Joe Murray, American animator, producer, and screenwriter
Joseph David Murray (born May 3, 1961) is an American animator, writer, illustrator, producer, director, and voice actor, best known as the creator of Nickelodeon's Rocko's Modern Life and Cartoon Network's Camp Lazlo, and is now the creator of PBS Kids' Let's Go Luna!. Born in San Jose, California, USA, Murray was interested in a career in the arts when he was three. He credits his high school art teacher Mark Briggs with teaching him a lot about art. Murray was a political cartoonist for a newspaper, often targeting then-President Jimmy Carter. As a young adult Murray was hired as a designer at an agency, where he invested his earnings from the production company into independent animated films. In 1981 at age 20, he founded his independent illustration production company called Joe Murray Studios while he was still in college. Murray also did the storyboards and the layouts for Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures and A Pup Named Scooby-Doo while working as a freelancer at Drew Takahashi's Colossal Pictures in San Francisco.

Later in 1992, Murray created his first animated short film in color called My Dog Zero, after which he decided to develop a television series titled Rocko's Modern Life for Nickelodeon. After pitching it to Nickelodeon, the company decided to create the concept. While creating the series, Murray hired comedian and actor Carlos Alazraqui to supply the voice for the character of Rocko. The series premiered on Nickelodeon on September 18, 1993, and ended on November 24, 1996, completing four seasons and 52 episodes. After Rocko's Modern Life in 2004 Murray wanted to create another television series, this time for Cartoon Network. He created his second series Camp Lazlo as a pilot, where he served as the producer of that pilot. After Cartoon Network decided to create the show, Murray brought fellow Rocko cast members Carlos Alazraqui, Tom Kenny (who, post-Rocko, became known as the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants) and Mr. Lawrence to voice the main characters Lazlo (Alazraqui), Scoutmaster Lumpus (Kenny) and Edward (Lawrence). The series first aired in 2005, and ended production in 2008, with five seasons and 65 episodes.

Murray is the winner of two Primetime Emmy Awards for Camp Lazlo (Outstanding Special Class – Short-Format Animated Programs) and Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming One Hour or More) for the TV film Camp Lazlo: Where's Lazlo?. Murray set up the website KaboingTV, dedicated to streaming original animation, for which Murray contributed a short series entitled Frog in a Suit.

In 2017 he created Let's Go Luna!, which premiered on November 21, 2018 on PBS Kids, and as of 2021, has aired two seasons.

Murray is also a writer and illustrator, and is the author of the book Creating Animated Cartoons with Character, which features animators about their careers in animated cartoons.

Murray took inspiration for his work from Max Fleischer, Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Hanna-Barbera, UPA, Jay Ward, Walt Disney, Ub Iwerks and Paul Terry.