The recent Bob Ross The Joy of Painting marathon on Twitch became a bit of phenomenon. More than 5.6 million people tuned in at some point to watch the it, quickly making Ross a Twitch institution, as his channel numbers continued to grow far past that of even some of the most successful streamers.
It all started as a means to celebrate the launch of Twitch Creative and what would have been Ross' 73rd birthday. When the stream ended, it did so with a curious "Stay Tuned" countdown. Turns out that the nonstop tree-painting extravaganza was such a success that Twitch has announced Ross is here to stay.
For the foreseeable future, Ross and his landscape paintings will air every Monday night from 3 to 9:30 p.m. PT. That's enough time for an entire season of The Joy of Painting to air, but not to worry. The show has 31 seasons, which means there will be reruns of the show only once every seven months.
That's not all. A marathon of the show will air every Oct. 29 to celebrate Ross' birthday, just like they did this year. The proceeds from the channel will go to the rights holders of the show, St. Jude Cancer Research, Root Division (Twitch's local arts organization that supports artists and teaches children the arts) and community support for Twitch Creative.
It's fascinating to see how the Web has latched onto Ross and his paintings. His "happy little trees" have been a bit of an Internet joke for a while now (something of which Twitch was no doubt very aware), and it looks like the world was just waiting for somebody to deliver his show to the masses in a new way. The Internet could certainly do with a little more joy, and even in death, it looks like Ross is making the world just a little bit brighter, one tree at a time.
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