Ken Spears
The steady hand behind the curtain while the Mystery Machine roared down the highway.
Ken Spears (1938–2020) was an American animator, writer, television producer and sound editor, best known as a co-creator of the Scooby-Doo franchise together with Joe Ruby. For Hanna-Barbera, Spears and Ruby created the franchise and its main characters: Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, Shaggy Rogers and Scooby-Doo himself.
Quick Facts
- Birth name
- Charles Kenneth Spears
- Born
- 12 March 1938
- Birthplace
- Los Angeles, California, U.S.
- Died
- 6 November 2020
- Place of death
- Brea, California, U.S.
- Occupation
- Animator
- writer
- television producer
- sound editor
- Years active
- 1959–2002
- Children
- 2
Lore & Background
Spears began his career in 1959, when William Hanna hired him as a sound editor for Hanna-Barbera Productions. At the studio he met Joe Ruby, and the two men began a writing partnership, writing gags and scripts for animated and live-action television programs. In 1969 they were assigned to develop a mystery-based cartoon series for Saturday mornings, and the result was Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, which debuted on CBS on September 13, 1969. In 1977 they co-founded the animation company Ruby-Spears Productions. Spears worked with Ruby on the development of animated series until his retirement in 2002 and died on November 6, 2020, at the age of 82.
Reader's Guide
For Hanna-Barbera, Spears and Ruby also created Dynomutt, Dog Wonder, Jabberjaw and Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels. In the early 1970s Fred Silverman hired them to supervise the production of CBS's Saturday morning cartoon lineup, a position they later held at ABC. Ruby-Spears Productions went on to produce Saturday morning series such as Fangface, Thundarr the Barbarian, Mister T and Alvin and the Chipmunks.
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