Questions about the 1995 Dragon Ball dub

[TVfan721]

For the 1995 Dragon Ball dub that Funimation did with the Ocean cast, was it originally planned to dub the entire series before moving on to DBZ? You can tell in the final episode of the dub "The Legend of Goku" that there were plans to dub more since the narrator at the end mentions the tournament. What exactly happened?

I loved the opening to this. Such a great song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mht7phPbd0Y

[VegettoEX]

My understanding is that they actually licensed / planned for 26 episodes, which would have taken them to the tournament, and was the standard number for a season to air in syndication (see: DBZ season 1 = 26 episodes).

I can't speak to much beyond that. I dunno if it was just doing that poorly (the time slots were even worse than what DBZ started with, so no surprise there) or if they just made their own executive decision to move on, or what.

[ABED]

They did make a Kuririn toy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0MsPVzxa2M

[Hellspawn28]

I remember reading years ago that they move to DBZ so soon because they felt like a more action pack show would do better. I feel like going straight to DBZ was a good idea since that's what help made DBZ popular today. If they dub 21st Tenkaichi Budokai - 23rs Tenkaichi Budokai then it would have took two or three years to finish dubbing the first series. We would have got DBZ in 1999 and GT in 2006 or 2007.

[Kakacarrottop]

They cancelled work on the show because of bad ratings, which was in part due to the show's awkward timeslots. Apparently it had even worse timeslots than DBZ when it was first airing on saturday mornings in syndication, so i can only assume it was being aired at like 4am on Mondays or something. This article explains the dub's history pretty well:

1995
FUNimation begins production on Dragon Ball. The company itself, however, is only directly involved with the scripting, editing and overall decision making. Voice-over and post production work is farmed out to the Vancouver, Canada-based Ocean Group, and a new musical score is produced by Griffiths and Ramsey.

26 episodes are planned for the first season - 13 are finished, and another 13 are scripted. FUNimation's plan is to show the first half of the season, and complete the production and airing of the remaining episodes only "if the ratings warrant it."


September 1995
FUNimation's English-dubbed version of Dragon Ball premieres in weekly syndication on US television. The show is distributed by Seagull Productions, who demands some censoring and editing, but relatively little compared to what would come later.

Unfortunately, Seagull is unable to secure anything but very poor timeslots. As a result, the ratings are dismal, and production of the remaining 13 episodes of the first season is cancelled.


1996
Based on its poor first-year performance, FUNimation concludes that the original Dragon Ball series is not a "good fit for the US market," and decides that they might have greater success with its more action-packed sequel series, Dragon Ball Z.

This decision leaves 140 Dragon Ball episodes skipped, and FUNimation begins production on Dragon Ball Z. In order to make the first complete story arc fit into a standard 26-episode US television season, FUNimation cuts 9 episodes worth of material.


I sometimes wonder what would of happened if FUNi didn't skip ahead to DBZ, and kept dubbing DB /w the Ocean cast and Peter Berring's score. People like Saban, Faulconer, Schemmel and Chris Sabat might have never been involved with the franchise in this alternate reality.

[Hellspawn28]

Things would be much different now if they didn't skip straight to DBZ. I don't think the series would have been popular as it is now and our fandom would be much smaller now. Not to mention we would have got DBZ and GT much later then normally if DB did well back in 1995.

[G1Ravage]

At least in my area, the original Dragon Ball dub aired around 11:30 AM or noon.

Looking back at it, I'm really fond of the original dub production here. They didn't shy away from the concept of death, either.

[Hellspawn28]

I grew up with the 1995 dub of Dragon Ball as well. I remember seeing it on a VHS tape back in the late 90's. Too bad that Funimation didn't put it as a extra on their season sets.

[Puto]

My only issue with that opening is... why is Shenlong breathing fire?

[The Tori-bot]

My only issue with that opening is... why is Shenlong breathing fire?

Because he's a dragon, and in Western children's animation having a dragon who DOESN'T breathe fire is like having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the peanut butter or the jelly.

[mister yummy]

Plauged with horrible syndication timeslots and poor ratings due to slow progression of the story, Funimation decided to skip ahead to Dragonball Z sometime in early 1996.

I used to catch it before church Sunday Mornings on a local indipendant channel. This would be 6:00 or 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning, I don't remember exactly.I saw "The Penalty is Pinball" sometime in '95, and a few more episodes after that, and then it just wasn't on anymore. I never saw DBZ until 1999. They replaced it with Conan the Adventurer or something along those lines.

[Hellspawn28]

If the 1995 dub was a big hit then this is how I view things could happen.

Potential Pros:

- We would have got the first series sooner then latter.
- We could have got some decent voice acting in the later sagas.
- The original series would have been more popular and didn't get over shadow by DBZ.

Potential Cons:

- DBZ would have came out much later then normally. I think this could have had a big impact on both the series and anime market in the US as well. Anime like DBZ, Pokemon and Sailor Moon help the market for anime and manga grow bigger in the late 90's. GT may not even come out until 2005 or 2006, 10 years after it started in Japan.

[UltimateHammerBro]

I don't really think that the potential con would have been so bad. Maybe DB would have become popular on its own right before DBZ, just like in many other countries. In an alternate reality, the series which had a great influence in turning anime popular in the US was DB and not DBZ.

[Hellspawn28]

I do feel like that DBZ made Dragon Ball popular in the US since it was a different type of action cartoon that most kids where used to seeing at the time. DBZ had a supersonic fighting and characters fighting each other with ki blast while blowing shit up. It was like Street Fighter on steroids at the time.

[UltimateHammerBro]

Dunno, if DB had aired first in its entirety (and more people had had access to it), it could have been popular in the US for different reasons than DBZ.

After all, DB aired first and was successful in many countries whose children programming consisted mainly in dubbed American cartoons, so children were exposed to more or less the same as American kids (albeit at a lesser degree). So I wouldn't say thinking that is too much of a stretch.

[ABED]

If it was aired first, fewer people would think of DB as a prequel to DBZ.