Ruby-Spears Productions

Ruby-Spears Productions (also known as Ruby-Spears Enterprises) is a Burbank, California-based entertainment production company that specializes in animation.

The firm was founded in 1977 by veteran writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears. Both men 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 1968, they created "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" for Hanna-Barbera. They were also writers and producers for DePatie-Freleng Enterprises.

The Ruby-Spears studio was purchased in 1978 by Filmways Television and was sold in late 1981 to Taft Broadcasting, becoming a sister company to Hanna-Barbera.

The firm's credits include the animated series "Fangface", "Fangface and Fangpuss", "The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show, Dink, the Little Dinosaur, Thundarr the Barbarian", "Rickety Rocket", and other animated series such as "Mr. T", "Rubik the Amazing Cube", "Turbo Teen", the 1983 version of "Alvin and the Chipmunks", The Centurions series the new "Looney Tunes" series and movies, the 1988 "Superman" series, and the American "Mega Man" cartoon series.

One series, "Piggsburg Pigs!", used Canadian voice talent rather than American voice talent like most of their shows.

*Ruby Spears was also responsible for the animated sequence in the movie Child's Play

Ownership of properties

In 1990, most of the original R-S library was sold to Turner Broadcasting System, which in turn merged with Time Warner in 1996. Time Warner holds most pre-1990 R-S shows outright today, but there are exceptions:

*Shows based on "Happy Days" and its spinoffs, which were co-produced with Paramount Television, are now owned by CBS;
*"Rambo and the Forces of Freedom" is owned by StudioCanal as they are the successors to co-producers Carolco Pictures, with Lions Gate Entertainment handling DVD distribution;
*"Alvin and the Chipmunks" was initially syndicated by Lorimar-Telepictures, then passed on to Warner Bros. Television following their acquisition of Lorimar-Telepictures (predating the Time Warner-Turner merger by 7 years). However, ancillary rights are owned by Bagdasarian Productions, who have licensed DVD distribution to Paramount Pictures;
*Video rights to "Rubik, the Amazing Cube" are owned by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, but television rights are uncertain;
*"Lazer Tag Academy" is owned by The Walt Disney Company due to its ownership of co-producer Saban Entertainment (now BVS Entertainment);
*"It's Punky Brewster" is owned by NBC Universal Television (and distributed in the US by Sony Pictures Television on TV and Shout! Factory on DVD) due to its connection to "Punky Brewster";

Also, "Police Academy", "Superman", and the "Looney Tunes" productions were always owned by WB due to them being based on other WB-owned properties.

One post-1990 show, "Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa", was co-produced and distributed by King World Productions. Today it is owned by CBS Studios, and distributed by CBS Television Distribution on TV, and by CBS Home Entertainment/Paramount Home Entertainment on DVD.

See also

* List of Ruby-Spears productions

External links

* [http://www.rubyspears.com/ Ruby-Spears Productions] (official site)