The Joy of Painting/Trivia

• Author Existence Failure: The show stopped when Ross was diagnosed with lymphoma. He passed away from the disease a year later.
  • Also inverted: one of his final acts was to certify other people to teach his methods so they can establish workshops across the U.S. Given the ease of this teaching method, you can usually find a similar workshop at a local hobby center.
• Doing It for the Art: Aside from being a really Nice Guy, this was also part of his shtick. Bob Ross just really liked painting, and a lot of the money he made went to various charities. When he died almost every single one of his currently unsold paintings were donated to various non-profit organizations or auctioned off with the proceeds going (again) to charity.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Averted. You can get every single episode on DVD... for over $1,000 (for 30 3-disc sets, which is 90 DVDs in 30 cases, which goes a long way towards explaining the price tag).
• Money, Dear Boy: Apart from not wanting to become a mean person, Ross left the Air Force because his paintings soon earned him more money.