The Amos 'n Andy Show is not the credit anyone leads with, but it's where Ross started. He wrote for the TV version through its CBS run, as NAACP pressure got CBS to pull the show in 1953. He moved through The Red Skelton Hour and The Real McCoys before landing as co-producer on The Andy Griffith Show. His writing credits there included 'Barney's Physical' and 'Otis the Artist.' In 1967, he got an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series.
The Andy Griffith Show never went away. It still runs on cable, still pops up on streaming platforms, still draws viewers who weren't alive when it aired. Ross co-produced some of its strongest seasons, the episodes that locked in the show's tone as something warmer and more durable than the average sitcom. His name doesn't come up much outside Mayberry fandom circles, partly because television writers from his era rarely became household names, and partly because the other Bob Ross got there first.
He wrote for the TV adaptation throughout its CBS run, a show that cast a predominantly Black ensemble at a time when that was practically unheard of on network television, while the NAACP protested it as degrading. CBS pulled it from their lineup in 1953; the reruns circulated in syndication for another decade. What you write early in a career and what gets remembered are often very different things.
He died in August 1970, weeks before Mayberry R.F.D.'s third and final season premiered that September. CBS canceled the series the following year as part of its rural programming purge, pulling Green Acres, Hee Haw, and The Beverly Hillbillies in the same sweep.