Ancient question about Schemmel for oldschool PN veterans

[saiyanprimalforce]

I always got the impression that this drastic censorship had less to do with the kids and more to do with the adults. If they advertised Dragonball Z as what it really was back then, it might have pulled of the air or never put there to begin with.

That would make logical sense. . .but I think that's giving funimation far too much credit for having any sort of brain back in the day. There were just far too many things they did wrong, a lot out of ignorance, some out of pandering, to be sure. Honestly, the main mistake I think they made was that they only concerned them selfs with making only one version of their dub available. By that, I mean, no uncut version. Sure funi offered the "Uncut" version when they broke away from Saban, but being uncut in footage only isn't really going the full distance. If they had done what they're doing now with Kai, I think there wouldn't have been as much resentment from the hardcore. . .to a point, anyways. The voice acting would have still sucked, and the constant droning of Faulconer's music most likely would have been that way. But what they could have done with the uncut tapes is try to spruce up the dialogue with more of a serious edge(since we know they weren't using translated scripts for a long time) and use the original jap score for the Uncut tapes. I mean, it would have at least been an earnest attempt to appeal to everyone, and not making the minority suffer for the majority type of deal. If they had just learned there lesson when they dubbed the original 3 Z movies of what actual quality dub writing was, it could have been a different product in someways (uncut, anyways). But hey, the past is the past.

At the end of the day, at this point in time, I think it's safe to say, everyone's pretty much won at this point. Funimation, and the fans. Their's a ton of choice out there how you want to watch the show. That really was the main problem back then--there really wasn't any choice of viewing the show other than what they were producing.

(Early 90's Decatur, Texas feed store)



Gen- "Gee, it sure is boring around here!"

Barry- "I agree! It gets tiresome answering questions about farm animals and dealing with all these rednecks."

Gen- "Dude, if only we could make a ton of money! We could just do hookers and snort coke all day long!"

Barry- "Man, that'd be the life... Maybe we could buy a lottery ticket.... say, don't you have a rich relative? Can't he just give us a bunch of money?"

Gen- "You mean uncle Nagafumi Hori? The producer at TOEI for the Tokusentai type series.... shows similar to Power Rangers? Nah, he's not going to just give us money for free."

Barry- "Goddammit! And it's not like our boss Cocanougher who was kind enough to give us work when we were down on our feet will give us a raise for no reason! What's your uncle going to spend all his money on, geisha hookers and iced cucumbers? He should set us up!"

Gen- "The Japanese don't do stuff free. You know the saying, 'you don't get any food if you don't work.'"

Barry- "Too bad there aren't any Power Rangers-like shows he could just give us to license in America.... then again, how would we have the money to Americanize it if he did?"

Gen- "That's..... that's brilliant! Barry, you're a genius!

Barry- "I am?"

Gen- "Japanese cartoons make an assload of money in Japan an internationally even though they aren't big in the USA! If we got our hands on a juicy one of those we could, like, make a gang of loot!"

Barry- "Tchyeah, but where are we going to get the money to import and dub it? Your uncle's not just going to give it to us as a-"

Gen- "Brilliant! My best buddy in college was some rich dude from Texas! They got more money than they know what to do with! Hopefully they won't have to sell the feeding mill.... well who cares, this place sucks! We'll use his dough as a startup fund and create our own company! .... sadlywe'llhavetosplittheprofitsbutohwell..... And my uncle will help us get their juiciest most profitable property! Not sure what it's called, maybe Money Magical Adventures!"

Barry- "Oh.... I mean.... OH YEAH! I'm a genius, totally my idea, man! You're going to need me and my genius brain to get this to work! ..... Say, uh, do you have any experience with Japanese cartoons?"

Gen- "I used to love watching some anime about a Japanese WW II battleship flying around space acting all badass. I'm like, totally otaku, I know all about 'annie-may' and 'mane-ga'. I'm hip with the J-Pop, yo daddy-o!"

Barry- "Mondo cool man! And your job experience?"

Gen- "I was briefly a floor manager at an IBM building til my whole coke and strippers parties got me fired in disgrace.... I'll just leave out part of the story in meetings at Toei with my uncle and act like I once knew Bill Gates!"

Barry- "Great! So what do we each do?"

Gen- "Since Cocanougher's got the money he'll probably lounge behind the scenes as a hidden power and act lazy and boss us around. Since I have my uncle, I'm 2nd in command and I'll focus on schmoozing my wonderful Japanese people to set us up. Since you don't have money or connections to set this up, I guess I'll pay you to do all the hard work. And remember, no coke and hookers til this starts paying out! We don't want to run out of money again so quickly like last time!"

Barry- "Sigh, wish I had an underling but, sounds fair! Sure beats questions about cow farts smelling too bady from slack-jawed yokels! It sucks that I'm going to have to work so hard! Maybe I can bring in my brother/cousin from house-framing to censor any blood or boobies! Computer-wise we don't have anything better than a Commodore 64 for censoring but, oh well, the cheaper we are the more money we'll have at the end of the day! Now, we just need a good name for our company.... uh, Badass Texas Anime Rangers?"

Gen- "I vote Moneymation cause we're going to make a lot of money! Or Moneymotion because the money will be pouring in in constant motion!"

Barry- "That sounds too greedy! We need something funny and kid-friendly, like Funnymation!"

Gen- "Hmm.... too kiddy! We want at least some teenagers to like this as well even though they'll never like a bigass Japanese kiddy show. Let's call it.... Funimation! And capitalize the letters in FUN because of how much awesome fun working with cartoons will be for us!"

Barry- "Bwahaha! We're going to be rich!"

Gen- "First stop- Japan! Next stop- money! Last stop- coke and hookers!"



And thus, in a lonely feeding store in Decatur, Texas on a hot summer day was born.... FUNimation.

Are you sure your talking about Barry and Gen, or the original Duke Nukem Forever developer 3D Realms? All that talk of hookers and snorting coke confuses me on the subject.

[GS7X7]

The Dallas Observer article states Watson built houses before joining up with FUNimation, actually.

"Byron Watson knows that, as the man hired to carry out FUNimation and The Cartoon Network's censorship instructions, he doesn't have the most glamorous or beloved job in the company. But it pays the bills. It beats house framing, which is what he had been doing. The hardest part, at first, was getting the hateful e-mail messages from strangers. It seems Dragonball Z fans are so passionate, they don't just criticize what FUNimation edits -- they criticize how they edit."

Nope, no talk of Barry's prior work, just Byron's.

Btw, Jon Allen almost had a chance to ask Byron at a restaurant about the censoring of Gohan's "apple" thought bubbles but wasn't able to.... maybe Gohan being really hungry was considered too "extreme" by Saban standards? (just my guess)

[JulieYBM]

Ack, I remembered reading somewhere that Byron was fresh out of college at the time so I figured that was what he was doing at the time.

[penguintruth]

Part of me kind of regrets the whole Sean Schemmel thing. He's not my preferred Goku, but I take criticism a bit too far at times. Still, I think his assertion that I don't support my arguments is ridiculous. If anything, I go into too much detail at times. And for him to badmouth me to his Facebook fan page, filled with sycophants who are just going to agree with everything he says, and not going directly to me if he had a problem with what I say, is just sad, and should be beneath him as a professional.

[GS7X7]

You really were pushing the guy's buttons though.

Yeah, the "mature and proper thing" for someone in his position to do is to "ignore it and laugh it off/dismiss it" but words do hurt people and you managed to get a negative reaction out of him.

So he posts at his own fanclub.... would you expect Schemmel/some celebrity to sign up and post at the "Sean Schemmel/?celebrity? is a fucking asshole" club? Or to enter into a very public debate with the president of that club on some other board?

Sure, not all of us like his Goku but he should be proud he's got some fans that are fond of his work. There's no need to dismiss his fans as simply being mindless toady sychophants.

[saiyanprimalforce]

And for him to badmouth me to his Facebook fan page, filled with sycophants who are just going to agree with everything he says, and not going directly to me if he had a problem with what I say, is just sad, and should be beneath him as a professional.

Um, I don't seem to recall him badmouthing you on his facebook fanpage. What I remember is someone posting a link to the forums asking if he had seen some of your post or whatever, which he said he had, and he had actually just signed up to the forums to respond. The "bad-mouthing" only came here on the thread itself. And really, like GS7X7 said, I don't really blame him. You really were being over the top at the time, almost to the point of being a troll in some ways. I can't blame him for being irked. Actually, I found it rather refreshing, and wished more VA's would/could be vocal about stuff. I mean, it's easy for a lot of people to say that he shouldn't have posted, or responded, or it's not professional, but then to actually be in his shoes, and see you have someone who's kinda unfairly and viciously ripping into you at every conceivable opportunity(back then, anyway), I think I would be a little miffed too.

[bkev]

It happened, he mentioned Penguintruth by name before coming over here.

[GS7X7]

At the risk of possibly encouraging the return of an old troll here....

I kinda sympathize with Sean here since there was one guy who here used to flame me nonstop, repeatedly dragging out things I said years ago on my old site solely to ridicule and insult them and to try to encourage others to do so. I'd argue with him, and even when I pointed out something completely positive I did he's simply ignore it and try to find something else he could attack me with. It was like he wanted to have nothing nice to say about me and to only say the worst possible things he could as much as he possibly could.

He'd also accuse me of being crazy whenever I fussed about him harassing me while making up some excuse about how he wasn't really harassing me. At one point he got so annoying he'd just randomly enter into topics to accuse me of being mentally insane just for saying some random thing or telling a joke. Thankfully he stopped, and hopefully he'll leave his trolling tedencies dormant.

It's hard to deal with someone deliberately flaming you and then accusing you of being "immature" (or in my troll's case, mentally insane) for being offended at what he said.

Moral of long story, it is annoying to have one person repeatedly insult and mock you.

And don't worry, you're nowhere as bad as my troll was. You'd have to post under an alias on Facebook and troll Schemmel, repeatedly dragging up the worst things he said years ago out of any context as if they were written on stone and eternally representative of him as a whole while also accusing him of being mentally insane to even come close.

(and if said troll is reading this post and wants to use it as an excuse to create another giant debate... don't. I deliberately didn't mention your name here [I'd thank others in the topic not to] and I'll be happy to edit this post away if it bothers you that much and you simply pm me and politely ask me to, so there's really no excuse to try and pick another fight with me here as it's completely unnecessary. And the only reason I even brought this up was to try and put people into Schemmel's shoes to show how he may have felt.)

[saiyanprimalforce]

It happened, he mentioned Penguintruth by name before coming over here.

But did he actually "badmouth" him on it though? Don't really see the big deal about mentioning the user name. Like I said, I remember checking out the facebook page around that time, and I don't recall any direct, personal insult Sean supposedly said about penguintruth on it. I could be wrong, but I'm just saying I don't remember it. I figure I would remember if he had said something directly negative or insulting on their.

Not that its a big deal or anything. Actually, I don't think many people could say they got a VA to vocally respond to their badger--- criticisms in a very public manner. That's actually kind of cool, really. Even though I suppose I could say I agree with Penguintruth's opinions about Sean as far as the Z-dub goes(though I immensely enjoy him in Kai. Favorite Goku English Va by far for me), who can say they provoked a VA like that? Cool story at the end of the day.

Although I wish there had been more of a resolution rather than the plug getting pulled. . .

[bkev]

Well, as I recall, he mentioned Penguintruth by name without prompting. That's all I recall. Anyway, pretty sure this thread has gone so far down south that I should stop contributing to it.

[penguintruth]

Both he and I could have handled the matter better than we did.

Anyway, I'm becoming more fond of Schemmel thanks to his better work in Kai.

[GS7X7]

Given Leia's back and forth arguments with Schemmel on aim, it's utterly amazing for me to see him, the voice actor and face of Son Goku in America, say years later what sounds like a random rant on the Dbzoa.

He sounded pretty down with Funimation in the Jon Allen interview. I think that, as time progressed and he became more savy to the whole anime industry and good dubs vs. bad, that some of all those anti-dub arguments and complaints about Funimation actually seriously did reach him! Wow, Sean really agreed with a lot of the things I used to say! Me! One of the oldschool Kings of Funimation-hating and dub-bashing!

For all the crap Sean got in the past I'm truly amazed to learn that he was secretly a secret anti-Funimation agent man opposing the decisions of Funimation's clueless royal hierarchy who insisted on doing the dub exactly their way!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXGAif4dKhs&feature=fvst

I just can't help but envision Schemmel dressed in a tuxedo, with a cute Japanese girl government agent by his side, sneaking around Funimation headquarters trying to sabotage bad dub decisions! (burning/rewriting bad scripts, seducing fellow hot voice actresses and having them fall for him instantly, covertly assassinating bad VAs and script writers, siphoning company funds to Chris Psaros, repeatedly trying to poison Gen Fukunaga like the CIA did with Castro, etc.)

I can't help but wonder how many other people at Funimation feel the exact same way as Sean Schemmel. Major, major kudos for Sean on having the balls to publicly state his mind on a position sure to be controversial for the brass at Funimation. Sean Schemmel deserves a thousand Japanese geisha girls for what he said!

Screw that Team whatever crap from those wimpy vampire movies, I'm on Team Schemmel!

Oh yeah, want to know why Sean Schemmel looks like the main actor in Kick Ass? BECAUSE SEAN SCHEMMEL TOTALLY KICKS ASS!

[bkev]

Good grief! You are really looking like a suck-up right now. There's a high possibility that he's just trying to revise history the same way George Lucas does to make himself look better and possibly gain fans he never had in the past.

[Fionordequester]

Everything GS7X7 said about his troll

You know what, you really reminded me of when with everything you said about that troll...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2WIiZljam0

Was your troll kind of like that?

[GS7X7]

Good grief! You are really looking like a suck-up right now. There's a high possibility that he's just trying to revise history the same way George Lucas does to make himself look better and possibly gain fans he never had in the past.

If Sean wants to revise history- by betraying and denouncing Funimation and insulting all of it's executives among other employees as untalented, ignorant hacks who had no business working on DBZ- then he has my full support in this endeavor.

[cRookie_Monster]

Good grief! You are really looking like a suck-up right now. There's a high possibility that he's just trying to revise history the same way George Lucas does to make himself look better and possibly gain fans he never had in the past.

If Sean wants to revise history- by betraying and denouncing Funimation and insulting all of it's executives among other employees as untalented, ignorant hacks who had no business working on DBZ- then he has my full support in this endeavor.

lolol I think Sean's comments were probably directed at people who are no longer at the company.

And yeah there were definitely other people who didn't agree with the powers that were.

[Ringworm128]

Can anyone post a link to Penguintruth's posts about Schemmel and vice versa?

[cRookie_Monster]

Can anyone post a link to Penguintruth's posts about Schemmel and vice versa?

http://daizex.fanboyreview.net/viewtopic.php?t=13187

(Sean doesn't reply again until the second page)

[penguintruth]

I still dislike the Schemmel version of "Dragon Soul". Give me Vic Mignogna's any time.

[GS7X7]

Good grief! You are really looking like a suck-up right now. There's a high possibility that he's just trying to revise history the same way George Lucas does to make himself look better and possibly gain fans he never had in the past.

If Sean wants to revise history- by betraying and denouncing Funimation and insulting all of it's executives among other employees as untalented, ignorant hacks who had no business working on DBZ- then he has my full support in this endeavor.

lolol I think Sean's comments were probably directed at people who are no longer at the company.

And yeah there were definitely other people who didn't agree with the powers that were.

That would be a pretty convenient scapegoat excuse.... "DBZ got ruined by ex-employees at Funimation who were assholes, but everybody who still works at the company is totally awesome as hell."

It's awesome Sean posted but I doubt he'll come out and say, "here are the exact people responsible for messing up the dub and here is what each of them did to do so."