orders
for paints and brushes, books.

1081
01:07:21,789 --> 01:07:24,875
Walt Kowalski was my prime contact,

1082
01:07:25,584 --> 01:07:31,006
but when we talked about the business,
it was only very limited to my department.

1083
01:07:32,299 --> 01:07:34,802
In the beginning,
I thought that, you know,

1084
01:07:34,885 --> 01:07:39,348
Bob died, and the Kowalskis were very,
you know, sad about this.

1085
01:07:40,099 --> 01:07:44,978
But I started to notice, uh, changes
at the Bob Ross Company.

1086
01:07:46,230 --> 01:07:51,610
They were becoming much more demanding
on the Certified Ross Instructors.

1087
01:07:52,194 --> 01:07:53,821
[Kathwren] Ross students told me

1088
01:07:53,904 --> 01:07:58,450
it was like walking on eggs
in those certification classes.

1089
01:07:59,618 --> 01:08:04,206
The first day, their management
shoots a contract in front of 'em.

1090
01:08:04,832 --> 01:08:10,629
The students were all asked to sign
what were called "guidelines,"

1091
01:08:10,712 --> 01:08:13,799
which really were a contract.

1092
01:08:15,676 --> 01:08:19,054
[Kathwren] You cannot promote 
any other artist.

1093
01:08:19,555 --> 01:08:24,643
You cannot use any other products
except for the Ross products.

1094
01:08:27,104 --> 01:08:29,481
They had a suggestion box.

1095
01:08:29,565 --> 01:08:31,400
I called it the spy box.

1096
01:08:32,609 --> 01:08:38,949
You were supposed to call
if any of your students or other teachers

1097
01:08:39,032 --> 01:08:44,121
had, uh, gone against 
the guidelines in some regard.

1098
01:08:45,497 --> 01:08:48,584
[Kathwren] One particular
friend of ours, the first day,

1099
01:08:48,667 --> 01:08:50,752
she gets tapped on the shoulder.

1100
01:08:51,253 --> 01:08:53,797
They said, "We want you
to pack your paints and brushes."

1101
01:08:53,881 --> 01:08:56,216
"Don't say a word to anyone and leave."

1102
01:08:58,760 --> 01:09:01,597
She was mentioning to the other students,

1103
01:09:01,680 --> 01:09:03,599
"I really want to go to Jenkins's class."

1104
01:09:05,767 --> 01:09:09,313
Now, this was reported
in that little suggestion box.

1105
01:09:10,397 --> 01:09:12,399
[keys clattering rapidly]

1106
01:09:22,242 --> 01:09:23,952
They were in complete control,

1107
01:09:24,036 --> 01:09:27,372
and they could act
in the name of Bob Ross,

1108
01:09:27,456 --> 01:09:29,958
where Bob Ross never was involved.

1109
01:09:40,219 --> 01:09:43,597
One time,
I was walking around in the warehouse.

1110
01:09:44,640 --> 01:09:47,893
There was a big table with a lot
of paintings all over the place.

1111
01:09:48,602 --> 01:09:54,149
And I saw a guy painting, uh,
with a script liner brush,

1112
01:09:54,650 --> 01:09:58,111
signing the signature
of Bob Ross on the painting.

1113
01:09:58,737 --> 01:10:00,113
I thought, "Hey, wait a minute."

1114
01:10:00,197 --> 01:10:03,408
"This guy died, and now
somebody's signing a Bob Ross painting."

1115
01:10:03,492 --> 01:10:04,534
"What's going on here?"

1116
01:10:06,078 --> 01:10:08,121
A lot of people are able to paint

1117
01:10:08,205 --> 01:10:12,376
almost exact copies of Bob Ross,
and you don't see the difference.

1118
01:10:12,459 --> 01:10:15,254
I don't see the difference.
Nobody can see the difference.

1119
01:10:16,296 --> 01:10:18,632
The difference,
probably, is the signature,

1120
01:10:19,132 --> 01:10:22,761
but even then,
you don't know if it is, uh, valid.

1121
01:10:25,097 --> 01:10:27,015
[man] Walt, is that a Bob Ross over there?

1122
01:10:27,099 --> 01:10:29,017
That is a Bob Ross painting.

1123
01:10:29,685 --> 01:10:31,561
Because somebody told me that it was.

1124
01:10:32,437 --> 01:10:36,233
I can pretty much recognize
a Bob Ross painting.

1125
01:10:36,316 --> 01:10:38,318
[interviewer]
What do you think about the idea

1126
01:10:38,402 --> 01:10:40,279
that the only person that is qualified

1127
01:10:40,362 --> 01:10:43,991
to authenticate a Bob Ross painting is,
in fact, Annette Kowalski?

1128
01:10:44,074 --> 01:10:45,701
It's bullshit, BS.

1129
01:10:45,784 --> 01:10:47,536
Sorry, baloney.

1130
01:10:48,036 --> 01:10:52,040
When I saw that guy, that was,
for me, one of the triggers to say,

1131
01:10:52,124 --> 01:10:54,167
"There's something very wrong here."

1132
01:11:01,800 --> 01:11:03,635
The Bob Ross Company knew

1133
01:11:03,719 --> 01:11:06,763
that they were the largest client
of Weber company.

1134
01:11:08,390 --> 01:11:14,062
Walt told me, "We have the right
to audit the Martin F. Weber company."

1135
01:11:14,813 --> 01:11:17,441
And they audited the books
of Martin F. Weber,

1136
01:11:17,524 --> 01:11:20,027
and they found some stuff
which was not correct.

1137
01:11:20,819 --> 01:11:22,904
The management of BRI said,

1138
01:11:22,988 --> 01:11:26,158
"The only thing you have to do
is kick out Jenkins."

1139
01:11:26,241 --> 01:11:28,160
"Destroy his line of painting,

1140
01:11:28,243 --> 01:11:30,620
don't support his TV show anymore,

1141
01:11:31,121 --> 01:11:33,248
and basically kick him out."

1142
01:11:34,291 --> 01:11:37,085
We were under contract
with Weber, 16 years.

1143
01:11:37,169 --> 01:11:39,671
Super loyal to Dennis Kapp,

1144
01:11:39,755 --> 01:11:42,466
even though
they stopped booking our workshops.

1145
01:11:42,549 --> 01:11:46,470
We finally said to Dennis,
"We know what the Kowalskis are doing."

1146
01:11:47,554 --> 01:11:50,098
He said, "You know, it's just business."

1147
01:11:50,182 --> 01:11:52,059
"It's nothing personal."

1148
01:11:53,060 --> 01:11:55,270
It sure was personal to us.

1149
01:11:56,605 --> 01:11:59,900
We were such pioneers
in the hobby craft industry.

1150
01:11:59,983 --> 01:12:06,281
We live, breathe, eat, sleep art 24/7.

1151
01:12:06,948 --> 01:12:10,035
We woke up one morning,
and we were out of a job.

1152
01:12:12,788 --> 01:12:15,540
[Kathwren] Being under contract with Weber

1153
01:12:16,041 --> 01:12:20,670
was the biggest, worst thing
that could've happened to us.

1154
01:12:24,007 --> 01:12:27,552
[Bert] The Kowalskis had
no desire whatsoever

1155
01:12:28,136 --> 01:12:30,305
to spread happiness and feel-goods.

1156
01:12:32,099 --> 01:12:34,226
They only were interested in money.

1157
01:12:36,478 --> 01:12:40,816
[Dana] There's so many Bob Ross products
that are made now.

1158
01:12:41,566 --> 01:12:42,984
Coffee cups,

1159
01:12:43,485 --> 01:12:45,779
T-shirts, pajamas,

1160
01:12:45,862 --> 01:12:48,156
blankets, lunch boxes,

1161
01:12:48,240 --> 01:12:49,783
jigsaw puzzles,

1162
01:12:49,866 --> 01:12:51,535
ink pens.

1163
01:12:51,618 --> 01:12:52,994
Do you want me to keep goin'?

1164
01:12:53,078 --> 01:12:55,414
[narrator]
Your favorite painter, Bob Ross, Chia Pet.

1165
01:12:55,497 --> 01:12:57,249
-Fantastic.
-Just spread the seeds.

1166
01:12:57,332 --> 01:12:59,584
[woman] As the interest has risen,

1167
01:12:59,709 --> 01:13:02,838
we've been very happy
to supply people with Bob Ross products.

1168
01:13:02,921 --> 01:13:07,175
Like, so that they can smile every day
as they drink out of their Bob Ross mug.

1169
01:13:07,676 --> 01:13:13,014
Everything what the Bob Ross Company
communicated to the world was,

1170
01:13:13,098 --> 01:13:14,808
"Bob Ross this, Bob Ross that."

1171
01:13:15,600 --> 01:13:17,686
Bob died. Bob was not involved at all.

1172
01:13:22,774 --> 01:13:24,693
[Steve] They care about control.

1173
01:13:24,776 --> 01:13:27,821
They wanna own
the whole dang kit and caboodle.

1174
01:13:28,947 --> 01:13:32,033
I mean, I've had enough of it,
to be honest with you.

1175
01:13:35,871 --> 01:13:37,622
[man] Good morning. We're on the record

1176
01:13:37,706 --> 01:13:42,669
in the matter
of RSR Art, LLC v. Bob Ross Inc.

1177
01:13:42,752 --> 01:13:45,464
This is the video deposition
of Robert Steven Ross.

1178
01:13:45,547 --> 01:13:48,508
This is the video deposition
of Dana Jester.

1179
01:13:49,009 --> 01:13:53,388
[Steve] I'd had decided to put my name
on paint and brushes,

1180
01:13:53,889 --> 01:13:58,143
but even using my own name
was scary for me

1181
01:13:58,727 --> 01:14:03,273
because they believe they are
the full owners of the name Ross.

1182
01:14:03,982 --> 01:14:07,027
I knew I would immediately be sued.

1183
01:14:08,236 --> 01:14:10,572
Our lawyer told us
it's better to sue them.

1184
01:14:10,655 --> 01:14:14,284
It's cheaper than
to have them sue you later

1185
01:14:14,784 --> 01:14:16,495
because they like to sue people.

1186
01:14:17,704 --> 01:14:22,125
[lawyer] Okay, let's, um, talk about 
um, my client, Bob Ross Inc.,

1187
01:14:22,209 --> 01:14:24,085
which I will refer to as BRI.

1188
01:14:24,169 --> 01:14:27,839
-An abbreviation you're familiar with?
-That's fine. That's fine.

1189
01:14:27,923 --> 01:14:31,760
[lawyer] Was there more than one person
who came up with the idea of creating RSR?

1190
01:14:31,843 --> 01:14:34,721
-It's a group effort.
-[lawyer] M'kay. And who was the group?

1191
01:14:34,804 --> 01:14:38,850
That would be Lawrence, Steve, and myself.

1192
01:14:38,934 --> 01:14:41,186
-[lawyer] And Lawrence is Lawrence Kapp?
-Yes.

1193
01:14:42,729 --> 01:14:44,147
[groans]

1194
01:14:45,065 --> 01:14:46,066
[coughs]

1195
01:14:47,609 --> 01:14:50,904
[Lawrence] My father owned
Martin F. Weber Company,

1196
01:14:51,404 --> 01:14:55,242
oldest manufacturer of fine artist
materials in the United States.

1197
01:14:55,325 --> 01:14:59,287
[lawyer] This is a video-recorded 
deposition of Mr. Lawrence Kapp.

1198
01:15:00,288 --> 01:15:04,042
For how long
after you joined Martin F. Weber in 2001

1199
01:15:04,125 --> 01:15:10,715
did Martin F. Weber continue to produce
Bob Ross licensed products for BRI?

1200
01:15:11,299 --> 01:15:15,345
Till… 2016.

1201
01:15:16,304 --> 01:15:19,599
[lawyer] Did you, uh, have any,
uh, emotions or feelings…

1202
01:15:19,683 --> 01:15:21,268
-Well, uh--
-…about the decision

1203
01:15:21,351 --> 01:15:23,770
to let the contract expire 
when you learned about it?

1204
01:15:24,271 --> 01:15:26,815
I was very concerned.

1205
01:15:27,857 --> 01:15:32,028
Uh, I came up with 
the possibility of doing

1206
01:15:32,112 --> 01:15:35,865
Robert Stephen Ross brushes and paint.

1207
01:15:36,449 --> 01:15:39,619
Steve and I talked in July of 2016.

1208
01:15:40,704 --> 01:15:45,500
Lawrence approached him and said
they could produce the paints, so…

1209
01:15:45,584 --> 01:15:49,421
I was told that, uh… uh,

1210
01:15:49,504 --> 01:15:52,090
you can't do something like that,

1211
01:15:52,591 --> 01:15:55,051
you know, because of his last name,

1212
01:15:55,135 --> 01:15:58,388
unless he owns
the rights to his dad's name

1213
01:15:58,471 --> 01:16:00,599
and the rights to publicity.

1214
01:16:01,099 --> 01:16:04,728
The Bob Ross Company,
the year after Bob passed,

1215
01:16:05,353 --> 01:16:10,734
sued both Bob's third wife,
Lynda Ross, and Jimmie Cox,

1216
01:16:11,776 --> 01:16:15,739
going after, primarily, the paintings
and physical objects.

1217
01:16:17,282 --> 01:16:19,451
Brushes that Bob Ross used,

1218
01:16:19,534 --> 01:16:22,078
palette that Bob used on TV.

1219
01:16:22,996 --> 01:16:25,832
They wanted all the paintings
hanging in his house.

1220
01:16:26,958 --> 01:16:29,711
[lawyer] How would you describe
your relationship with your uncle Jim?

1221
01:16:31,379 --> 01:16:32,380
Shaky.

1222
01:16:35,717 --> 01:16:37,302
[lawyer] Has it always been that way?

1223
01:16:40,513 --> 01:16:44,225
Yes, I'd say it has, come to think of it.

1224
01:16:45,352 --> 01:16:48,271
Never really thought about it
before now, but yeah.

1225
01:16:48,897 --> 01:16:50,565
[papers rustling]

1226
01:16:55,028 --> 01:16:57,530
[Lawrence] Steve was trying to figure out

1227
01:16:57,614 --> 01:17:01,284
if he owned the rights to his dad's name.

1228
01:17:01,785 --> 01:17:04,496
And in digging, he said,

1229
01:17:04,579 --> 01:17:08,041
"Oh my gosh. You're not gonna
believe what I just found."

1230
01:17:10,794 --> 01:17:15,548
[Steve] It was the first amendment
to the Bob Ross non-revocable trust.

1231
01:17:16,800 --> 01:17:23,348
It literally said that Uncle Jim and I
owned almost all the IP rights.

1232
01:17:24,724 --> 01:17:28,144
Everything my father
didn't sign over to BRI.

1233
01:17:28,978 --> 01:17:32,732
He set up the trust that way
because I was young,

1234
01:17:32,816 --> 01:17:37,278
and he knew that Jim was probably
more responsible than I was

1235
01:17:37,362 --> 01:17:41,449
and it would be smart
for him to control things.

1236
01:17:43,243 --> 01:17:49,040
[lawyer] Did your uncle Jim ever tell you
about the settlement that he entered into

1237
01:17:49,124 --> 01:17:53,920
with BRI to-- to settle this dispute?

1238
01:17:54,003 --> 01:17:56,631
Absolutely not. No.

1239
01:17:57,966 --> 01:18:00,677
[lawyer] It's correct, is it not,
that in the settlement agreement

1240
01:18:00,760 --> 01:18:03,263
from 1997 that we just reviewed,

1241
01:18:03,346 --> 01:18:05,306
Jimmie Cox, on behalf of the trust,

1242
01:18:05,390 --> 01:18:08,977
assigns all rights
of incidents and ownership,

1243
01:18:09,060 --> 01:18:15,316
creative works, or other assets of BRI
of any kind of character to BRI, correct?

1244
01:18:16,109 --> 01:18:19,988
That is what this document purports.

1245
01:18:20,071 --> 01:18:21,906
What is-- what is all this?

1246
01:18:22,991 --> 01:18:26,703
My own uncle
had signed over those rights to them,

1247
01:18:27,829 --> 01:18:31,791
totally against my father's wishes.

1248
01:18:32,292 --> 01:18:34,294
[ominous music playing]

1249
01:18:47,891 --> 01:18:51,770
[Lawrence]
When the Bob Ross company, in '96,

1250
01:18:52,562 --> 01:18:56,274
sued both the estate as well as the trust,

1251
01:18:56,775 --> 01:19:02,781
Jimmie, to make the lawsuit go away,
signs the papers BRI put in front of him.

1252
01:19:02,864 --> 01:19:05,325
Lynda does the same, apparently,

1253
01:19:06,117 --> 01:19:10,121
signing over all rights to BRI.

1254
01:19:11,539 --> 01:19:15,335
In this settlement agreement
was also mentioned some tapes.

1255
01:19:15,835 --> 01:19:19,339
[Steve] My father didn't discuss
a lot of business things

1256
01:19:19,422 --> 01:19:23,551
with us because, you know,
the Kowalskis didn't want that,

1257
01:19:24,969 --> 01:19:28,097
but he was recording them on the phone.

1258
01:19:28,932 --> 01:19:31,976
They literally taught him how to do this,

1259
01:19:32,560 --> 01:19:34,187
and he knew that, in the future,

1260
01:19:34,270 --> 01:19:37,732
there was going to be a war
with the Kowalskis.

1261
01:19:40,610 --> 01:19:44,697
All of those tapes
were part of what they sued his wife

1262
01:19:44,781 --> 01:19:48,159
that married him
two months before he died.

1263
01:19:49,327 --> 01:19:51,538
They probably disposed of those

1264
01:19:51,621 --> 01:19:53,748
so that nobody could discover

1265
01:19:53,832 --> 01:19:56,334
exactly what was said.

1266
01:19:57,460 --> 01:19:59,462
[ominous music continues]

1267
01:20:24,696 --> 01:20:28,366
They literally wanted to steal Dad's name.

1268
01:20:29,367 --> 01:20:30,285
And did.

1269
01:20:35,748 --> 01:20:37,750
[music fades out]

1270
01:20:37,834 --> 01:20:40,837
[Lawrence] I was still hopeful
I could file appeal.

1271
01:20:42,672 --> 01:20:45,758
What we ran into was a lack of funding.

1272
01:20:47,218 --> 01:20:49,554
My attorney said 90 grand

1273
01:20:49,637 --> 01:20:53,141
should get us through the appeal
and win the case.

1274
01:20:53,224 --> 01:20:57,437
I was unable to come up with
the 90 grand in funding,

1275
01:20:57,520 --> 01:21:00,440
and it did not go the way I expected.

1276
01:21:01,608 --> 01:21:05,194
The appeal portion really added
a dollar figure onto it

1277
01:21:05,278 --> 01:21:07,363
we weren't capable of handling.

1278
01:21:20,251 --> 01:21:23,922
[Dana] Steve went back to Florida
and went into seclusion

1279
01:21:24,422 --> 01:21:27,634
and didn't respond to phone calls.

1280
01:21:31,137 --> 01:21:34,349
But finally, I called him and woke him up.

1281
01:21:34,849 --> 01:21:36,351
Just shook him a little bit.

1282
01:21:38,645 --> 01:21:40,229
I said, "Don't waste your life."

1283
01:21:40,730 --> 01:21:43,900
"I know that's not
what your dad would want you to do."

1284
01:22:00,583 --> 01:22:02,627
[Steve] Once I started to paint again…

1285
01:22:02,710 --> 01:22:04,712
[paint brush scraping]

1286
01:22:08,007 --> 01:22:12,136
…I realized I can take
these emotions that I had

1287
01:22:12,637 --> 01:22:14,639
and turn them into something.

1288
01:22:19,060 --> 01:22:22,146
The Kowalskis made millions of dollars

1289
01:22:22,230 --> 01:22:26,693
from, I would say,
exploiting his name and image.

1290
01:22:31,572 --> 01:22:35,535
But he brought
so much happiness to people.

1291
01:22:38,788 --> 01:22:41,124
And that's what's important.

1292
01:22:44,752 --> 01:22:47,964
[Bob] It's unbelievable what you can do
with a big ol' two-inch brush

1293
01:22:48,047 --> 01:22:50,675
if you'll devote
just a little bit of time to practice.

1294
01:22:52,593 --> 01:22:54,512
And it doesn't take a great deal.

1295
01:22:55,013 --> 01:22:58,099
We get letters from people every day
that have never painted,

1296
01:22:58,808 --> 01:23:01,269
who are doing
some of the most beautiful things.

1297
01:23:04,063 --> 01:23:07,400
They've learnt
to create their own masterpieces.

1298
01:23:09,360 --> 01:23:11,487
It's what makes all this worthwhile.

1299
01:23:12,530 --> 01:23:14,282
The fact that people are doing this

1300
01:23:14,365 --> 01:23:17,201
and enjoying
a tremendous amount of success.

1301
01:23:21,372 --> 01:23:22,248
All right.

1302
01:23:24,792 --> 01:23:27,462
To me, the first step
of accomplishing anything

1303
01:23:27,545 --> 01:23:30,840
is to believe that you can do it,
and I know you can do it.

1304
01:23:39,015 --> 01:23:42,268
[man] I was in a deep depression
which brewed for about ten years.

1305
01:23:43,978 --> 01:23:46,230
I tried to commit suicide,
like, three or four times.

1306
01:23:46,314 --> 01:23:48,483
I tried to-- I tried to commit suicide.

1307
01:23:50,068 --> 01:23:54,530
I was sitting in my living room one day,
actually debating a way

1308
01:23:54,614 --> 01:23:58,785
that I could get through this and do this,
and Bob Ross appeared on TV.

1309
01:24:00,036 --> 01:24:04,207
[Bob] All you have to do
is create a vision in your mind

1310
01:24:04,707 --> 01:24:06,793
and believe that you can do it.

1311
01:24:08,211 --> 01:24:11,881
Because we can do anything in this life
that we believe we can do.

1312
01:24:11,964 --> 01:24:16,177
If you believe strong enough,
anything is possible.

1313
01:24:16,260 --> 01:24:17,887
Anything is possible.

1314
01:24:19,305 --> 01:24:22,141
For somebody like Bob Ross to come on

1315
01:24:22,642 --> 01:24:25,103
and make that
personal connection with you.

1316
01:24:25,603 --> 01:24:26,562
He cares.

1317
01:24:28,689 --> 01:24:30,775
He saved my life. He really did.

1318
01:24:35,029 --> 01:24:37,657
[woman] I had to go to the emergency room

1319
01:24:37,740 --> 01:24:42,328
because I was havin' problems
with my pregnancy.

1320
01:24:43,663 --> 01:24:46,124
My kidneys had stopped functioning.

1321
01:24:46,207 --> 01:24:48,459
My liver had stopped functioning.

1322
01:24:50,044 --> 01:24:53,798
And the only thing that they could do

1323
01:24:54,298 --> 01:24:57,718
was to terminate my pregnancy.

1324
01:24:58,678 --> 01:25:02,014
And… that was a hard--

1325
01:25:02,640 --> 01:25:05,017
It was hard to accept.

1326
01:25:07,186 --> 01:25:11,732
The first time I turned on the television,
there was Bob Ross.

1327
01:25:12,233 --> 01:25:15,862
When doing the painting, you look at it
and you decide what makes you happy.

1328
01:25:15,945 --> 01:25:17,363
This is your world right here.

1329
01:25:17,446 --> 01:25:19,031
And there's no right or wrong

1330
01:25:19,115 --> 01:25:21,450
as long as it makes you happy 
and doesn't hurt anybody.

1331
01:25:23,244 --> 01:25:27,123
Bob brought the life back into my mind

1332
01:25:27,206 --> 01:25:28,708
and my heart,

1333
01:25:29,625 --> 01:25:33,921
and the joy that I never knew
I could feel by painting.

1334
01:25:37,967 --> 01:25:41,804
That was the whole idea
behind Bob Ross and his painting

1335
01:25:41,888 --> 01:25:47,101
is that he was going to teach people
that they could be valuable.

1336
01:25:47,602 --> 01:25:50,980
They could be important… in this world.

1337
01:25:53,065 --> 01:25:55,651
[Bob] Beautiful, Steve.
Absolutely beautiful.

1338
01:25:56,652 --> 01:25:58,988
Why, this son of a gun is quite a painter.

1339
01:25:59,488 --> 01:26:03,409
I better watch out, or he'll be on TV,
and I'll be home by myself.

1340
01:26:03,492 --> 01:26:05,244
[both chuckling]

1341
01:26:05,328 --> 01:26:09,957
I don't think my father ever knew
the impact that he was having,

1342
01:26:10,041 --> 01:26:14,337
uh, even towards the end,
even once it got huge.

1343
01:26:14,837 --> 01:26:19,592
He never really absorbed
how much he was loved.

1344
01:26:19,675 --> 01:26:23,179
[joyful music playing]

1345
01:26:31,062 --> 01:26:36,150
It's hard to describe
exactly what Bob's appeal was.

1346
01:26:36,734 --> 01:26:40,321
It had to do with his painting abilities,

1347
01:26:40,821 --> 01:26:43,449
it had to do with his voice

1348
01:26:43,950 --> 01:26:48,037
and his personal way of talking to people.

1349
01:26:48,829 --> 01:26:55,378
He just had a tremendous effect
on everybody that got to know him.

1350
01:27:08,057 --> 01:27:11,727
[Steve] The memory of Bob
lives on through all of us,

1351
01:27:11,811 --> 01:27:13,271
and his legacy lives on

1352
01:27:13,354 --> 01:27:15,648
through all of his fans.

1353
01:27:16,440 --> 01:27:18,025
He told me before he died

1354
01:27:18,109 --> 01:27:23,197
that, uh, he actually wanted people
to remember him

1355
01:27:23,281 --> 01:27:25,324
but not to be sad.

1356
01:27:28,703 --> 01:27:29,912
[sighs]

1357
01:27:32,039 --> 01:27:33,833
We all miss you, Dad.

1358
01:27:34,500 --> 01:27:36,043
We all miss you.

1359
01:27:38,212 --> 01:27:40,214
I asked him one time,

1360
01:27:40,298 --> 01:27:42,842
"What are you trying
to prove to the world?"

1361
01:27:42,925 --> 01:27:44,343
And he said,

1362
01:27:44,427 --> 01:27:49,849
"What we do here and now,
people will remember forever."

1363
01:27:49,932 --> 01:27:53,269
[narrator] Libraries across the country
are filling each week

1364
01:27:53,352 --> 01:27:55,229
with folks yearning to create.

1365
01:27:55,354 --> 01:27:56,897
[fan] We painted like Bob Ross

1366
01:27:56,981 --> 01:28:00,318
while watching Bob Ross,
dressed as Bob Ross.

1367
01:28:00,401 --> 01:28:02,820
-Do you guys know Bob Ross?
-[audience cheering] Yeah!

1368
01:28:02,903 --> 01:28:05,406
He's almost like a-- like a friend.

1369
01:28:05,823 --> 01:28:07,616
[exhales] Okay, watch this.

1370
01:28:07,700 --> 01:28:08,743
Just like him.

1371
01:28:08,826 --> 01:28:11,245
Is Bob Ross an art therapist?

1372
01:28:11,329 --> 01:28:14,457
Because watching him
is incredibly relaxing.

1373
01:28:14,540 --> 01:28:17,168
Hello there. Welcome back.
I'm glad you could join me today.

1374
01:28:17,752 --> 01:28:20,296
And we're gonna put
a happy little bush right down over here.

1375
01:28:22,048 --> 01:28:23,299
I'm Bob Ross.

1376
01:28:26,677 --> 01:28:30,014
Just stickin' with the same old colors
that we used before.

1377
01:28:30,598 --> 01:28:34,935
Instead of lifting the knife off
the canvas, jiggle it as you go down.

1378
01:28:35,019 --> 01:28:37,605
And then tilt it as you go.

1379
01:28:38,606 --> 01:28:40,983
It's hard to tell people their faults

1380
01:28:41,567 --> 01:28:43,611
and maybe even harder to accept

1381
01:28:43,694 --> 01:28:46,447
that you have made a happy accident.

1382
01:28:49,241 --> 01:28:54,372
A lot of times, I've wondered
if it's not your mistakes

1383
01:28:54,455 --> 01:28:57,166
that teach you
a lot more than your successes.

1384
01:28:57,249 --> 01:28:59,710
A success,
you just move on to the next thing.

1385
01:28:59,794 --> 01:29:01,796
But when you make a mistake

1386
01:29:01,879 --> 01:29:04,507
or have a "happy accident,"
as Bob called it,

1387
01:29:04,590 --> 01:29:10,638
uh, suddenly you learn
all kinds of new ways to correct it,

1388
01:29:10,721 --> 01:29:15,935
and through that learning process,
you really start developing in new ways.

1389
01:29:18,145 --> 01:29:20,272
Well Steve, 
what do you think of this painting?

1390
01:29:20,356 --> 01:29:22,108
Well, I think it's pretty good. [chuckles]

1391
01:29:22,191 --> 01:29:23,317
[Bob] That's very nice.

1392
01:29:23,401 --> 01:29:25,986
And I hope that everyone has enjoyed

1393
01:29:26,070 --> 01:29:28,489
watching you do
a beautiful little painting here.

1394
01:29:29,198 --> 01:29:31,492
So on behalf of all of us
here at the station,

1395
01:29:31,992 --> 01:29:35,621
we'd like to wish
each and every one of you happy painting.

1396
01:29:36,122 --> 01:29:37,164
God bless.

1397
01:29:37,248 --> 01:29:40,793
On behalf of my son Steve,
thanks for watchin'.

1398
01:29:41,293 --> 01:29:42,628
See you next time.

1399
01:29:43,212 --> 01:29:45,214
[light instrumental music playing]

1400
01:30:37,183 --> 01:30:39,185
[theme music plays]