Bob Ross

The Joy of Painting was a show on PBS that ran between 1983 and 1994. In it be-afro'd painter and former US Air Force medical records technician Bob Ross taught regular Joe's like you and me how to paint "happy trees" and other magnificent American landscapes. For some reason my mother's parents would play this show on a constant rotation whenever they babysat me, and Bob's soothing voice never failed to put me to sleep. On second thought, maybe that was the reason. It wasn't that his paintings were shit. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. It was just that I could care less about painting and much more about finding ways to fall alseep. In the time since Ross's death in 1995 I've sometimes wondered whether tapes of his show existed. I figured I could use them for those awful sleepless nights where you look for the most boring show you can find just to help you sleep.

Well, it turns out Bob Ross, Inc. is way ahead of me, selling all kinds of Bob Ross instructional media. They even sell the entire "Bob Ross library" in one convenient box set for the low low price of
That's right. For just $1,376.50, you too can own the Bob Ross DVD Legacy. I wonder how many of those have ever been sold. I'm going with zero. Individual 1 Hour episodes cost $16.95 each, which seems much like much more than I'd ever need.

Rest in peace, happy little painter.