Joe Ruby, who, with Ken Spears, co-created Scooby-Doo, Jabberjaw, Dynomutt, Fangface, Electra Woman & DynaGirl, Bigfoot & Wildboy, and so much more, passed away Wednesday of natural causes at 87.
As you can tell, Ruby, who served in the Army, had been with Hanna-Barbera in the 60's, then, after stints with DePatie-Freleng, 20th Century Fox (he & Spears were writers and story editors for the live-action Planet of The Apes), and Sid & Marty Krofft, launched his own studio with Spears as a subsidiary of Filmways, thanks to the encouragement of ABC, which bought the nascent studio's first series--Fangface (1978-80), Plastic Man (1979-81), Thundarr The Barbarian (1980-2), Heathcliff (1980-2), and Goldie Gold & Action Jack (1981), as well as a handful of ABC Weekend Specials, before Ruby-Spears sold anything to other networks. The first non-ABC entries for Ruby-Spears were Mr. T (1983-6) and Alvin & The Chipmunks (1983-9) for NBC. Ruby-Spears entered the syndication market in the mid-80's with licensed titles, including Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos, Rambo, and Centurions.
But if you're thinking Chumptoon Network/Boomerang will honor Ruby for his accomplishments, keep dreaming. CN won't break its string of daily spamming marathons of Teen Titans Go! to do the right thing.
Rest in peace, Joe.
2 comments:
Aww! I hadn't heard Ruby had passed! Not surprised, but other than Ken Spears, he was the last living link to the era of classic Saturday morning cartoons - especially ones specializing in adventure. It was also nice for him and Spears to keep taking interviews and doing commentaries on DVDs to chat about their careers and creations. His and Spears' names are still given special credit with every Scooby Doo movie or TV incarnation!!
RIP Mr. Ruby! Thanks for the Saturday morning memories!
BTW - ME-TV is running the planet of the Apes live action series on early Sunday mornings! Still entertaining to watch.
So that's back on the schedule. My bro DVR'd most of the series the last time.
Post a Comment