Dynomutt the Dog Wonder

I'm sure most people know who this guy is. Fact is, it's been over 30 years since he appeared in his own TV show. Dynomutt was an American TV series released in the mid to late 70s by Hanna-Barbera, the same company behind Scooby Doo, Josie and the Pussycats, Jabber-Jaw, and other such cartoons that were known at the time.

The show revolved around a Batman/Gatchaman inspired superhero called the Blue Falcon, a regular human-being whose sidekick was a goofy robotic dog named Dynomutt. As a robot, Dynomutt had a seemingly endless number of mechanical devices that he could produce from his body. Needless to say he had an endless number of other functions as well. Some of them being cartoony, and others which were purely of the sci-fi genre. However, his numerous functions were often unpredictable as many times they would have disastrous results, and sometimes they would actually prove to be quite useful. Dynomutt was voiced by Frank Welker, who we know as "The Man of Many Voices". In his performance as the robotic dog, Welker provided the character with a sort of Bullwinkle Moose-like voice.

Strange as it may seem, I didn't know who Dynomutt was until somewhere in the mid to late 90s when I saw the Dexter's Laboratory episode titled "Dyno-Might" where Blue Falcon and Dynomutt made a guest appearance. The original Dynomutt show was never broadcast in the country where I was born in, and it wasn't until a number of years later when I learned about it's existence. Since then, I had grown an interest towards the character as he seems quite interesting to me in many ways. Unfortunately, the show is a bit hard to come across on TV these days even on the Boomerang channel. Fortunately, a number of episodes from the show can be seen on YouTube. And I'm glad I took that chance to see what I had missed out on this whole time.

It's worth mentioning that some people believe that Dynomutt was the inspiration for Inspector Gadget. Truth is both characters are very similar to each other in terms of their endless array of gadgets along with their goofy and dim-witted personalities. Needless to say they also possess many of the same characteristics like their stretchable arms and legs and whatnot. But the main difference between them is that Dynomutt actually proves himself to be useful despite his low level of intelligence. Wheras Inspector Gadget remains oblivious to everything while his neice and dog do all the work for him. Anyway, for those who've never heard of Dynomutt, it's clear to say that he came first as he is at least a few years older. So chances are he might have served as the inspiration for the bionic inspector.

I've always wanted to do a sketch of Dynomutt. And this is a sketch I did completely from memory based on a shot from a particular episode from the TV show. I think the pose he's assuming is quite cute. I wasn't sure on how to write Dynomutt's name in Japanese as I did not recieve lessons on how to write "mutt" in katakana. So I just did my best in comming up with the correct spelling. In any event, this is for all you Dynomutt fans out there!

Dynomutt is the property of Hanna-Barbera.