Dynomutt, Dog Wonder is a cartoon that was inspired by the 1960s Batman live-action series, mixing superhero action with comedy. Similar to how Scooby-Doo mixed mysteries with comedy, Dynomutt did the same with superheroics (it even had a laugh track).
Dynomutt, Dog Wonder was produced by Hanna-Barbera and first aired on ABC Saturday mornings in the fall of 1976. It was a 30-minute series and aired in tandem with The Scooby-Doo Show under the banner The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour. This was then changed to The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Show in December when ABC canceled one show or another and added reruns of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? making the package 90-minutes instead of an hour.
Dynomutt was created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, who had also created Scooby-Doo, and the two shows were connected as Scooby and the Mysteries Inc. gang guest-starred in the first two episodes of Dynomutt, as well as in the tenth. It was established that Dynomutt was Scooby’s idol.
Dynomutt followed the exploits of the superhero Blue Falcon (real name: Radley Crown), voiced by Gary Owens (Space Ghost) who seemed inspired by Adam West’s stoic portrayal of Batman. Like Batman, Blue Falcon didn’t have superpowers and relied on a variety of gadgets, including the flying Falconcar. (In fact, it ONLY seems capable of flying. I don’t think it has tires at all. So why is it the “FalconCAR?”)
However, instead of a “Robin,” Blue Falcon was partnered with the robot dog Dynomutt who could stretch his limbs and neck and was equipped with every manner of technological device to ostensibly help in their crime-solving, but they always malfunctioned and usually hindered Blue Falcon instead of their enemies, leading to “B.F.” (as Dynomutt affectionately called him) to refer to Dynomutt as “Dog Blunder.”
Frank Welker (also Fred on Scooby-Doo) provided Dynomutt’s voice and based his performance on the characters Gertrude and Heathcliff by comedian Red Skelton. The series also featured the voices of Ron Feinberg as Blue Falcon’s contact F.O.C.U.S. One and the show’s narrator and Larry McCormick as Big City’s Mayor.
There were 16 episodes in the first season, which is unusual as most cartoons had 13, but this may have been because two episodes aired on Thanksgiving Day. Perhaps ABC knew it needed a couple of extra episodes and ordered accordingly. These two episodes were later rerun on Saturday mornings as part of the regular run.
Like on Batman, Dynomutt employed cliffhangers. The first segment of the show would end on a cliffhanger which would be resolved when it returned from commercial break.
The heroes would face a variety of comical and colorful villains including Mr. Hyde (pictured), The Worm (an actual worm, similar to Shazam/Captain Marvel’s foe Mister Mind), Queen Hornet, Superthug, Fishface, The Gimmick, Beast Woman, The Glob, and Madame Ape. Nearly every villain had an equally comical assistant or a group of henchmen. At one point, six of these villains teamed up as “The Injustice League of America.” I get that HB and DC Comics were both owned by Warner Brothers, but it still seems odd that they were able to get away with using that name.
Dynomutt‘s creators, Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, would form their own animation studio, Ruby-Spears Productions, just a few years after this and one of their first projects was The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show. If you compare Dynomutt and Plastic Man, the two shows are incredibly similar in tone, especially when you examine Plastic Man’s kooky foes like The Weed, The Clam (an actual clam in a captain’s hat), Half-Ape (maybe someone should set him up with Madame Ape), Badladdin, and more.
Ruby and Spears seemed to have hit on a winning formula with these mixtures of comedy and adventure, which they would apply to their other original shows like Mighty Man and Yukk and Goldie Gold and Action Jack.
In fall 1977, Dynomutt aired as part of the package Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics, but the Dynomutt segments were retitled Blue Falcon & Dynomutt. Also part of this programming block were The Scooby-Doo Show, Laff-A-Lympics, Captain Caveman, and the Teen Angels and reruns of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?. (Blue Falcon aired after Laff-A-Lympics.)
Blue Falcon and Dynomutt both appeared on Laff-A-Lympics– an athletic competition mashup– as part of the Scoobie Doobies team which included the “modern” Hanna-Barbera characters led by Scooby-Doo, Shaggy, and Scooby-Dum, and including Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, Speedy Buggy and Tinker, Hong Kong Fuey, and Babu from Jeanie. On Laff-A-Lympics, all the characters were drawn slightly off-model with the addition of team shirts over their usual outfits– in the case of the Scooby Doobies, a blue tanktop with a white S.
The show went back to the name Dynomutt, Dog Wonder in the fall of 1978, but there were no new episodes produced. It also aired for the first time on its own, and not as part of a larger programming block.
In the fall of 1979, Dynomutt reruns shifted over to NBC and aired as part of The Godzilla/Dynomutt Hour.
Dynomutt reruns also aired in the ’80s as part of the USA Cartoon Express and then in the ’90s on Boomerang.
Blue Falcon and Dynomutt have resurfaced in various Hanna-Barbera/Warner Bros. projects including episodes of Dexter’s Lab, 2 Stupid Dogs, Johnny Bravo, Robot Chicken, and Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, the latter of which provided the duo with an origin for the first time, although this show is set within its own continuity.
A Spanish version of Blue Falcon, named Antonio de Rivera Garcia Azul Falcón (voiced by Maurice LaMarche), was actually a recurring character on Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.
Alternate versions of Blue Falcon and Dynomutt appeared in the direct-to-video movie Scooby-Doo! Mask of the Blue Falcon. In this continuity, they are fictional characters that have been depicted in a TV series and a new movie.
And most recently, versions in the film Scoob!. Once again, these are alternate versions. The Blue Falcon depicted was actually Brian Crane (voiced by Mark Wahlberg), the son of Radley. Radley has retired and moved to Florida. This version of Dynomutt (voiced by Ken Jeong) is not the bumbling stooge he was in the original cartoon, but was very intelligent and capable and was tasked with training the doltish Brian in how to be a superhero.
Scoob! was intended to launch a shared universe of Hanna-Barbera big-screen animated pictures, and the closing credits depicted Blue Falcon and Dynomutt assembling the Falcon Force– Atom Ant, Captain Caveman, Jabberjaw, and the Grape Ape. (Captain Caveman, voiced by Tracy Morgan played a role in the film proper, while the others just popped up for this cameo.) So it’s a safe bet that this was a film Warner Bros. planned to make, but COVID-19 forced the studio to release the film to PVOD, so it probably made only a fraction of what WB had hoped it would make in theaters. So, it remains to be seen whether or not Brian and Dynomutt will be back.
On one final note, it is believed that Blue Falcon and Dynomutt will pop up on the upcoming series Jellystone! which is in production and will be available on HBO Max, although it isn’t clear when.
Unfortunately, to my knowledge, the entire series is not available anywhere. The 16 episodes from Season 1 were released on DVD as part of The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour. But it appears that the four Season 2 episodes are “lost.” The show also does not appear to be available to stream anywhere, although it may eventually surface on Boomerang or HBO Max.
Dynomutt, Dog Wonder retains a faithful following, thanks to its winning mixture of colorful superheroics, and comedy. And it doesn’t appear that Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. are ready to let this property die, so keep an eye out for future appearances by this not-so-dynamic duo in the years to come.
