Ruby-Spears

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.

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, 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 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.

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.)

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.

Ruby Spears Series that Seem to Share Canon With the SuperFriends
1970s
 * The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show (1979)

1980s
 * Superman (1988)