Western Animation / Dynomutt, Dog Wonder

He makes you wonder.

He's fearless, scareless, a little too careless. Dynomutt: He's a go-go dog person!

Before The Tick, Freakazoid!, and The Mask, there was this animated Affectionate Parody of superheroes.

Dynomutt is a friendly "Robot Dog", voiced by Frank Welker, with special robotic superpowers — but his "carelessness" is only slightly better than that of Inspector Gadget (whom he predated by seven years; six if one counts the 1982 pilot). He and his straight-arrow Super Hero master, the Blue Falcon (no, not that one), fought crime and patrolled the city of Big City in the Falconcar, which usually flew but sometimes hovered closer to the ground.

Like Batman, the Blue Falcon had a variety of tools in his Utility Belt. He addressed Dynomutt as "Dog Wonder" or "Dog Blunder" as circumstances warranted. Circumstances could warrant either, frequently. Dynomutt was usually the one to fix the messes and catch the villains, but he always managed to make things worse first.

This dynamic duo debuted in 1976 on ABC as part of The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour. They were Scooby's teammates in the Laff-A-Lympics.

In the film, SCOOB!, Dynomutt and Blue Falcon are major characters, but their positions are completely reversed. The Falcon is the rather dim son of the original Blue Falcon, and Dynomutt has been seriously upgraded in his intelligence to become his sarcastic Hypercompetent Sidekick. Similar versions appear in Jellystone!.

A Truer to the Text version appears in Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? episode "Scooby-Doo, Dog Wonder", in which the gang helps Dynomutt solve the mystery of a Medusa Monster after his master is abducted.

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The series provides examples of:

• Affectionate Parody: Of Batman, particularly the Adam West version (or if you prefer, the Superfriends depiction). Let's just say the show didn't take itself seriously.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: Blue Falcon, for Batman
  • Or maybe Adam West's Batman; this is especially significant for Latin American audiences.
• Animated Series
• Annoying Laugh: Blue Falcon isn't fond of Dynomutt's chuckle.
• Assurance Backfire:
  Dynomutt: Dog Wonder never makes the same mistake twice!
  Blue Falcon: I know. You seem to come up with a new one every time!
• Bee-Bee Gun: The Queen Hornet has a portable beehive, from which she releases a swarm of live hornets in order to hijack an armored vehicle.
• Blue Is Heroic: Invoked by the Blue Falcon, who is a superhero who appropriately wears a largely blue uniform and even included the word "blue" in his superhero name.
• Cast as a Mask: An unusual variation happens in "Sinister Symphony;" this trope is used when the Master of Disguise supervillain Manyfaces disguises as the Blue Falcon (complete with Gary Owens supplying the voice), but it's averted with Manyfaces's other disguises throughout the episode, where his regular voice actor supplies the disguised voices, including when he's disguised as an old woman.
• Comic-Book Adaptation: Seven issues from Marvel with opening teasers in the previous month's issue of Scooby-Doo. Plus appearances in Laff-A-Lympics and a Scooby story in the special Yogi Bear's Easter Parade. Dyno is more competent yet can still crack a corny line. The comic also introduces a recurring antagonist, a megalomaniac who calls himself Mastermind.
• The Comically Serious: Blue Falcon, very much.
• Continuity Nod: In a rare move for the time, "The Injustice League of America" had a half-dozen villains from earlier episodes break jail and team up.
• Cool Car: The Falconcar, our hero's primary method of transportation.
• Crossover: Within the original series characters from Scooby-Doo and Mumbly show up within the episodes.
  • In a mythology gag from the Scooby-Doo Animated Series movie Scooby-Doo! Mask of the Blue Falcon, the Scooby Gang is attending a Comic-Con–type convention where a fictional Blue Falcon and Dynomutt are being reintroduced as Darker and Edgier. Shaggy and Scooby aren't pleased about it.
    • It was a trend at times for other HB shows to appear as a Show Within a Show only to cross over with them for real. This movie being one of the most widescale uses of such a trope.
  • Dynomutt also appeared on an episode of Dexter's Laboratory, where Blue Falcon seeks out Dexter to repair Dynomutt after a fierce battle.
• Cultural Translation: In "The Great Brain... Train Robbery", Blue Falcon mentions the time he used to play football and Dynomutt suggests enlisting help from the Pittsburgh Steelers. In the Brazilian dub, Blue Falcon mentions soccer instead of football and Dynomutt suggests Brazilian soccer player Rivellino.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Not from this series, but from another show Joe Ruby and Ken Spears created for Hanna-Barbera and ABC. The theme to Jabberjaw can be heard in the Queen Hornet's nightclub at one point.
• The Ditz: Considering that the show's opening narration describes Dynomutt as "stronger than a train! (with a so-so brain)," you can work it out.
  "Uh, you talkin' about me, Blue Falcon? Gosh!"
• Do-Anything Robot: Dynomutt possesses a number of gadgets wired into his body that allow him to do everything from telescope his limbs to make ice cubes. The problem is how prone he is to malfunctions.
• Emerald Power: Dynomutt is a powerful dog sidekick who wears green.
• Evil Laugh: Several bad guys.
• Flying Car: The Falconcar is usually this.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: During "Factory Recall", Blue Falcon prepares to capture Mr. Cool with a net, until Cool points out that the frozen Dynomutt will fall off the rafter he was perched on in a few seconds. Blue Falcon chooses to save Dynomutt, and Mr. Cool escapes in the meantime.

• Genre Mashup: Hanna-Barbera mixed their two most popular genres to make this show: Funny animal cartoons, and action-adventure superhero shows. It more or less functions as a parody of the latter.
• Gone Horribly Right: Blue Falcon tells Dynomutt to stop testing his face to see if it's a mask. When Manyfaces tells Dynomutt that the real Blue Falcon is an imposter, Blue Falcon tells him to pinch his face to test it — whereupon Dynomutt concludes that he must be Manyfaces, because Blue Falcon told him to stop that.
• Heroism Won't Pay the Bills: The episode "Don't Bug Superthug" reveals Dynomutt's life savings to be a single coin. He says superheroing isn't the highest paid job in the town.
• Hulk Speak: Evil Caveman Lowbrow speak like this.
• An Ice Suit: Mr. Cool.
• Inflating Body Gag: The Human Blimp's Evil Plan involves him doing this to the entire city via special radio waves inflating the city's entire population, families, city folk, partying teenagers and even the mayor, in order to rob banks. Even Blue Falcon and Dynomutt end up puffy and helpless and are forced to learn to use their new size to their advantage.
• Legion of Doom: Appropriately enough, the Injustice League of America, 2 years before Hanna-Barbera brought us the actual Legion of Doom that would go on to become Injustice League of America featured in current DC Comics iterations.
• Master of Disguise: Manyfaces (no, not that one) in "Sinister Symphony."
• Million to One Chance: Inverted in "Factory Recall". When Dynomutt, reprogrammed by Mr. Cool, was told to kill his partner, Blue Falcon dryly commented, "I calculate the odds at a million to one...in my favor." He was right.
• Money to Throw Away: In a comic book story, Dynomutt and Blue Falcon once chased thieves who robbed a charity event until they dropped the loot to avoid capture. It's later revealed the dropped money came from a bank robbery and the thieves couldn't spend it because the authorities knew the series number of every bill so they pulled that trick hoping they'd be long gone by the time the authorities found out the recovered money came from the bank robbery. If not for Blue Falcon exchanging part of the recovered money for unrelated purposes, it might have worked.
• Multiple Demographic Appeal: Being a parody of superheroes, some of the jokes hit differently for adults than kids, especially Blue Falcon's wry comments about Dynomutt.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Julie McWhirter imitated Mae West as Queen Hornet. Also, one of Madame Apeface's victims was named "Sarah Shower Faucet", a play on Farrah Fawcett.
  • The voice of Dynomutt himself is an impression of Red Skelton.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Used several times by Dynomutt and usually worked.
• Pauper Patches: After Blue Falcon and Dynomutt are fired for losing to Superthug, those patches and other damages to their superhero outfits gradually become evident. It turns out they're just pretending to be unemployed as part of a plan to locate Superthug's hideout and, once the plan works, they reveal non-ragged outfits underneath the ragged ones.
• Plunger Detonator: Dynomutt sits on one in the intro.
• Primary-Color Champion: While mostly blue (hence his title), the Blue Falcon also has some red and yellow in his costume, specifically, he has a red F insignia on his chest, a yellow belt, yellow boots and arm bands, and his blue falcon shaped hood has a yellow beak and yellow eyes with red irises.
• Punny Name: The "Queen Hornet"
• Redundant Parody: It’s a parody of the Batman tv series from the 60s, which was already a parody of contemporary superheroes.
• Rogues Gallery: Oddly enough, most villains seen in the show only appeared once. However, Fishface, Superthug, Lowbrow, the Queen Hornet, the Gimmick and the Worm all had at least two episodes to menace the city, including one Legion of Doom episode.
• Rube Goldberg Device: The Gimmick uses these in "The Great Brain … Train Robbery".
• Samus Is a Girl: Near the end of "The Awful Ordeal with the Head of Steel", Dynomutt reveals that Ironface is in fact the Serpent Lady. She sought revenge against Blue Falcon and the city officials who sent her to prison.
• Shout-Out: The episode "Don't Bug Superthug" has some allusions to Superman.
  • The narrator describes Superthug as leaping tall buildings in a single bound.
  • Dynomutt mixes two other classical ways to describe Superman when, as Blue Falcon's exo-skeleton, claims they're more powerful than a speeding locomotive.
  • Blue Falcon borrows Superman's battle cry "Up, up, and away".
• Sir Cameos-a-Lot: Dynomutt has appeared in various crossovers, including Scooby-Doo and Dexter's Laboratory.
• Slasher Smile: In "Factory Recall", Dynomutt, having been reprogrammed by Mr. Cool, gives an incredibly disturbing toothy grin when the new villainous programming asserts itself.
• Spot the Imposter: Dynomutt has to judge between Blue Falcon and the disguised Manyfaces more than once in "Sinister Symphony". He fails spectacularly.
• Straight Man: Blue Falcon plays the serious figure next to Dynomutt's zaniness.
• Super Hero: Blue Falcon and Dynomutt fight the supervillains who attempt to mess with Big City.
• Super Zeroes: Poor Blue Falcon is often seen this way because of Dynomutt's screwups, by their enemies and allies like the mayor!
• Telescoping Robot: Dynomutt's most iconic and frequently seen power is his telescoping limbs.
• To the Batpole!
  "Blue Falcon...(and Dog Wonder) AWAAAAAAAAYY!!!"
• Train Stopping: The intro sequence shows Dynomutt pushing a train to a halt with one of his paws.
• True Companions: As much as Blue Falcon is upset and annoyed with Dynomutt's hijinks, he truly does value his loyalty. In the Dexter's Laboratory crossover, he is upset when he thinks Dynomutt has gone mad and may have to be terminated, and when he learns the truth (it was a brand new robot that had no understanding/tolerance/empathy of human fallacy) he is outraged at the attempt to get his friend replaced.
• Trust Password: When Manyfaces has tricked Dynomutt into believing that Blue Falcon is an impostor, the hero proves himself by showing his friend that he knows Dynomutt's only ticklish spot.
• Unwanted Assistance: Blue Falcon more often than not finds Dynomutt's attempts to help very unhelpful...but he tends to stick to oblique statements about it.
  Blue Falcon: He is my friend. They are my enemies. I must remember.
• Went to the Great X in the Sky: "The Wizard of Ooze" has the announcer ask if Blue Falcon, Dynomutt, and Mystery, Inc. will go to the great Falcon Lair in the sky before the commercial break.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Scooby-Doo and the gang during their crossovers. They still think they're dealing with men in masks and not with supervillains.

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Later parodies of this series provides examples of:

• Adaptational Villainy: While he's mostly an adaptational jerkass in Harvey Birdman, the video game adaptation of said series has him embezzling millions of dollars from Sebben & Sebben law firm and attempting to pin the blame on Birdman.
• All Crimes Are Equal: In the Dexter's Laboratory crossover "Dyno-Might", Dexter becomes convinced that Dynomutt is too much of a goofy idiot sidekick to be any help to Blue Falcon, so he decides to design a new "Dynomutt X-90" to replace him. While Dynomutt X-90 initially starts out arresting armed muggers, he soon spirals off into this. Parking violation? The car gets eaten. Jaywalking? Machine guns. Littering? Fire breathing on the litterer. Finally, he's about to zap a little girl with laser eyes for violating a "Keep Off the Grass" sign when Blue Falcon and Dexter step in; he promptly declares them "guilty of obstruction of justice," No Sells their attempts to restrain him, and starts crushing them both with Combat Tentacles.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: In their Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated guest appearance, a "Darker and Edgier" Blue Falcon is a Shout-Out to Frank Miller's Batman.
• Crossover: Dexter's Laboratory, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law and Johnny Bravo all attempt to utilize the characters.
• Character Development: In his Dexter's Laboratory appearance, Blue Falcon gets this: upon seeing how an efficient but merciless Dynomutt could be a threat to all around him, he decides to stick with his silly but loyal version, a lesson Dexter briefly takes to heart as he walks home with Dee Dee.
  Blue Falcon: Remember, it's the goofy idiot sidekick that makes a superhero super.
• Darker and Edgier: Well, sort of. Years ago, the Cartoon Network Web site briefly had a serial animated webcomic starring Dynomutt and Blue Falcon, featuring a much darker plot than those seen on the TV show: Dynomutt being destroyed then rebuilt as an evil, vicious brute by the villain Hijinx. Though, as Hijinx himself ruefully admitted, Dynomutt's tendency to malfunction in a spectacularly zany manner was still omnipresent.
• Gone Horribly Right: In the Dexter's Laboratory crossover "Dyno-Might", Dexter believes that Dynomutt is too much of a goofy idiot sidekick to be any help to Blue Falcon, so he designs a new "Dynomutt X-90" to replace him. Unfortunately, Dynomutt X-90 believes that All Crimes Are Equal and uses lethal force to deal with even minor crimes such as littering and jaywalking, forcing Dexter to team up with Blue Falcon and the real Dynomutt to take him down.
  • Gone Horribly Wrong: When Dynomutt X-90 goes rogue, Blue Falcon, believing his original Dynomutt was upgraded, fears whatever Dexter did to change his dog into into Dynomutt X-90 was this, as going after small crimes and misdemeanors with lethal force was not what Blue Falcon remembered about Dynomutt.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: In Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, Dynomutt ends up filling this role as Blue Falcon(e) has an extremely limited understanding of the law and even the most basic legal terms, despite being named partner for a law firm. Thankfully for him, Dynomutt, being a machine, has instant access to the relevant information to help him out.
  • Also done in SCOOB!, where he is serving a rookie Blue Falcon.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Parodied in a Dexter's Laboratory crossover. Dexter tries to fix a damaged Dynomutt (a dog robot with boatloads of hyperactivity), but instead builds a supercool and super-dangerous version that is ten times more badass than the original, and passes it off as an upgrade. When it goes rogue, Blue Falcon tries to use his friendship with Dynomutt to draw out his old personality, in vain.
• Lawful Stupid: There was a crossover with Dexter's Laboratory in which Blue Falcon brought in Dynomutt for repairs. Dexter instead builds a competent crime-fighting robot, instead of a comic relief sidekick, that's unfortunately willing to open fire on innocent people jaywalking or littering. As "no comic relief" means none of the humanity Blue Falcon knew Dynomutt had before this, this causes Blue Falcon to initially fear he'd have to put down Dynomutt. Once he realizes the "new Dynomutt" has nothing of the original in him, though, Blue Falcon is not upset about bringing Dexter's version down.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: The original Dynomutt gets the attention of his successor by using a cat head and tail to lure him away from Dexter and Blue Falcon, and uses an exploding bone to stop the rogue robot.
• Loser Friend Puzzles Outsiders: In the crossover "Dyno-might", Dexter, recruited to fix Dynomutt after a mission gone wrong, is appalled at Dynomutt's ditziness (thinking he's too much like his sister, DeeDee) and creates a Darker and Edgier replacement. Blue Falcon calls Dexter out for this when he learns it, saying that Dynomutt "wasn't just a goofy idiot sidekick; he was a go-go dog person!"
• Upgrade vs. Prototype Fight: In the Dexter's Laboratory crossover "Dyno-Might," the original Dynomutt confronts the out-of-control Dynomutt X-90 Dexter created to replace him, but X-90 dismisses him, declaring that the "Dynomutt prototype" is no threat. Dynomutt quickly proves him wrong.

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