Mark Jones was a friend of mine I haven't seen in over thirty years. There was no fight, no reason. We worked together then went off in different directions. He went to work for Glen Larson Productions during that period when Larson seemed to have about ninety-three shows on NBC. Mark wrote on all of them but especially The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo and The A Team. Then he segued to writing and sometimes directing horror movies including Leprechaun, which this obit in Variety calls "a cult classic."
Where we worked together was at the animation studio, Ruby-Spears Productions — on shows like Plastic Man, Rickety Rocket and a whole buncha pilots that never sold. Mark and I had a little friendly competition to be the Faster Writer in the Studio. There were frequent script deadline crunches there and a couple of times, Joe Ruby would call in "The Mark Squad." I'd write the first draft and the other Mark (him) would take it from there. At times, the other Mark also worked for Hanna-Barbera, Filmation and DePatie-Freleng. He was a talented guy and I wish we'd stayed in touch. He died yesterday — no cause reported — and today would have been his 73rd birthday.