1966 Video: Cartoonist Bob Dunn: To Tell The Truth

(Above photo of Bob Dunn tossing a lucky horseshoe via the Comics Kingdom Ask the Archivist blog. The THEY’LL DO IT EVERY TIME original of December 17, 1948 is on his board.)

Some years back, Lone Ranger artist and pal Tom Gill would describe Bob Dunn to me. Bob Dunn (1908 - 1989) was the long-time assistant on THEY'LL DO IT EVERY TIME by Jimmy Hatlo. Bob, and later, Al Scaduto, assisted on the strip as well as all the LITTLE IODINE comics too. According to King Features, Bob was such a ball of energy, that King let him do his own strip, JUST THE TYPE, to keep him happy. According to historian Allan Holtz was

[N]ever a syndication success, King Features may well have let him do the feature just to keep him happy while working on the Hatlo cash cow feature... When Hatlo died in 1963, though, Dunn's workload presumably got that much heavier and JUST THE TYPE was dropped. Dunn finally got an official byline on THEY'LL DO IT EVERY TIME starting in 1966

Bob Dunn was also a joke writer, contributing to books and magazines, as well as Earl Carroll's successful Vanities show on Broadway.  He was an author with such titles as HOSPITAL HAPPY, I'M GONNA BE A FATHER, and ONE DAY IN THE ARMY among others. These sold in the millions. During WWII, Bob toured with the USO drawing on-the-spot live caricatures of the soldiers and doing his "amateur magic act."

Bob was there in New York City in 1947, at the very beginning of the NCS. Tom Gill downplayed who Bob Dunn was, really. Bob was more than an emcee, he was one of the founders of the group. He and his pal Rube Goldberg raised $58 million for US Savings Bonds during a three month tour that year. Bob would go on to be the "official toastmaster" for the NCS and served as its President from 1965-67.

So, good ol' Tom Gill would tell me about Bob and what a firecracker he was. And Tom would always end his Bob Dunn anecdotes with, "I wish you would have met him. He was a great guy."

Today, I just found out that Bob was on TV, as early as 1946. And someone saved some of the old kinescopes. 

The closest I have yet come to actually seeing Bob Dunn in action is a copy of an old short-lived game show titled QUICK ON THE DRAW. It was on a couple of networks and a couple of hosts while it was on the air from 1950 to 1952. This segment has ventriloquist Paul Winchell (and Jerry Mahoney) hosting. While I can't say for sure, it may be Bob Dunn drawing. (The cartoonist is unseen.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Via Wikipedia:

"They'll Do It Every Time and Little Iodine brought Dunn several awards. He won the National Cartoonists Society Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award for the years 1968 and 1969. He won it again in 1979 with Al Scaduto. Dunn won the National Cartoonists Society's highest honor, the Reuben Award, in 1975. He also received their Silver T-Square Award in 1957 and the Elzie Segar Award, named after the creator of Popeye."

Here is Bob Dunn on the January 10, 1966 To Tell the Truth game show. He's one of the contestants in the final segment, which starts here or watch the whole episode:

 

 

EDIT:

 

I first posted about Bob Dunn on August 29, 2016. This is an expanded, edited version of that blog entry. And I wanted to add this comment, from Bob's son, that he recently posted on the 2016 post:

 

"Mike, Bob Dunn was my father. tom gill a good friend of his. Knew his son. I have been looking for a kinescope of a Quick on the Draw episode. The show ran on the Dumont Network and later on NBC. The You tube account you included in your post has been cancelled so the clip is no longer on You Tube. Any chance you still have it? Would love to see it. Thanks. Bob Dunn Jr."

 

Thanks, Bob, for your kind comment. I did find a working version of that episode. and it's posted above. Unfortunately, like most of the DuMont Network shows of the early 1950s, the shows with your Dad hosting are lost. This is darn sad. The closest I go to was that episode hosted by Winchell, which was later on and on another network. But Bob Dunn may or may not be drawing backstage. I am not sure. I did find him on To Tell the Truth, and that's now included in the entry.