Real Thoughts On Tom Ruegger

These are my real thoughts on not just a show, but an animator’s work, the great Tom Ruegger. This guy revolutionized kid’s cartoons in the late 80s and 90s. He made cartoons for a whole generation of kids and this was back when kid’s cartoons were just beginning when Disney Afternoon came around. As you can tell I have major respect for this guy as well as the people who helped work with him. Sherri Stoner and Paul Rugg. He did for Warner Bros. and Hanna Barbara as what Disney Afternoon did for Disney. He made these good shows and knew how to give them that modern spin as well as speak to kids on a good basis.

He started off doing shows in the 80s being a writer for shows in the 80s. He did work on the Scooby Doo cartoons in the 80s like the new Mystery series and the 13 Ghosts. I think his best work came from A Pup Named Scooby Doo because he gave that show a unique spin that still holds up today, in my opinion. He made that show work and he used that show and his crew further to build Tiny Toons.

One of the strengths of his shows was that he knew how to speak to kid’s in that time. Even now I think kid’s shows are having a challenging time understanding how kids work. You now have Moral Guardians running around trying to make shows safe and right now, we need it. But he knew how to speak to our generation and it shows even now as we continue to watch these.

He even knew how to make good female characters and you can see that in Pup Named Scooby Doo and Tiny Toons. He created the best Daphne I’ve ever seen in any incarnation of Scooby Doo. You made her tough and headstrong, but not losing that feminine side of her where the other show just can’t really find that balance. All you see in the other incarnations is that attempt to be a role model or just plain random. The same goes for Babs Bunny, he started making a good female Looney Tune characters like Elmrya and Shirley the Loon. When you look at Space Jam’s Lola, she doesn’t even hold a candle to what Babs did with Tiny Toons.  They stick with you and looking at how difficult both Looney Tunes and Scooby Doo cartoons try to be nowadays. His work while not as recognizable, has stuck with us.

And then there was Animaniacs that was his best work along with Pinky and the Brain. Those shows were defiantly comedy at their finest in those years. You also had Steven Spielberg on board Tiny Toons and Animaniacs back then and that’s someone that shows that these shows have a powerful people on board. Him and his crew also got Batman: The Animated Series started too. Arleen Sorkin who worked was a head writer was the voice of Harley Quinn and he just knew how to create those shows. As well as work on creating characters that worked their way through shows.

I will say his work wasn’t always perfect though. I think around the mid-90s, he did seem to work these other Warner Bros. cartoons, but there was this obvious Disney feel to them or at least trying to be that Disney Afternoon show. Taz-Maina that trying to be like this Goof Troop feel. The studio probably wanted that show after seeing Goof Troop and thought: “Oh let’s have Taz, he’s going to be part of a family. And he’s going to have family dilemmas and issues…Hijinks!!” And that Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries that trying to be Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers with Sylvester and Tweety and Road Rovers that was obviously that Ninja Turtles and Mighty Ducks trend.

I felt like he was creating these shows out of the studio rather than telling doing them out of passion. But we also had Freakaziod which didn’t entirely work but again a funny superhero that was mostly not seen in animation back then. The only one that I put my mind to is Darkwing Duck and that was a funny Batman cartoon. This was like a complete Deadpool even the Mask, but nobody knew that back then unless you were a comic book fan. That was one of the better of his late works in that time.

I guess we got to talk about Pinky, Elmrya and the Brain. The show that killed the team. As well as Histeria and Detention. Pinky, Elmrya and the Brain was a rushed project, but as well as they tried with it, it couldn’t hold up. I feel that the problem with his work at the time was that it just came at the wrong time, that was when the anime boom with Pokémon and Dragonball Z coming around. There was not much room to make an animated comedy for kids back then unless it was Cartoon Network. Again, that was that dark age of animated shows in the west. That was when the new generation didn’t want to watch cartoons anymore and you can tell from his work at that time. But that was the thing about a dark age is that they didn’t know how to work with this new generation and it was probably because they weren’t into it at the time. But the creators or the studio didn’t know, nobody did. We were all waiting for that next gen Animaniacs and Tiny Toons to come and bring things back, but it never really did.  

I guess you have some from Cartoon Network, but that was the sign of a new age you got another generation trying to find what shows that worked for them. You have that generation who grew up on these shows growing up and the new generation looking for their shows, which was anime. Histeria was trying to be that educational show for kids. But I think kids found that boring at the time. I think the problem both with Histeria and Detention was that Histeria was trying to be that educational show. And unlike Animainiacs, which was making that element fun by being subtle. It was more obvious looking at the title and the characters and the premise. While Detention was trying to be Recess and all the shows that were popular at the time. It wasn’t that these shows were bad, but they couldn’t show that uniqueness. I heard they’re trying to put them out on DVD and they are good shows, but I just feel like they couldn’t show that uniqueness the other shows did. It’s a shame, but part of that dark age some shows just don’t make it.

So, I do appreciate Tom Rugger’s work. I know he’s working on shows for Disney like 7D and Nickelodeon’s Loud House. But I really give this guy credit on his work. He did give us that 90s feel and he wasn’t afraid to update stuff like Scooby Doo and the Looney Tunes. And shows even now have a tough time updating those shows like he did. And that he did revolutionized animation that wasn’t Disney. People forget this is one of those guys who made a name in animation alone and that’s very difficult to do. To make a name in animation and this is a guy who made Warner Bros. Animation back on the map in the 90s.

So that’s my real thoughts on Tom Rugger’s work. I was trying to show his career in a nutshell. But what he did and the decline of his shows. That it and we’ll see you on the next one. Take care.