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Don Jurwich, a longtime writer-director-producer at Hanna-Barbera and Marvel Productions, died July 13 of natural causes. He was 87.

Starting his career in animation as a layout and background artist, Jurwich worked his way up in storyboarding, eventually becoming a producer and director.

While working at Hanna-Barbera, Jurwich produced and directed “Scooby Doo,” “The Superfriends,” “Captain Caveman, “Richie Rich,” “Fonz and the Happy Days Gang,” along with one hour prime-time special, “Scooby Goes Hollywood.”

At Marvel, Jurwich directed “Spiderman and His Amazing Friends.” He also produced 85 half-hour episodes of “G.I. Joe,” along with the miniseries “G.I. Joe: The Movie,” which was later released as a feature film.

Over the course of his 40-year career, Jurwich contributed to animated series including “Road Runner,” “The Pink Panther,” “Rocky and Bullwinkle,” “The Flintstones,” “George The Jungle,” “Yogi Bear,” “Tom & Jerry” — along with their mini-me successor, the “Tom & Jerry Kids Show.” Jurwich also...

Stand-up comedian and flamboyant star of film and TV Rip Taylor died Sunday in Beverly Hills, Deadline has learned. He was 84.

Known for his confetti-clad campy comedy, Taylor was born Charles Elmer Taylor in Washington D.C. on January 13, 1935. His comedy career started when he joined the U.S. Army and started to perform stand-up in clubs around the world where he developed a signature bit where he would cry and beg for the audience to laugh.

Taylor would go on to become known as “The Prince or Pandemonium”, “”The Master of Mayhem”, “The Crying Comedian” and “The King of Camp and Confetti”. He appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show nearly 20 times as well as The Jackie Gleason Show. On TV, he appeared on The Monkees and lent his voice to animated series including The Addams Family as Uncle Fester and Here Comes the Grump in the ’70s. He continued to...

On June 15th one of the most recognizable voices in radio and television died, succumbing to lingering complications of Lewy Body Dementia. At 82 years of age the legendary Casey Kasem passed on to the next level of existence.

For America it was a sad day. Despite the fact that hordes of the younger generations couldn’t speak on the man’s accomplishments, they know his voice when they hear it. And we know it too. The longtime, hardcore, deeply rooted genre fans know Kasem for his prolific run as the eventual pop-culture standout character Shaggy Rogers, of the timeless “Scooby-Doo” series.

Shaggy was one of (if not the) first animated stoners to hit commercial television. Hanna-Barbera Productions – to my knowledge, which is creepily thorough in all honesty – never stepped out of the shadows to make it known that Shaggy was a major weed-head (totally expected and for quite obvious reasons...