| Ruffus the Dog | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Children's television series |
| Created by | Robert Mills and Cheryl Wagner |
| Directed by | Robert Mills |
| Starring | Robert Mills Bob Stutt Gord Robertson Fred Stinson Karen Valleau Ben Deutsch |
| Composer | JP Houston |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | Robert Mills John Leitch |
| Producers | Cheryl Wagner Robert Mills |
| Editor | Frank Moressa |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Production companies | Radical Sheep Productions YTV |
| Original release | |
| Network | YTV |
| Release | September 7 – November 6, 1998 |
Ruffus the Dog is a Canadian children's television series which aired on YTV from 1998; it was created by Robert Mills, who performs the title character, and developed with Cheryl Wagner. The show was produced through Radical Sheep Productions, a company founded by Mills in 1985 that also created The Big Comfy Couch . The Ruffus character had previously appeared in the educational video series The Adventures of Ruffus & Andy in the early 1990s, as produced by the Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga, Ontario, where Ruffus and his owner Andy learned medical lessons.
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When Robert Mills left Radical Sheep in 2002, ownership and rights to the award-winning series were transferred to his new company, Hunky Dorey Entertainment. In 2010, Mills announced all of the original shows would be posted online under a Creative Commons license, and that they want to produce new episodes for online release. The first major production was a re-telling of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol with Ruffus playing Ebenezer Scrooge. Six of the show's original puppeteers, Robert Mills, Bob Stutt, Gord Robertson, Fred Stinson, Karen Valleau, and Ben Deutsch, returned for the project, as did songwriter JP Houston. Alyson Court, who played Loonette the Clown on The Big Comfy Couch, voiced the Ghost of Christmas Past.
In 2013, the Ruffus Project planned to develop a web series entitled: Ruffus The Dog's Steampunk Adventure. However, the project, appears to have been scrapped as the official website has since went defunct.
Also in the works were a series of illustrated book titles and a pre-school web series entitled: Ruffus Rhymes. Neither of them got off the ground.