As much as I hate to get even further off topic with talking about DBZ more, as we've done that for about 300 of the 314 pages of this thread
lol, these recent revelations from
Dark Vegeta-Sama and
Azelf89 regarding the YTV airings of the Texas dubbed Funimation episodes actually puts a lot of things into perspective as to the origins of the Westwood dub, for me at least. Before this, I had no idea that the YTV airings of ALL episodes (besides a few episodes where the American version was used by mistake, as previously mentioned) featured the Westwood version of "Rock the Dragon". I assumed that episodes 1-165 aired exactly as they had in the States, with the same American "Rock the Dragon" intro/outro up to Namek and the Faulconer Instrumental intro/outro until the cell saga. But this whole added sound effect thing adds another layer to the whole situation. So hear me out, even though I'm not an expert like any of you guys.
Before I start, I want to note something. I recently read an article on anime news network (I can't find the particular article now link now) that mentioned that it is not uncommon for Japanese production companies to request foreign distributors to send dubbed masters back to Japan. When they are sent dub, the masters, scripts and promotional materials become property of the studio (in DBZ's case, Toei, of course). This is evidenced on how the Dragon Boxes featured foreign dubbed clips from a bunch of different dubs, including the Texas Funimation dub. Toei already had these dubs in the vaults, and likely didn't just ask Funimation randomly in 2008ish for a clip from their dub to use for this extra, they already had the Funimation dub in their vaults since day one. Also, the fact that these YTV airings had the original Faulconer placement as Azelf89 linked to also further proves that Toei supplied the tapes. Funimation had probably given Toei the first version of the tapes to Toei, and didn't send them revised masters for just for a couple of music re-scoured, so Toei just gave Ocean what they had. So while a lot of us thought that Ocean had "borrowed", sub-licensed, or had Funimation send them tapes, now I'm thinking it was
Toei who supplied these tapes to Ocean.
Here's what I think happened. Once Funimation moved production of DBZ moved from Canada to the States in '98-'99, Ocean and Funimation had a falling out because the people at Corus Entertainment (shareholders of YTV and Teletoon, both which aired DBZ at one point) had a big problem with it, since their big prime-time program was no longer going to meet Cancon requirements (not to mention Ocean was losing a lot of work from a lucrative property due to outsourcing, which is always a point of contention in many companies). Corus then requested that Ocean somehow remedy this issue, and somehow get partial Cancon credit for future episodes of the program (eps. 55+), which Canadians were demanding. Ocean, now no longer on good terms with Funimation, then turned to Toei to see what to do. Toei, who had recently become the right-holders of the Funimation masters, told Ocean they had English masters to episodes 55+ (from Funimation) and gave a copy of the tapes to them (as ironic as it was to be receiving masters, though indirectly, from the very company you were on bad terms with, it made financial sense to use these already localized masters, as opposed to making a costly new dub or produce new English title-cards, visuals and whatnot). Ocean then devised a plan to insert their own sound effects into these episodes, continue using the Canadian "Rock the Dragon" intro/outro song (until now I thought the American version of "Rock the Dragon" was also Canadian-made, but since I now know it wasn't even used for the Saban-era episodes, it must have not been since they had to make a whole other version for it), present it to the CTRC and claim their Cancon points and call it a day. Ocean probably also thought that slapping the Ocean logo over the Funimation one in the credits might also help for Cancon points (though I don't know how they thought they'd get anyway with making it out as if they had been a major producer in these episodes, that seems like shady business practices to try to get the CTRC to approve them, and disrespectful their rivals in Texas whose dub it was).
Anyway, the CTRC took a look at this "quasi-Canadian" version of the Namek/Trunks saga episodes, and told Corus "no dice". Corus, which a few of you mentioned, had tried to lobby for partial Cancon points for added music and such to their programs, but were ultimately denied by the CRTC. With the show continuing to be extremely popular on Canadian airwaves, and Corus not receiving points for it, they were at a crossroads (I should also mention that Cancon limits, from my understanding, have eased since the early 2000's, but during the time DBZ was on the air, to meet Cancon prime-time quotas, many channels would have to remove foreign-made productions and relpace them with Canadian production, even if the foreign-productions were more popular and brought in better ratings, which led to many channels suffering poor viewer turnout. YTV and Corus didn't want to have to have to take DBZ off primetime and suffer like other channels had, so they had to do something to try and get DBZ Cancon-ized again).
It was at that point Corus and Ocean relaized that the only way they were going to get Cancon points legitimately was to make a dub from scratch again like the Saban-era days, complete with a Canadian cast, music, etc, which is what led to the birth of the Westwood dub (I do have to wonder if they got permission from the CTRC to use a script based almost verbatim upon the American dub, instead of creating a new one like they did for Dragon Ball and GT, and continue using American masters , but if I had to guess, the people at the CTRC are so busy with Cancon paper work that it slipped through the cracks and was just stamped "approved" once they heard "Canadian voice cast and Canadian music". If they investigated it further, things might have escalated legally on an international level, with Funimation and the CTRC pressing charges for plagiarizing, which could have been extremely complicated, expensive and ugly. Maybe that's why they decided to play it safe and ask Toei for the AB Groupe masters for DB and GT and start fresh.)
Also, why they started the dub at ep. 108, and not back at ep. 55 or ep. 166 when the Wetwood version finally started to air in Canada, I'm not entirely sure, but some weird contractual things with Toei may have been at play there. As for the reason why the initial airings of episodes 273-276 used the AB Group masters, perhaps because Toei hadn't received tapes from Funimation yet, as many of you guys have mentioned, so they gave the next best masters they had to Ocean. Once Toei had the Funimation masters, they informed Ocean, which swapped them out with the Funimation ones for consistency's sake. But then, as I described earlier, Ocean/Westwood switched to the AB Groupe masters for DB and GT to play it safe with the CTRC and Funimation.
So, in short, I think Ocean received tapes from Toei, rather than from Fuimation for eps. 55-165, tried to "fool" the CTRC into thinking they somehow met Cancon standards, got burned by the CTRC for doing so, then decided to go about things the right way, and make new new dub which became the Westwood dub. Combined with the fact that it was lucrative property, with many fans internally who enjoyed the Canadian cast over the Texas one, and the Canadian cast who really enjoyed Dragon Ball (and the paycheck that came with it), it led to this weird alternate megaman music dub that we all know and love.