Ruby-Spears

Ruby-Spears Productions, Inc.
Private
Industry Animation
Live-action
Founded 1977 (1977)
Founder Joe Ruby
Ken Spears
Defunct 1996 (1996)
Headquarters Burbank, California, USA
Rome, Italy
Products Television shows
Theatrical films
Television specials
Direct-to-video films
Television films
Television commercials
Parent Time Warner (library only)
Taft Broadcasting

Ruby-Spears Productions (also known as Ruby-Spears Enterprises) was a Burbank, California-based American entertainment production company that specialized in animation; with another branch in Rome, Italy. The firm was founded in 1977 by veteran writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears.

History

Both Ruby and Spears started out as sound editors at Hanna-Barbera, and later branched out into writing stories for such programs as Space Ghost and The Herculoids. In 1969, they were assigned the task of developing a mystery-based cartoon series for Saturday mornings, the result of which was Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. They were also writers and producers for DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, particularly for The Barkleys and The Houndcats.[1]

Ruby-Spears Productions was founded in 1977 while Ruby and Spears were network executives at ABC supervising the Saturday morning programing. ABC Entertainment president Fred Silverman wanted to create competition for Hanna-Barbera, which was providing a bulk of the Saturday morning content for all three major networks and concerns of quality began to arise.[2] The company's credits include the animated series Fangface, Goldie Gold and Action Jack, The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show, Thundarr the Barbarian, Rubik, the Amazing Cube, the 1983 version of the Alvin and the Chipmunks series, Mister T, Sectaurs, The Centurions, the 1988 Superman series, the Police Academy animated series and the American Mega Man cartoon series.

Only one series, Piggsburg Pigs!, used Canadian voice talent rather than American one like most of their other cartoon shows. Ruby-Spears was also responsible for the animated sequence in the 1988 film Child's Play.

The Ruby-Spears studio was founded in 1977 as a subsidiary of Filmways Television and was sold in late 1981 to Taft Broadcasting, becoming a sister company to Hanna-Barbera Productions. In 1991, Ruby-Spears was spun off into RS Holdings while most of the original Ruby-Spears library (its pre-1991 library) was sold along with Hanna-Barbera to Turner Broadcasting System, which in turn merged with Time Warner in 1996. The Ruby-Spears studio closed in 1996.[2]

See also

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.