Ruby-Spears Productions
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Ruby-Spears Productions (also known as Ruby-Spears Enterprises) was 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.
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, Goldie Gold and Action Jack, 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 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.
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 currently owned by Time Warner. Shortly after in 1996, RS was shut down.
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[edit] 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 were assigned the task of developing a mystery-based cartoon series for Saturday morning, the end result of which was Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. They were also writers and producers for DePatie-Freleng Enterprises.
[edit] Ownership of properties
In 1991, 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-1991 R-S shows outright today. (Notably, the animated version of Police Academy and the 1988 Superman series were always owned by Time Warner due to them being based on other Warner Bros. properties.)
The programs produced by Ruby-Spears not under Time Warner control are:
- 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 (who owns the Rambo film series) as they are the successors to co-producers Carolco Pictures, with Lions Gate Entertainment handling DVD distribution and CBS Television Distribution (part of CBS Television Studios) handling TV distribution;
- After its original airing on NBC, 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 Disney (under the title "Laser Patrol") due to its ownership of co-producer Saban Entertainment (now BVS Entertainment)
- It's Punky Brewster is owned by NBC Universal Television (and released on DVD in the US by Shout! Factory with Sony Pictures Television holding the TV rights) due to its connection to the live action sitcom Punky Brewster;
- Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa, which was animated at Ruby-Spears for its second season (1993-94), was co-produced and distributed by King World and Greengrass Productions, a unit of Capital Cities/ABC. The series was subsequently owned by The Walt Disney Company until the company spun off DiC Entertainment in 1999 (which took a bulk of non-Disney-animated titles from the ABC library, including Bump in the Night). In 2008, DiC became a part of Cookie Jar Entertainment who is now the co-owner of the series[1] with CBS Television Distribution.
[edit] References
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Ruby-Spears Productions (official site)
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