Do we like Bob Ross?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Decades of gentle, encouraging TV with no harmful words or acts found, marked down only because the record on his views is thin.
Bob Ross was born in Daytona Beach in 1942 and raised in Orlando by a carpenter father and a waitress mother. He left high school in ninth grade, then joined the US Air Force in 1961 and stayed twenty years, retiring in 1981 as a master sergeant. His day job was a desk in medical records, and he was reportedly known for strict discipline.
Painting came sideways. He took an oil painting class at a USO club, sold quick landscapes at a tavern, and learned the wet-on-wet technique after watching another TV painter around 1975. The Joy of Painting hit PBS in 1983 and ran for more than a decade, and the soft voice and happy little trees were the opposite of the sergeant he'd been.
What made the show work is that he treated painting as something anyone could do. NPR reported that he presented it without irony, urged viewers to have a go, and stopped selling his own paintings once the show started so people would make their own. His line that painting should make you happy is still the best summary of him.
On the harm test, honestly, there's very little to go on. We found no harmful statements, no campaigning against anyone, no conspiracy rabbit holes and no questionable collaborators. He was famously apolitical on camera, so his positions on today's fights are simply not on the record. Pass, with that gap noted.
The recent news is a nice one. Bob Ross Inc. announced that 30 of his original paintings would be auctioned through Bonhams to support public broadcasters after federal funding cuts. The first sales were set for November 2025, with the remaining 27 rolling through New York, Los Angeles and Boston across 2026. Two earlier Ross paintings sold in August for $114,800 and $95,750.
So, would we support him? Yes. He gave a generation permission to be bad at something and enjoy it, and the posthumous fights over his brand belong to the people running it. The only thing holding the score back from a perfect run is how little he said publicly about the world beyond the canvas.