Tom Ruegger (born April 4th, 1956, in Metuchen, New Jersey) is an American animation writer, producer, and director. He was once an executive producer/creative director for Warner Bros. Animation. In the 1980s he worked for Hanna-Barbera, writing and producing various shows—most notably Yogi's Treasure Hunt, The Snorks on NBC, the short lived The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo on ABC all in 1985, Pound Puppies in 1986 on ABC, the whole Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo series from 1979 until August 1985 on ABC and A Pup Named Scooby-Doo in 1988 on ABC. But he is most famous as a producer, writer, show-runner and cartoon-creator for Warner Bros Animation from 1989-2001, working alongside Jean MacCurdy and Steven Spielberg, where his creations included Tiny Toon Adventures on FOX (along with Sherri Stoner and Paul Dini), Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, Histeria!, Batman: The Animated Series, Freakazoid! (for which he brought in Paul Rugg and John P. McCann as writers/producers) all on The WB, and Road Rovers.

Ruegger has received fourteen Emmy Awards for his work in animation.

In 2004, Ruegger started Tom Ruegger Production, a full-service animation studio. In 2006, Ruegger began developing, story-editing and serving as Executive Producer on the 40-episode animated series Animalia (2007), based on the picture book by Graeme Base. Along with Nicholas Hollander, he developed and story-edited another animated series entitled Sushi Pack (2007).

Ruegger is married, and lives in the wilds near Los Angeles, California. His wife is a successful marathon runner, and he has three sons: Nathan Ruegger (the voice of the baby version of Plucky Duck on Tiny Toon Adventures, Skippy Squirrel on Animaniacs and Froggo on Histeria!), Luke Ruegger (the voice of the Flame on Animaniacs and Big Fat Baby on Histeria!) and Cody Ruegger (the voice of Little Blue Bird on Animaniacs and Loud Kiddington on Histeria!, the latter of whom he also served as the inspiration for). Collectively, the Ruegger boys also inspired the main characters of Animaniacs!—for the not-very species-specific Yakko, Wakko and Dot, who purportedly live in the water tower above the Warner Brothers main lot in Burbank, California. Ruegger himself also made occasional cameos on the shows in caricature form, most notably as the recurring character of director Cooper DaVille in Tiny Toons.

[edit] External links

• Tom Ruegger at the Internet Movie Database