How many versions/dubs aired on YTV?

[Cure Dragon 255]

I heard YTV even aired the 1995 Funi Syndicated OG Dragon Ball dub! How many different versions of DB aired on the channel?

[dragonmagico]

Ocean dub, funimation season 3 to episode 108westwood dbz from 108 yo the end, blue water GT, blue water dragon ball. I dont know if any place outside of the usa got the blt dub.

[MasenkoHA]

Ocean dub, funimation season 3 to episode 108westwood dbz from 108 yo the end, blue water GT, blue water dragon ball. I dont know if any place outside of the usa got the blt dub.

I could have sworn that YTV aired the Texas dub until sometime around The Cell Games and it was the UK that got the Vancouver dub from episode 108 onwards?

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Ocean dub, funimation season 3 to episode 108westwood dbz from 108 yo the end, blue water GT, blue water dragon ball. I dont know if any place outside of the usa got the blt dub.

I could have sworn that YTV aired the Texas dub until sometime around The Cell Games and it was the UK that got the Vancouver dub from episode 108 onwards?

Yup the Westwood dub started at episode 168 (183 uncut) on YTV.

The switch happened at 108 in the UK, Ireland, and I'm guessing Holland too.

It should also be noted strangely enough Westwood episodes 108-167 never aired in Canada at all, despite being recorded there, even in reruns.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

So it appears that they aired FUNimation's dub in Canada quite a ways further than the U.K. did before the switch over to Westwood. If i had to guess they already had the former for 108-167 imported beforehand, same as with 54-107 not being re dubbed with the Ocean cast as they'd been given the edited TV versions by FUNi so there was no need for them to.

[MasenkoHA]

, same as with 54-107 not being re dubbed with the Ocean cast as they'd been given the edited TV versions by FUNi so there was no need for them to.

There was literally no point for the Ocean Group to go back and dub episodes 54-107 because the Funimation Studios episodes had already aired everywhere that was going to get the Westwood dub.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

, same as with 54-107 not being re dubbed with the Ocean cast as they'd been given the edited TV versions by FUNi so there was no need for them to.

There was literally no point for the Ocean Group to go back and dub episodes 54-107 because the Funimation Studios episodes had already aired everywhere that was going to get the Westwood dub.

Exactly, they already had those versions on hand already. 108/168 onward was a different story because it appears something was going at the time on to where Canada and others weren't able to receive FUNi's version on time or some such (Likely that they were taking too long to send the episodes to them) and thus the Westwood dub bringing the Ocean cast back as a cheaper alternative to waiting around.

Funny enough, it appears even when the Westwood dub was running especially in the U.K. that something happened where for a time FUNi's dub was airing again somewhere in the Buu arc before soon after switching back to the Ocean cast yet again

[Robo4900]

I count six.

Very early on, the original BLT/Funimation dub of DB aired in about 1995 (Vancouver cast, recorded at the Dick & Rogers studio). And no, there was absolutely zero involvement from Ocean whatsoever at this stage. None. So don't call it the Ocean dub, because it's wrong and needlessly confusing.

A bit later, they picked up DBZ, and at first, they got exactly what the US did:
Saban/Funimation/Ocean DBZ 1-53 and Tree of Might (all seemingly recorded at the Ocean studio itself, though Ocean were purely the recording studio until about season 2, when they took over handling the local paperwork as well)
Funimation in-house DBZ 54-93ish. (The Funi in-house versions of some of the movies would also air; Lord Slugg for sure, don't know about the others)

93ish is probably a surprise to some. You see, when the Garlic Jr. saga began airing, things changed, but not in a way many noticed; Ocean started producing their own edits of Funimation's dubbing from that point onwards, and not just for the new episodes. All reairings of the earlier episodes from 54 onwards were swapped out for these new versions once the Garlic Jr. saga began airing. The main difference between the Funimation version airing in the US & UK and the Ocean version airing on YTV is that Ocean often chose different takes or alternate dialougue for various scenes; one famous example being "Don't piss off the god of love", which was uncensored in the Funimation version (though the UK muted the line, and some anecdotal accounts suggest Toonami US would cut the scene for reairings), was changed to "Don't tick off the god of love" for the YTV airings. (Clip courtesy of Arian)
There were also changes to the SFX, the music was based off the earlier masters that would be later used for the Orange Bricks (meaning the slightly different placements of the Faulconer score seen on the OBs were also seen in Canada, several years prior), etc.
One other significant difference is that the OP and ED were changed. (Yes, this song debuted in Canada first, on the Ocean edited version of the Funi dub. Though unlike the European version, this OP, which would remain on all further airings of all episodes of DBZ on YTV, used the visuals from the Saban dub's OP. The European version would replace a few shots to make the OP a bit more relevant to the post-Saiyan sagas)
So this means we have our fourth YTV version of Dragon Ball:
Funimation in-house DBZ 54-167 edited by Ocean

Personally, I think this Ocean edit may have been commissioned partially so Ocean could get video masters to produce their own dub for the European market, but in any case, a full 60 episodes later than in the UK or Holland, Canada finally switched over to the Ocean dub (not because of Cancon requirements; apparently moving to Ocean's dub made delivery of the tapes easier and quicker, that's why YTV switched).
Sometime around this point (possibly later, when the Boo saga began), the ED changed again. Same music, different visuals. The UK never got this version. Another difference compared to the UK is that the UK version aired with a lot of the flashing imagery blurred/blended to reduce epilepsy risk, the Canadian version often had no such blurring/blending, though it was inconsistent episode-to-episode. Anyway, we're now up to five, thanks to the way Funi wrote their various contracts with Ocean, and thanks to Ocean being on far better terms with YTV than Funi ever was.
Westwood Media/Ocean DBZ dub 168-276 (recorded at AirWaves Sound)

Finally, there was one more shakeup behind the scenes. As originally planned, this would have simply been them using the French video/audio masters they'd used at the end of Z to their advantage to make their dub of GT use the Japanese music and have far, far fewer cuts than when they were working off of Funi's materials, and because they were now ahead of Funi, they would have to write all their own scripts (far, far more faithfully than Funi's work that was being sent over), but then the head of Ocean figured out he could save some money by hiring actors out of Calgary since they had a worse union, so partway through pre-production on Ocean's dub of GT (after some actors had been cast in the new roles, but before recording began), production was moved to the Blue Water studio in Calgary. This production process continued into DB, giving us:
Westwood Media/Ocean (recorded in Calgary) GT and DB (all episodes of both).

That makes six.
Though, I think the Pioneer movies MAY have aired at some point, so that would make seven.

Kai has yet to air in Canada at all, but if Toon-A-Vision pick it up (which they might; send emails, people! Ask for the Ocean version though, or I will be very cross at you), then that'll bump Canada's versions total up to seven or eight.

[kei17]

The main difference between the Funimation version airing in the US & UK and the Ocean version airing on YTV is that Ocean often chose different takes or alternate dialougue for various scenes; one famous example being "Don't piss off the god of love", which was uncensored in the Funimation version (though the UK muted the line, and some anecdotal accounts suggest Toonami US would cut the scene for reairings), was changed to "Don't tick off the god of love" for the YTV airings. (Clip courtesy of Arian)

Here's a video clip of the muted line from Toonami UK (thanks to SaiyanBeast). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD3x7iclsoQ

[DrBriefsCat]

Kai has yet to air in Canada at all, but if Toon-A-Vision pick it up (which they might; send emails, people! Ask for the Ocean version though, or I will be very cross at you), then that'll bump Canada's versions total up to seven or eight.

The CW broadcast was seen on some Canadian cable systems that carried a US spillover signal.

[MasenkoHA]

The main difference between the Funimation version airing in the US & UK and the Ocean version airing on YTV is that Ocean often chose different takes or alternate dialougue for various scenes; one famous example being "Don't piss off the god of love", which was uncensored in the Funimation version (though the UK muted the line, and some anecdotal accounts suggest Toonami US would cut the scene for reairings), was changed to "Don't tick off the god of love" for the YTV airings. (Clip courtesy of Arian)

Here's a video clip of the muted line from Toonami UK (thanks to SaiyanBeast). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD3x7iclsoQ

Jeezus that was awkward. They couldn’t have just skipped to Krillin saying “um right” as soon as Dende said “come on guys”

[Azelf89]

There were also changes to the SFX, the music was based off the earlier masters that would be later used for the Orange Bricks (meaning the slightly different placements of the Faulconer score seen on the OBs were also seen in Canada, several years prior), etc.

Mind posting some examples? Because last I checked, I'm pretty sure that ain't quite right. While these Ocean edited versions of the Funimation dub did have added and/or changed SFX to them, most of the music changes (in the episodes that I'm aware of) definitely weren't taken from earlier masters. In actuality, the music that was swapped in were pieces taken from later episodes of the dub (Example 1, Example 2, Example 3, Example 4). Hell, the only example I can really think of where earlier masters were used is episode 117/102, where this moment uses the original music that Faulconer Productions scored for this scene, before it ultimately got replaced. But even then, that part wasn't used at all in the OB release, as that still used the version that ultimately got used in the DVD singles (which is what's also used in the Toonami USA and (very likely) Tonami UK airings). As far as I'm aware, only this later produced Ocean edited version of the Funi dub contains the original piece made for episode 117/102, so unless there are other examples that I'm not aware of, I think you might've gotten your info mixed up at some point.

[VanceRefrigeration]

Mind posting some examples?

Unless I'm misremembering, the Goku nightmare scene in YTV uses the music on the CD, just like the Orange Bricks and Season Blu-rays, rather than the editor-modified version that ended up on the US airing & singles.

[Robo4900]

There were also changes to the SFX, the music was based off the earlier masters that would be later used for the Orange Bricks (meaning the slightly different placements of the Faulconer score seen on the OBs were also seen in Canada, several years prior), etc.

Mind posting some examples? Because last I checked, I'm pretty sure that ain't quite right. While these Ocean edited versions of the Funimation dub did have added and/or changed SFX to them, most of the music changes (in the episodes that I'm aware of) definitely weren't taken from earlier masters. In actuality, the music that was swapped in were pieces taken from later episodes of the dub (Example 1, Example 2, Example 3, Example 4). Hell, the only example I can really think of where earlier masters were used is episode 117/102, where this moment uses the original music that Faulconer Productions scored for this scene, before it ultimately got replaced. But even then, that part wasn't used at all in the OB release, as that still used the version that ultimately got used in the DVD singles (which is what's also used in the Toonami USA and (very likely) Tonami UK airings). As far as I'm aware, only this later produced Ocean edited version of the Funi dub contains the original piece made for episode 117/102, so unless there are other examples that I'm not aware of, I think you might've gotten your info mixed up at some point.

TBH I'm no expert on the Faulconer score, so I can't provide any examples. But my understanding was that YTV had the earlier (Orange Brick) arrangement of the score on each episode. I guess they made their own changes to the score while editing, though.

I'll ask a friend who knows more about this to see if he might be able to give a fuller explanation.

[Brilliant_Gear_258]

Since I can't reply about the YTV Recordings of the Blue Water Dub, I have the recording I download from Mega NZ and I convert the WMV File into MP4 using the CloudConvert and open the video into new tab. It's Episode 2 (The rest except for Episode 9 has the Drum and Bass Remix) Also Episodes 2 and 9 kept the YTV Recording not the Toonami Recording:

<LINK REMOVED BY MODERATOR>

[Arian]

I don't have to go into much detail since Robo already posted here but basically this is the (closest to) official YTV timeline with the Dragon Ball franchise:

March 1996:

YTV premieres the BLT Productions dub of Dragon Ball on the Saturday of March Break as acquired from FUNimation Productions. This series would rotate occasionally for the next 2 years.

October 1997:

Dragon Ball Z premieres on both YTV and *Teletoon. YTV very wisely only acquires the first 13 episodes (out of 26 of the first season run) from FUNimation in an attempt to gauge viewer interest. The show is then dropped in February of 1998, most likely due to awkward timeslot placements.

(*Note #1: Teletoon was its own network at the time, however YTV was one of several entities investing money into Teletoon's inception and operation.

Note #2: YTV's issues of episodes 1 and 2 feature the re-edited versions with the death lines removed first seen in August 1997, thereby leading me to believe that YTV premiered the program late in 1997, in tandem with Teletoon's launch.)

1999 (likely sometime between March and June):

Dragon Ball Z returns to YTV, this time managed by The Ocean Group instead of FUNimation featuring all 53 episodes in their possession in a weekday afternoon slot on the popular block known as "The Zone." The show also features a new theme song composted by Tom Keenlyside and David Iris.

February 2000:

The Captain Ginyu Saga, as well as FUNimation's in-house dub is first seen on Canadian television. Episodes 54-102 were acquired in a batch by The Ocean Group and copies were mailed to YTV for broadcast.

September 2000:

The Trunks Saga premieres on YTV. Now episodes are being provided haphazardly, whenever FUNimation is able to provide them to Ocean. In addition to this, FUNimation is also mailing Ocean raw materials (voice recordings, SFX, BGM by Faulconer Productions, edited video masters, etc.) for the show to be edited in a new way, including the episodes which have previously aired for repeats (#54-#102). Now all episodes are technically edited by The Ocean Group. The show is also inexplicably moved to primetime between 8pm and 9pm, never to look back.

April 2001:

Episode 167 airs on YTV after a considerable amount of time after it has aired on Cartoon Network in the United States. This would be the final episode that Ocean would edit with FUNimation's materials until the decision was made behind the scenes that YTV would begin airing Ocean's dub of the series that they had already been producing for France's AB Groupe as well as Cartoon Network's U.K. branch.

August 2001:

Episode 168 premieres on YTV, finally progressing the series forward after a 4-month hiatus filled with repeats. The Z series would not look back after this final alteration to production was made as the series begins airing featuring what's known in the fandom as the "Westwood dub."

June 2002:

"6 Dragon Ball Z Specials" premiere on YTV on a weekly basis. This would include the edited versions of Pioneer's "Dead Zone" and "The World's Strongest," the Saban dub of "Tree of Might," as well as FUNimation's dubs of "Lord Slug" as well as the two actual TV specials. Whether or not Ocean Studios edited the latter 3 from scratch or not is presently unknown.

May 2003:

Episode 276 airs on YTV concluding Dragon Ball Z's run on the network after a 6-year presence there.

September 2003:

Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball GT premiere on YTV in tandem as dubbed by The Ocean Group's Blue Water Studios, based in Calgary, Alberta. Technically, this is a re-premiere in Dragon Ball's case.

September 2005:

Dragon Ball Z is pulled from YTV's schedule altogether as far as regularly scheduled airings were concerned.

September 2006:

The last of Dragon Ball-related programming have been removed from the schedule when YTV stops the 3am and 3:30am Saturday morning airings of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball GT, putting emphasis on the anime of the future.

August 2008:

Dragon Ball Z #001 - The Arrival of Raditz airs during its only appearance on YTV's Bionix block to celebrate YTV's 20th anniversary. This is also curiously enough the FUNimation master acquired in 1997, not the Ocean master from 1999.

Sorry if that was very long and boring, but I hope that covers up at least most confusion.

There were also changes to the SFX, the music was based off the earlier masters that would be later used for the Orange Bricks (meaning the slightly different placements of the Faulconer score seen on the OBs were also seen in Canada, several years prior), etc.

Mind posting some examples? Because last I checked, I'm pretty sure that ain't quite right. While these Ocean edited versions of the Funimation dub did have added and/or changed SFX to them, most of the music changes (in the episodes that I'm aware of) definitely weren't taken from earlier masters. In actuality, the music that was swapped in were pieces taken from later episodes of the dub (Example 1, Example 2, Example 3, Example 4). Hell, the only example I can really think of where earlier masters were used is episode 117/102, where this moment uses the original music that Faulconer Productions scored for this scene, before it ultimately got replaced. But even then, that part wasn't used at all in the OB release, as that still used the version that ultimately got used in the DVD singles (which is what's also used in the Toonami USA and (very likely) Tonami UK airings). As far as I'm aware, only this later produced Ocean edited version of the Funi dub contains the original piece made for episode 117/102, so unless there are other examples that I'm not aware of, I think you might've gotten your info mixed up at some point.

Basically, as I elaborated in my timeline up there, all of Ocean's base edits were first seen in September of 2000. Before that, Ocean sent YTV FUNimation's original edited masters. So the reason why the Ginyu/Freeza episodes feature music that actually debuted later on and why the Android episodes feature "original" music stems is because by the time they got to anything post-Garlic Jr., YTV's timing was for the most part on-par with Cartoon Network USA's. And speaking of CN, they were apparently responsible for the some of the music stems being re-issued in certain moments, even on the uncut VHS tapes and DVDs. I can't cite it, but I do recall Scott Morgan and Mike Smith pointing this out on social media.

Here is a short video showcasing that. It's only 2 examples, but understand that these are rather difficult to pinpoint.

Basically the sources go like this:

Original FUNi>YTV/Ocean>FUNi Remastered

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk0P-QWU25o

Hope you guys can make some sense of this nonsense now.

[wjbraden]

October 1997:

Dragon Ball Z premieres on both YTV and *Teletoon. YTV very wisely only acquires the first 13 episodes (out of 26 of the first season run) from FUNimation in an attempt to gauge viewer interest. The show is then dropped in February of 1998, most likely due to awkward timeslot placements.

(*Note #1: Teletoon was its own network at the time, however YTV was one of several entities investing money into Teletoon's inception and operation.

Note #2: YTV's issues of episodes 1 and 2 feature the re-edited versions with the death lines removed first seen in August 1997, thereby leading me to believe that YTV premiered the program late in 1997, in tandem with Teletoon's launch.)

1999 (likely sometime between March and June):

Dragon Ball Z returns to YTV, this time managed by The Ocean Group instead of FUNimation featuring all 53 episodes in their possession in a weekday afternoon slot on the popular block known as "The Zone." The show also features a new theme song composted by Tom Keenlyside and David Iris.

Interesting, so these first runs of the first 13 episodes pre-1999 were the only time YTV showed exactly what was shown in the US (straight down to the use of the US Rock the Dragon, I'm assuming?).

Also, that's interesting you bring up the show moving to the Zone afternoon block. Perhaps the new intro was made to be a bit more benign to younger children or some such reason?

September 2000:

The Trunks Saga premieres on YTV. Now episodes are being provided haphazardly, whenever FUNimation is able to provide them to Ocean. In addition to this, FUNimation is also mailing Ocean raw materials (voice recordings, SFX, BGM by Faulconer Productions, edited video masters, etc.) for the show to be edited in a new way, including the episodes which have previously aired for repeats (#54-#102). Now all episodes are technically edited by The Ocean Group. The show is also inexplicably moved to primetime between 8pm and 9pm, never to look back.

Was this also the time period that Ocean inserted those extra sound effects (https://youtu.be/p-3jDg7MMtg?t=3), or were those also present in the first run of those episodes as well?


I think we can all agree that no matter how you slice it, the Canadian run (and all things going on behind the scenes up there in your neck of woods) was really bizarre. And that's coming from an American perspective, where we had things pretty damn kooky in our own way .

[Arian]

Interesting, so these first runs of the first 13 episodes pre-1999 were the only time YTV showed exactly what was shown in the US (straight down to the use of the US Rock the Dragon, I'm assuming?)

Yup! Some showings even contained the Saban-made bumpers from syndication as you can see here: https://youtu.be/ST0QgAu__hE

Also, that's interesting you bring up the show moving to the Zone afternoon block. Perhaps the new intro was made to be a bit more benign to younger children or some such reason?

I wouldn't know about that. I've tried inquiring as to why a new theme was made in 1999, pre-dating the Westwood dub altogether, but no one involved seems to remember.

Was this also the time period that Ocean inserted those extra sound effects (https://youtu.be/p-3jDg7MMtg?t=3), or were those also present in the first run of those episodes as well?

That's exactly when it started. As I stated in my original post, The February-August 2000 airings of the FUNimation dub would be exactly like what you would see on Cartoon Network or anywhere else. Only difference would be the opening and closing credits. It wasn't until the Trunks Saga (#103) premiered that you started seeing a slight, yet unique change to the editing style, even on past episodes.

I think we can all agree that no matter how you slice it, the Canadian run (and all things going on behind the scenes up there in your neck of woods) was really bizarre. And that's coming from an American perspective, where we had things pretty damn kooky in our own way.

You said it, brother. And things haven't changed much with this Kai situation. But at least all of the ins and outs of Z was interesting while the stark amount of nothing revolving around Kai is just depressing. Hopefully we can turn lemons into lemonade with our efforts in that field.

[wjbraden]

Was this also the time period that Ocean inserted those extra sound effects (https://youtu.be/p-3jDg7MMtg?t=3), or were those also present in the first run of those episodes as well?

That's exactly when it started. As I stated in my original post, The February-August 2000 airings of the FUNimation dub would be exactly like what you would see on Cartoon Network or anywhere else. Only difference would be the opening and closing credits. It wasn't until the Trunks Saga (#103) premiered that you started seeing a slight, yet unique change to the editing style, even on past episodes.

That just seems incredibly bizarre and... pointless, I guess is the word? I was taking a look back at my ill-informed (and admittedly cringey ) crackpot theories on the situation with Funimation and Canada here a few years ago, and though my outlook has changed dramatically, the one thing I wouldn't rule out is cancon being a prime driver of some of the weirdness. Corus themselves wanted to try to get partial points for different parts of the production process for third-language programs, so between the script writing, new intro and eventually doing these little punch-ups, all in Canada, maybe they thought they'd have a case that a lot of supplemental, home-grown work can go into things (though we all know when their arguments on that matter were finally heard years later, they were dealt a firm "no"). But guess we'll never really know for sure what happened... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You said it, brother. And things haven't changed much with this Kai situation. But at least all of the ins and outs of Z was interesting while the stark amount of nothing revolving around Kai is just depressing. Hopefully we can turn lemons into lemonade with our efforts in that field.

Hear, hear! I sent Toon-a-vision a short response on their contact page about why they should air Kai. Hope someone's listening on their end!


Hey 300 posts, it only took me a decade lol

[Robo4900]

Was this also the time period that Ocean inserted those extra sound effects (https://youtu.be/p-3jDg7MMtg?t=3), or were those also present in the first run of those episodes as well?

That's exactly when it started. As I stated in my original post, The February-August 2000 airings of the FUNimation dub would be exactly like what you would see on Cartoon Network or anywhere else. Only difference would be the opening and closing credits. It wasn't until the Trunks Saga (#103) premiered that you started seeing a slight, yet unique change to the editing style, even on past episodes.

That just seems incredibly bizarre and... pointless, I guess is the word? I was taking a look back at my ill-informed (and admittedly cringey ) crackpot theories on the situation with Funimation and Canada here a few years ago, and though my outlook has changed dramatically, the one thing I wouldn't rule out is cancon being a prime driver of some of the weirdness. Corus themselves wanted to try to get partial points for different parts of the production process for third-language programs, so between the script writing, new intro and eventually doing these little punch-ups, all in Canada, maybe they thought they'd have a case that a lot of supplemental, home-grown work can go into things (though we all know when their arguments on that matter were finally heard years later, they were dealt a firm "no"). But guess we'll never really know for sure what happened... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If they cared about cancon, they would have switched to Ocean's own dub the moment it started, with episode 108, not episode 168.

I don't think cancon has actually had anything to do with Dragon Ball's dub situation, ever.