American animation writer, producer, and Scooby-Doo co-creator Joseph Clemens Ruby, also known as Joe Ruby, has passed away at his home in Calif.

According to Variety, the legendary animation writer and tv editor died from natural causes at the age of 87 on Wednesday.

Ruby kicked off his career in the entertainment industry by working as an inbetweener at Walt Disney Productions after serving in the Navy.

After he started working for Hanna-Barbera Productions, Ruby met his work partner, Ken Spears, and the pair went on to create a number of popular animation classics including Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, Jabberjaw, and Dynomutt.

Following the success of Scooby-Doo, an animated series in which a group of teenage friends travels in their van in search of bizarre phenomena, multiple spin-offs and related works followed.

“We were worried it wouldn’t last but one season, much less 38 years. It was up against The Hardy Boys on NBC and we thought we’d get clobbered in the ratings,” the cartoon’s co-creator, Spears, previously admitted.

Following their success with Scooby-Doo, Ruby and Spears were hired by Fred Silverman, a CBS executive, to oversee morning cartoons.

In 1977, the year when Silverman departed for ABC, Ruby and Spears left the program and set up their own studio called Ruby-Spears Productions.

In the following years, the pair continued to create memorable works such as Alvin and the Chipmunks, Mister T, Superman, Fangface, The Plastic Man Comedy-Adventure Hour, and Thundarr the Barbarian.

In 1981, Ruby-Spears was acquired by Taft Broadcasting and became a sister company of Hanna-Barbera Productions. In 1991, most of its original library was sold to Turner Broadcasting System.

Throughout the years, Ruby continued to work as executive producer and contributed to the creation of popular works such as Police Academy: The Animated Series and the Rambo series.

Ruby is survived by his wife Carole and their four children.

May he rest in peace.

 

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