What perennially happy artist spent 12 years hosting the PBS staple The Joy of Painting, before his untimely death in 1985?
The Joy of Painting However, WIPB continued producing "The Joy of Painting" until the show's ending in 1994. The 31st and final season of "The Joy of Painting" aired on PBS in 1994, before the death of Bob Ross on July 4, 1995. As part of its launch of Twitch Creative, Twitch.tv streamed every episode of "The Joy of Painting" over a nine-day period starting on October 29, 2015, what would have been Ross' 73rd birthday. Twitch reported that 5.6 million viewers watched the marathon, and due to its popularity, created a weekly rebroadcast of all 31 seasons of "The Joy of Painting" to
The Joy of Painting episode, Ross painted a third, more detailed version for inclusion in his instructional books. All three versions were then donated to various PBS stations. The first season of "The Joy of Painting" aired on many PBS stations across the east coast, but the audience was small. And the quality of the audio and video was so poor, that the first season may never air again. Bob would have to look for a new home on public television. This time, at WIPB in Muncie, Indiana. Now with a national audience, "The Joy of Painting" was produced by WIPB in Muncie, Indiana.