Spears was born on March 12, 1938, in
Los Angeles but was also raised in
New York City. His mother, Edna (
born Graiver), died a month after he was born, while his father, Harry Spears, worked as a radio host and producer before joining a real estate business. Spears became a friend of the son of animation producer
William Hanna while attending high school in California. Spears and Ruby wrote gags and scripts for several animated and live-action television programs, both freelance and as on-staff writers for
Hanna-Barbera,
Sid and Marty Krofft Television Productions and
DePatie–Freleng Enterprises. For H-B, they also created ''
Help!... It's the Hair Bear Bunch!, Dynomutt, Dog Wonder, Jabberjaw, and Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, among other programs. At DePatie–Freleng, they created The Barkleys and The Houndcats''. In the early 1970s, Silverman hired Spears and Ruby to supervise the production of CBS's Saturday morning cartoon lineup, a position they assumed at
ABC when Silverman defected to that network. Wanting to create competition for Hanna-Barbera, ABC set Ruby and Spears up with their own studio in 1977, as a subsidiary of
Filmways. Ruby-Spears was bought by Hanna-Barbera's parent company,
Taft Entertainment, in 1981, and its back catalog was sold along with the Hanna-Barbera library and studio in 1991 to
Turner Broadcasting. Current reissues of Ruby-Spears shows on DVD and digital platforms are therefore copyrighted by Hanna-Barbera Productions. == Death ==