The Harmony Gold Dub & Broadcast Audio Discussion Thread

[superrayman3]

Thanks for the update Derek, so neither TV20 Detroit or Channel 62 have the tapes either huh that reduces our chances of saving the HG dub by a pretty big margin, and currently the only real lead we have left is Funimation and so far the odds have not been in our favor with the other stations so at this point all we can do now is hope that by a struck of pure luck Funimation has the tapes.

[Ashura]

The other lead is someone in the community possibly having more of it... or at least the segments we're missing; that's how we have a little bit of it at all.

I contacted (who I believe is) Matt Sommer from those threads on rec.arts.anime, as well. I'm hoping to turn up some more information on those tapes he mentioned in his thread, though it seems a little doubtful.

I'm also going through old rec.arts.anime threads looking for talk about the HG dub in general. There's not a lot, but I've found a few.

Even if we burned through the TV station contacts, at the very least now we can rest easy knowing they don't have it.

[atm5508]

Man, I leave for a few days and this blows up!

Ashura, I'd stick with those old Usenet posts, it just seems like something is there. I've pored through them for the past few years without turning anything up, but that doesn't mean it isn't out there. Good luck on finding some more info!

[Ashura]

There's actually one thread from way back in the university days on Usenet where a student talks about having a recording. This is prior to the BLT dub premiering, and a guy asks how Funimation would even handle the 'No Balls' scene. The guy's response is that Harmony Gold did that episode and they just completely cut it out.

Unfortunately the guy just went by the name 'phil' and the university email address is a bunch of random numbers.

[superrayman3]

The other lead is someone in the community possibly having more of it or at least the segments we're missing; that's how we have a little bit of it at all.

At this point any leads we can get are worth looking into.

I contacted (who I believe is) Matt Sommer from those threads on rec.arts.anime, as well. I'm hoping to turn up some more information on those tapes he mentioned in his thread, though it seems a little doubtful.

Well lets wait and see what happens because all we can really do at the moment is sit back and wait for a reply, lets hope he has someting that we need.

I'm also going through old rec.arts.anime threads looking for talk about the HG dub in general. There's not a lot, but I've found a few.

Good idea maybe if we dig deep enough we can find something that we can actually use to get somewhere.

[Ashura]

After going through and editing the third movie to the HG audio, and putting it back together to the first movie, here's some actual confirmation of a few things:



-Philly 57 did indeed air this. I know this because the above bumper is still on the VHS.
-This definitely aired as a movie. The bumper narration specifically says: "Our Feature -- Dragon Ball -- will return in a moment." Likely this aired as a syndicated movie on the weekend or something similar.

So, wooosh woosh woosh *magical noises* some mysteries solved.

[superrayman3]

After going through and editing the third movie to the HG audio, and putting it back together to the first movie, here's some actual confirmation of a few things:



-Philly 57 did indeed air this. I know this because the above bumper is still on the VHS.
-This definitely aired as a movie. The bumper narration specifically says: "Our Feature -- Dragon Ball -- will return in a moment." Likely this aired as a syndicated movie on the weekend or something similar.

So, wooosh woosh woosh *magical noises* some mysteries solved.

Thanks for pointing that out for the people who still haven't seen the HG dub yet also have you found any interesting censorship's in movie 3?

[Ashura]

Well, by popular demand... a complete edit list of the Harmony Gold version of the 3rd movie. The timing reflects the complete movie with Blood Rubies up front. I also have not had time to edit this for grammar, so excuse the run-on sentences.

Overall note; there are a couple shots where they removed 10 frames here or there for time, but I'm not going to list them since they're not complete cuts but 'invisible' ones.

45:07 in. The opening training montage set to Mystical Adventure is cut out. The training scene after this, as well as General Blue's romp in the city are all cut out. This is based upon the video from the spanish Zero dub we have access to.

50:42 in. A short scene where Kamensennin's ogles a couple girl's butts (with their asses reflecting in his glasses) is cut out. The scene directly after this where he continues to stare and scare off the girls, though, oddly remains intact. I guess showing where he was looking was too much?

55:00 in. A short scene where Lunch gets alarmed and spits spaghetti all over Kamesennin's head is cut out.

60:00 in. When Goku and Kuririn head to the tournament, the whole introduction where they run into Bulma and Kamesennin ogles her a bit is cut out. Instead it cuts directly to Yamcha and Oolong waving to them, and causes a small bit of continuity where Bulma's suddenly already there.

1 hr 02 minutes in, this edit is weird; The scene is essentially Tsurusennin picking his nose and flicking a booger. The whole scene is left in, except they cut out the middle part where he moves his finger from his nose. So it looks like he's digging his nose, and then he suddenly just flicks the air.

1 hr 04 minutes, a scene of Goku and Kuririn watching the prefight for TaoPaiPai and Bora are cut out. It cuts everyone's reactions and jumps right to the fight. I'm guessing this was done for time.

1 hr 05 minutes in, the ending of the monochromatic death montage is cut out; so you do not see Bora run through by the spear. The segment where Goku jumps up and removes his hanging body from the spear is also removed, and we only see the tail end of Goku jumping down from the spear while holding his body. The fact that he was speared, though, is still heavily implied.

1 hr 05 minutes 37 seconds, a long scene where Upa cries over his dad and Goku flips out and attacks TaoPaiPai is cut. TaoPaiPai knocks Goku into a statue and it in turn is knocked over as well. People run in mass hysteria AHHH the horror. Instead in the HG edit, the soldiers come in immediately after Upa's feath and hold the Pre-Z Warriors up.

1 hr 06 minutes in. A scene of Goku getting up from being knocked to the ground is cut out, because in the continuity of the Harmony Gold movie he was never knocked down.

1 hr 11 minutes in. A short scene of Lunch's bullets hitting a bunch of oncoming soldiers and them falling over is cut out.

1 hr 14 minutes in. A long chunk of TaoPaiPai and Goku fighting is cut out. Probably for violence. TaoPaiPai gets a lot of good hits on Goku.

1 hr 14 minutes 51 seconds in. A small snippet of Goku's feet getting drug along the ground due to the Kamehameha blast is cut out. Probably due to time.

1 hr 15 minutes in, a long conversation between TaoPaiPai and Goku is cut out. I guess it must be for time, but there's a part of the dialogue where a booger is hanging from TaoPaiPai's nose, and this may be why it was removed as well.

1 hr 15 minutes 55 seconds in. The whole rest of the fight, violence and all, is left in. Even the part where Goku and Arale reflect the missiles back at TaoPaiPai. The ONLY thing they delete here -- and I kid you not -- is TaoPaiPai's reaction shot to taking missiles up the ass.

1 hr 16 minutes in. A short scene of Arale waving goodbye to Goku and Senbe's cameo is cut out.

[superrayman3]

Nice edit list Ashura, now that we know what HG cut from movie 3 another mystery is solved.

[superrayman3]

Probably more like dubs in the 80s with nostalgia goggles. Which isn't to say they're bad or anything, but there's a certain amount of 'childlike wonderment' which can come with watching something you saw as a kid that can cloud your mind.

Speaking of nostalgia goggles I had an interesting experience happen to me while I was watching the HG dub of movie 3 today, near the end of movie 3 when Zero (Goku) says up and atem you scaley old dragon I got a wish for you to grant I had a sudden feeling of nostalgia going through me and as I thought about it more out of the blue a part of a memory from about 1994-95 came to the front of my mind where I saw the exact same scene as a kid (I cant remember where I was when I saw it exactly but I do remember hearing Bongo/Krillin calling Goku Zero a few seconds prior), so I think I might've actually seen the HG dub when I was little.

[DerekPadula]

I called Tommy today. Here's the latest update.

Results of the dinner party
Unfortunately it was so long ago that none of the staff remembers it. It’s all a blur among countless other projects. However, Agrama [last name], the producer, is 100% certain it was non-union. This means the union actors used pseudonyms so they could get the jobs. All of the other questions I wrote down either weren't asked, or they didn't know the answers. Not sure which.

The Tapes
They don’t have any video tapes in their vault. Most likely because a certificate of destruction was issued by TOEI, or the tapes were returned to TOEI.

However, the music Harmony Gold created for the dub was still there’s, and they still have ONE audio tape in the vault. Tommy said, “We have a well stored audio reel of the dub. We’ll have to hire a guy to bake the moisture off the tape. It’s marked “Dragon Ball” and marked “Music,” but we have no idea what’s on it.”

Because it’s a very old magnetic audio tape, they will have to hire a specialist to bake the moisture off the tape, which is risky because if done incorrectly it will melt the tape. But he knows a guy who does this well. The baking process costs between 100 to 1,000 dollars. He said if we pool our money together, he’ll do it for us.

So that’s cool, but of course we should wait for specific price points before we start talking about collecting money. He said I should check back in a week or two. And I recommend if we even do this, that we find a site outside of Daizex to pool our money into, via PayPal or something.

He also gave the following proposition. “I suppose we could digitize it. We aren’t that inclined to do it, but if you can find a few hundred buyers, we’ll issue a short run of 500 to 1,000 CD’s, and then you guys can sell it for whatever you want. We could also include it as a bonus download or audio CD on FUNimation’s releases at some point in the future, if they wanted to do that.”

Assuming that the audio is of something worthwhile, if you guys are really interested in the music, then we can create some kind of a poll or signature sheet stating that you'd like to buy it. With that, Tommy can convince his finance department to pay for the project. May also be a good way to keep that part of Dragon Ball history alive.

Lastly, in regard to Dragon Ball movie 2. Even though it would make chronological sense for them to have licensed and dubbed the first 3 films, he said, “There were a LOT of odd licensing decisions back then, so we don’t know if the second movie was ever done.” I guess this will have to remain a mystery... for now.

For the next step, he recommend I contact Adam Sheehan at FUNimation. So I’ll give him a call tomorrow. I called him last week and left a message and also wrote an email, but did not receive a response.

[atm5508]

Wow, great job Derek. I'm certainly interested in whatever is on that tape, let us know when you hear back from him.

[Super Sonic]

I saw it mentioned a few pages back Kerrigan Mahan was in the cast. Who did he play? And I wonder if anyone ever felt like making a joke of him and Ms. Goodson due to their other main roles with each other.

[Ashura]

Thanks again for the update, Derek.

I am definitely interested in the audio tape as well, though if it only ends up being the theme song it's kind of something that's already floating around.

I secretly hope it ends up being the voice tracks somehow, but I highly doubt it since it's labeled music. It's probably just the theme song.

In other news, I have reconstructed a rough cut of this using the materials we currently have so that it might be sent to Tommy along with the raw captures. Regarding what we have materials wise, this is the audio that's missing from the movie currently as compared to the Spanish version. This is discounting very small glitches in the audio:

--0 minutes in: The very beginning of movie 1, where the narrator talks about the Dragonballs.
--43 minutes in. A short segment of Goku taking off. This could be rebuilt with the M&E track though I think.
--43 minutes 43 seconds: The very beginning segment of Movie 3 where Pilaf and gang talk with Tsurusennin and his goons.
--1 hours and 03 minutes in: A short segment where Bulma's not very impressed with Oolong's transformation skills.

The only segment which can't be worked around is pretty much just the one 43 minutes 43 seconds in, though it would be good if we could find the other portions.

Again, I urge anyone who might have these missing segments to PM one of us so that we might be able to provide Harmony Gold with the most complete version of the movie as possible. You will remain anonymous, and it will be helping a good cause and preserving a release we'd like to get, well, released officially.

If you don't want to deal with us handling the materials, it's possible we can arrange it so that you can mail whatever materials you have directly to Harmony Gold, though Derek would have to confirm.

[Ashura]

I saw it mentioned a few pages back Kerrigan Mahan was in the cast. Who did he play? And I wonder if anyone ever felt like making a joke of him and Ms. Goodson due to their other main roles with each other.

When I resynced the audio, I couldn't tell who Kerrigan Mahan played. I don't think it was Shen Long. However, Tsurusennin in definitely played by Robert Axelrod. Aka Lord Zedd/Finnster.

[DerekPadula]

If you don't want to deal with us handling the materials, it's possible we can arrange it so that you can mail whatever materials you have directly to Harmony Gold, though Derek would have to confirm.

Yeah, that works. If you have a tape and want to send it directly to Harmony Gold, please PM me.

[superrayman3]

I called Tommy today. Here's the latest update.

Results of the dinner party
Unfortunately it was so long ago that none of the staff remembers it. It’s all a blur among countless other projects. However, Agrama [last name], the producer, is 100% certain it was non-union. This means the union actors used pseudonyms so they could get the jobs. All of the other questions I wrote down either weren't asked, or they didn't know the answers. Not sure which.

I had a feeling that most people who worked on the dub wouldn't remember working on it but I can't really blame them since the dub was made 23 years ago and it is pretty hard to remember something from that long ago, on a more positive note i'm glad to know that this was a non-SAG project now Funimation doesn't have to worry about things pertaining to SAG rules later .

The Tapes
They don’t have any video tapes in their vault. Most likely because a certificate of destruction was issued by TOEI, or the tapes were returned to TOEI.

That actually makes sense if you sit down and think about it because why would you let a company keep something they're not even using under normal circumstances.

However, the music Harmony Gold created for the dub was still there’s, and they still have ONE audio tape in the vault. Tommy said, “We have a well stored audio reel of the dub. We’ll have to hire a guy to bake the moisture off the tape. It’s marked “Dragon Ball” and marked “Music,” but we have no idea what’s on it.”

Well this is a nice and unexpected surprise i'm actually interested to see just what exactly they have on their hands.

Because it’s a very old magnetic audio tape, they will have to hire a specialist to bake the moisture off the tape, which is risky because if done incorrectly it will melt the tape. But he knows a guy who does this well. The baking process costs between 100 to 1,000 dollars. He said if we pool our money together, he’ll do it for us.

If it means saving what we can of this dub then i'm fine with donating.

So that’s cool, but of course we should wait for specific price points before we start talking about collecting money. He said I should check back in a week or two. And I recommend if we even do this, that we find a site outside of Daizex to pool our money into, via PayPal or something.

When you get a price point let us know so we can start donating also do you have a particular site in mind Derek?

He also gave the following proposition. “I suppose we could digitize it. We aren’t that inclined to do it, but if you can find a few hundred buyers, we’ll issue a short run of 500 to 1,000 CD’s, and then you guys can sell it for whatever you want. We could also include it as a bonus download or audio CD on FUNimation’s releases at some point in the future, if they wanted to do that.”

Now that's an interesting proposition if they could do a limited print i'd buy a CD or two.

Assuming that the audio is of something worthwhile, if you guys are really interested in the music, then we can create some kind of a poll or signature sheet stating that you'd like to buy it. With that, Tommy can convince his finance department to pay for the project. May also be a good way to keep that part of Dragon Ball history alive.

Personally i'd do a poll first just to see how many people would be interested in a CD if it's something worthwhile that is and if the demand is good enough then i'd make a signature sheet for those who'd want to buy it.

Lastly, in regard to Dragon Ball movie 2. Even though it would make chronological sense for them to have licensed and dubbed the first 3 films, he said, “There were a LOT of odd licensing decisions back then, so we don’t know if the second movie was ever done.” I guess this will have to remain a mystery... for now.

I have a gut feeling that Movie 2 was probably never dubbed by HG due to the lackluster response the dub had at the time.

For the next step, he recommend I contact Adam Sheehan at FUNimation. So I’ll give him a call tomorrow. I called him last week and left a message and also wrote an email, but did not receive a response.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what Funimation has to say, Thanks for the update Derek.

[atm5508]

Just a suggestion here, but considering the recent success of Tim Schafer and company's Double Fine Adventure, I thought that using Kickstarter might be a great way to gather our money to preserve the tape. We could even potentially raise the money for a limited CD run that way.

I'm not too familiar with Kickstarter, but it seems like it would be a great fit for a project like this.

[DerekPadula]

Yeah, seems like a good idea to me. Then it's open to everybody else in the world as well.

[superrayman3]

Just a suggestion here, but considering the recent success of Tim Schafer and company's Double Fine Adventure, I thought that using Kickstarter might be a great way to gather our money to preserve the tape. We could even potentially raise the money for a limited CD run that way.

I'm not too familiar with Kickstarter, but it seems like it would be a great fit for a project like this.

I'm a little concerned about using something like Kickstarter for this because our colaberation with Yune involves copyrighted work of HG's and i'm not sure if kickstarter's TOS would allow us to do this.