Who created the Scooby-Doo franchise?

Joe Ruby and Ken Spears created the Scooby-Doo franchise. The writing and producing partners developed the concept for Hanna-Barbera, whose studio produced the original animated series.

Ruby and Spears worked at Hanna-Barbera and were asked to create a Saturday-morning program that would be less violent than the superhero cartoons that had drawn criticism from parent groups. Their early concepts changed substantially—from a musical-group idea to a mystery-solving team—but the central combination of teenagers, a dog, and apparent supernatural cases remained.

The first series, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, premiered on CBS in 1969. William Hanna and Joseph Barbera were the studio heads and producers, while Iwao Takamoto helped shape the visual design of Scooby and the gang. Those contributions explain why they are sometimes named in answer choices, but Ruby and Spears are the credited co-creators of the franchise.