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Joe Ruby, Co-Producer of 'Ruby-Spears Superman', Passes Away
American animator, television editor, writer, and producer Joe Ruby has passed away at the age of 87. Along with Ken Spears, Ruby co-founded the television animation production company Ruby-Spears Productions and also co-created the animated series 'Scooby-Doo'.
Ruby was born in Los Angeles on March 30, 1933. After graduating high school, he joined the United States Navy and worked as a sonar operator on a destroyer during the Korean War.
Ruby studied art and began his career in animation at Walt Disney Productions in the inbetweening department. He began as music editor, knowing it would take a long process to become an experienced animator, but nonetheless pursued his passion at the side as a freelance comic book artist and writer.
He later worked for a short time in live-action television editing before moving to Hanna-Barbera Productions, where he met Ken Spears. The two men teamed up to become writers for several animated and live-action television programs, both freelance and as on-staff writers, starting at Hanna-Barbera in 1959, before leaving the studio due to a wish to become associate producers. They also worked as writers for Sid and Marty Krofft Television Productions and DePatie-Freleng Enterprises.
For Hanna-Barbera, Ruby and Spears created Scooby-Doo, Dynomutt, Dog Wonder, and Jabberjaw, among other programs. At DePatie-Freleng, they created The Barkleys and The Houndcats. In the early 1970s, CBS president of children's programming Fred Silverman hired Ruby and Spears to supervise the production of CBS's Saturday morning cartoon lineup, a position they assumed at ABC when Silverman defected to that network.
Wanting to create competition for Hanna-Barbera, ABC set Ruby and Spears up with their own studio in 1977, as a subsidiary of Filmways. Ruby-Spears Productions produced animated series for Saturday mornings, among them Fangface, The Plastic Man Comedy-Adventure Hour, Thundarr the Barbarian, Saturday Supercade, Mister T, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Superman, among others. Ruby-Spears was bought by Hanna-Barbera's parent company, Taft Entertainment, in 1981, and its back catalog was sold along with the Hanna-Barbera library and studio in 1991 to Turner Broadcasting.
Ruby passed away from natural causes on August 26th, 2020, at his home in Westlake Village, California. He is survived by his wife of 67 years, Carole and their four children; Cliff, Deanna, Craig and Debby.
The Superman Super Site wished to extend our deepest thoughts and prayers to the Ruby family during this difficult time of mourning.
