As minor dead celebrities go, Bob Ross is right up there.

Maybe WGBH never ran it, or maybe I had better things to do when it was on, but I never saw Bob Ross' Joy of Painting show, which ran for 400+ episodes back in the day. What I do know about it is that Ross was a mediocre painter who developed a technique to teach a lot of Sunday painters to create a lot of mediocre paintings. His specialty, I take it, was stilted, lifeless landscapes, more of which were produced, in turn, by his disciples.

Nothing wrong with that. Take it from a Sunday writer, if Sunday painting gives you pleasure, have at it. Everyone isn't going to be an Henri Matisse or David Hockney. (Everyone isn't going to be an Alice Munro or Toni Morrison, either.) Yet we can all derive enjoyment by noodling around with something that, well, we enjoy.

Bob Ross died 26 years ago, but Bob Ross, Inc., lives on.

Thanks to searingly modern platforms like Twitch and Pluto TV, Ross has become a mainstay of the digital universe — particularly during the pandemic, when the popularity of a new Bob Ross channel skyrocketed as people trapped at home turned to their televisions for therapy.

Ross provides a reductio ad absurdum for a quiet digital-age truth: A sprinkling of coveted intellectual property can allow a shrewd company to punch well above its weight. You can now catch Ross on YouTube or your smart TV, on “Saturday Night Live” or in a popular Marvel sendup. Soon you’ll even see him as the subject of a Netflix documentary produced by the actress Melissa McCarthy that reportedly slams [Bob Ross, Inc. executive Joan] Kowalski for how she and her parents, Walt and Annette — Ross’s former partners — wrested control of the Bob Ross empire from his son. (That one is not licensed.)

As a living figure, Ross, a former Air Force enlistee who became a sideways American hero, was unusual. As a posthumous brand, he is telling — what happens when the stodgiest of entertainment figures is pulled into the 21st-century world of Deadpool GIFs and Gen Z obsessions, of ubiquitous video programming and hopped-up Mountain Dew commercials. (Source: WaPo)

The story is all pretty interesting. A few years ago, Joan Kowalski - looking out on the Bob Ross audience of graying Boomers and pre-Boomers - decided she needed to kick in with the next gen. So she worked out a deal in which a Bob Ross Marathon appeared on Twitch, a digital gaming platform.

Apparently there was something about Ross - his anodyne personality, his gentle way, his calming smile, his groovy white-guy Afro - that appealed to normally hyped-up gamers. Six million of them tuned in. 

And Bob Ross, Inc. decided to cash in. Next thing anyone knew, the Bob Ross brand was on all sorts of consumer products, including Monopoly and waffle-makers. 

Meanwhile, an organic subculture was growing around Ross, with 100,000-strong Instagram fan accounts and bustling subreddits like r/HappyTrees. These weren’t people jollied by the guy with the funny hair. They were men and women who found spiritual meaning in Ross’s fluid style of painting and Zen approach to life, a new religion with mindfulness as its credo and social media as its temple.

There were other venues where folks could worship at the Ross altar: a YouTube channel (with almost 5 million subscribers), and Instagram page (200k+ followers), reruns of his Joy of Painting shows from the 1980's and early 1990's.  

But wait, there's more!

There's even a Mountain Dew ad in which a Bob Ross digitally goosed look-alike endorses The Dew. 

And just in time for the pandemic, Cinedigm, a digital media-streaming company, launched a streaming Bob Ross channel. Turns out, painting along with Bob is a cure for whatever there is about the lockdown that ails you. 

The Kowalski family has certainly cashed in on the fact that they were early promoters and partners of Bob Ross. 

But Bob Ross' son Steve called foul. (This is the topic of the aforementioned Netflix documentary, which - mark your calendars - drops on August 25th.) Steve Ross claimed that some of the Bob Ross assets belonged to him. 

Unfortunately for Steve, a judge found that the Kowalski's own the entire shebang, the entire Bob Ross intellectual and physical property, including all the paintings Bob Ross created on his shows.  The Kowalskis even own Bob Ross' image.

Those paintings - there are over 1,000 of them - aren't (yet) available for sale, but I'm sure that there are plenty of Bob Ross aficionados who'll fork over plenty to get their hands of them, which they can hang next to their Thomas Kincade picture of a well-lit Keebler elf house, signed in Kincade's blood. (I. Am. Such. A. Snob.)

All I can say, as dead celebrities go, Bob Ross may be a minor one, but in terms of cashing in, he's right up there. Make that the Kowalskis are right up there. Unless there's cash in the afterlife, Bob, alas, is never going to see a penny.