Bob Ross killed Cookie Monster!

Yesterday, on a quiet Sunday afternoon after a long and busy week I sat with my family and looked for something entertaining on Netflix. We happened across Bob Ross' The Joy of Painting Beauty is Everywhere and my childhood flooded back. I've never painted, and I probably never will. As long as I can think of things to type or write or sing or strum or hit with a stick or fix I can't imagine having time to learn. But this is Bob Ross, the great soother of eardrums and eyeballs that I remember watching for some reason as a kid.

My kids had no clue why I was excited, but we started the show. His entrancing soft voice and ability to slap paint into seascapes soon became a conversation piece. We sat there, observing this softly spoken man do what he loved, and when he cut away from his painting to show us the baby squirrels he had been nursing with syringes of milk we collectively awed.

This was the nicest man who ever lived.

He moved from the cloud detail at the top of the painting into the water portion of the show, crafting distant gentle seas and one detailed wave breaking nearer to the observer. As he began to craft the rocks, my daughter noticed something and spoke up. That's Cookie Monster!

You can see him from here, can't you?

And she was right. See for yourself!

I was curious. Did others notice this already?

A quick review of google results told me that yes, others had noticed that he painted Cookie Monster into this painting. Snuck him in while saying something about a happy little rock, his voice never wavering from it's trademark silkiness.

Awesome, I thought, he painted Cookie Monster in for the kids to find... but then I thought about it.

He didn't paint Cookie Monster on a beach eating a cookie, or hang gliding in the background.

He was Sooo Surprised to see me!
Classic Cook!

No. In fact, if you look closely, you can see that Ol' Cook (we go way back, it's no big deal, but we're kind of best friends. You should be jealous), his eyes wide with horrific realization, is actually about to be pulled into the back current and smashed repeatedly into that gigantic rock that Mr. Ross so lovingly crafted in the frame.

Now, Mr. Ross says in this episode that he has spent considerable amounts of time observing the behaviors of the sky and the waters below it, and it's not a far stretch to think that a man with a military background might have subconsciously used that knowledge to imagine creative ways in which to dispatch an enemy.


It's also not a stretch (again, Cookie Monster and I are best buddies. I just thought I should remind you of that) to think that Cook might have been a bit too zealous at one of the now infamous PBS weekend retreats back in the early 80's. The cookies flow freely at those things and you never know what may have happened. I'm not saying that he does it intentionally, but I have seen CM accidentally eat a PA's arm in his haste to get the cookie from her hand.

Maybe they crossed paths, and maybe Cook (I was his best man) offended Ross. Maybe he got the man who is quoted to have said that after leaving the military he would never shout again to shout.

ME. SO. SOOORYY

We can only speculate, and that's okay because that's why we're here! But there it is, whether intentional or not, a message to the Cookster (We backpacked the span of South America together) in the very first episode of The Joy of Painting.

Take note, CookBroManster. Bob Ross is not to be messed with.