![]() The usual formula would find the team stumbling over a mystery that can only be solved by the transformation, often against his will, of Fangs into Fangface, a Tasmanian Devil-like force of nature who always leaves a trail of (non-violent, non-gory) destruction in his wake. Sherman and best pal Puggsy were based on Leo Gorsey and Huntz Hall from the 1940s comedy film series starring the Bowery Boys, but this anachronism was made up for the very modern Biff and Kim, assumed to be an interracial couple and very much the Fred and Daphne of the crew. “Fangs,” as he was known, travelled with three friends in a souped-up convertible they called the Wolf Buggy, solving mysteries in a fashion familiar to fans of Ruby-Spears earlier creation (or any number of clones that followed in its wake). The titular lycanthrope was the hapless Sherman Fangsworth, the latest in a tradition that saw a werewolf born into his family every 400 years, cursed to turn hairy at the sight of a full moon but fully unaware of his dual nature. Silverman was concerned that Hanna-Barbera had little competition for Saturday morning cartoons and thought that the market could bear a little shaking up a year later, on September 9 th 1978, the first fruits of the new studio hit the air…įangface (ABC, 1978): A straight-up mix of Scooby Doo and I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Fangface was given the prized post- Scooby 8.30am slot on Saturday mornings on ABC, perfect for retaining an audience of mystery-hungry seekers of the supernatural. In 1977, while working at ABC where they were in charge of Saturday morning programming, Joe and Ken formed Ruby-Spears Productions at the request of ABC President Fred Silverman. ![]() ![]() Going freelance didn’t mean they stopped working for H-B – they scripted episodes of Help!… It’s the Hair Bear Bunch!, The Funky Phantom, and Dynomutt, Dog Wonder amongst others – but they also wrote for DePatie-Freleng, producing The Barkleys, The Houndcats, and Bailey’s Comets. After a lengthy working out period (see The Telephemera Years: 1969 – part 4), they eventually came up with Scooby Doo, Where Are You!but left Hanna-Barbera soon afterwards when it became clear they were not going to be promoted to associate producers. After working on such shows as The Herculoids, Space Ghost, and The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, the pair were asked to come up with a new show for Hanna-Barbera which would embody the spirit of hit comic book adaptation The Archies. Joe Ruby and Ken Spears met while employed as sound editors at Hanna-Barbera, teaming up to become writers for the studio. What’s more, it isn’t all one-season failures and unsold pilots, there’s genuine gold to be found amongst their hoards these men are surely the Titans of Telephemera! Dedicated miners of this fecund seam begin to notice the same names cropping up, again and again, as if their whole career was based on a principle of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. Ah, telephemera… those shows whose stay with us was tantalisingly brief, snatched away before their time, and sometimes with good cause.
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