My cousin Adam, who is about 12 or so years my junior and could be a tad hyper, used to watch him each day at my Grandmother’s house. Those normal terrible two tendencies, like bouncing off walls, loud shouting and throwing banana peels, would suddenly be reduced to something like concentrated fixation. I cannot get the image out of my mind even today: a small toddler watching a grown man with an afro paint soothing and calming images of trees, the sky and perhaps a small, dilapidated cabin in the woods. Before we knew about ADHD, Autism and various medicines which support them, here was a television parallel medicine. 

I didn’t think much more about it until the mid 2010s when my own son came across a box of “Happy little tree” mints at a candy shop. Turns out Bob Ross, that afro wearing artist, had struck big time. About 20 years after his passing. It is cliché to discuss an artist's worth increasing after their death, but here was such a modern example the likes of which we had never experienced before or honestly since.

Just look at this phenom. In 2025, you can get Bob Ross Halloween costumes, ugly Christmas sweaters, Chia pets and any and all other kinds of merchandise. Even one his paintings hangs in the Smithsonian. Something that truly would’ve boggled his mind.

And to that point, what got me pondering all of this?  Well I took an official Bob Ross painting class from an official Bob Ross painter using official Bob Ross supplies. I was inspired to do this when I learned of it a few months back in New York.

And I loved the experience once I got back home (Middle Tenesee’s Quentin Burlingame is fabulous BTW, https://www.paintingwithq.com/). It turns out even I, a confessed poor painter, can paint a la Bob. Mine was the worst in the class but the best of my life.

And it got me thinking about my own work and the work of the companies I’ve worked for and the colleagues I’ve known: Would it be obnoxious for me to suggest that trying to break through is pointless? You are enough. Your work is enough. Your timing might just be off. But like Bob, you can’t really control the timing either. Which brings us to the data, as always:

• Consumer (really Human) Insight: Stay calm, enjoy the art, and wait for the timing to align
• Data:
  • Estimated # of Bob Ross viewers, mostly on PBS, in 1990: hundreds of thousands to low millions (estimated)
  • Estimated # of Rob Ross viewers, mostly on YouTube, in 2025: 6 million + monthly
• Bottom Line: If Bob Ross can make a painter out of this middle aged, wannabe middle Tennessee southerner two decades after his death, what kind of impact can you unleash on the world? I’d say Bob provides the clearest evidence ever that anything is possible