Bob Ross - FILM WORMS

“There’s a skater named Bob Ross.”

A week of skate camp. Bruised knees, an elbow with no skin on it, his first 50/50 grind, and this. A counselor, nineteen at most, told my seven-year-old about a legendary shredder named Bob Ross, and did not stay to explain.

I said nothing.

Because there is, of course, no skater named Bob Ross. There is a soft-spoken man in a denim shirt who painted mountains on public television in the 80’s with hair like tumbleweed from God. AI has since put him on a vert ramp, because, eventually, the internet puts everyone on a vert ramp.

Our Saturday mornings are usually for cartoons. He asked for Bob Ross. I pulled up an episode from 1986.

“He’s goated,” my son said, eleven seconds in, and then didn’t speak for twenty-six minutes, an event with few precedents in our home.

Titanium white. Phthalo blue. A two-inch brush thrashed against a wooden table leg to clean it, as Bob Instructed us to “beat the devil out of it” the most hardcore sentence, said in the calmest, most soothing voice. Four strokes and there’s a mountain. A few more and we’ve got long wispy grass.

Something relaxed in him as he watched. A pro skater could also do this. You can be a certified ripper and still spend half an hour mixing your Winsor & Newtons and putting a tiny cabin in a valley.

Happy little tree here. Happy little tree there.

Calmest morning we’ve had all year. Full episode, and he never once asked when the skating started. I could have told him. I didn’t.

Let the record show that Bob Ross rips.

Somewhere across town that counselor, hopefully, is telling another room of seven-year-olds about a painter named Tony Hawk. Whatever they’re paying him, double it.

xLenski

THE JOY OF PAINTING (1983) PBS
Dir: Bob Ross · Run time: 26 min
Twelve colors, one canvas, a man who has never once raised his voice. Zen maxing for today’s children and adults. Start anywhere. They're all the same perfect episode.

SHADRACH — BEASTIE BOYS (1989)
Dir. Nathanial Hörnblowér · Run time: 4 min
Every frame hand-painted over the live footage, so three guys on a stage dissolve into a smear of color and reassemble a second later.

THE ILLUSIONIST (2010)
Dir. Sylvain Chomet · TRT 80 min
From an unmade Jacques Tati script, hand-drawn, almost no dialogue. An ageing magician, a girl who believes the tricks. Hand-painted down to the rain on the windows.

That’s all for this week. Class is dismissed.

P.S. Got a clip, short, or lost gem you or your kids loved? Send it my way. I’m always looking for the strange and wonderful stuff that slipped through the cracks.

xLenski