Ancient question about Schemmel for oldschool PN veterans

[cRookie_Monster]

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."

The quote I'm referring to is:

We did the best we could with DBZ with some really really crappy decisions that were made by people, who in my opinion, not only had zero artistic talent and experience, were also trying to appease american audiences to make money because perhaps they thought the Pokemon formula would work for DBZ. If America wasn't so uptight about things and parents didn't allow the tv to babysit their children, perhaps more shows would come the U.S. and be uncut. At the end of the day, I am, and have always been a freelance actor, and just because I work for a company doesn't mean I support their decisions. This is the first time I have supported Funi's decisions publicly, and the staff at Funi is now amazing. It's a completely different company.

specifically:

decisions that were made by people, who in my opinion, not only had zero artistic talent and experience,

the staff at Funi is now amazing. It's a completely different company.

To me these comments directly call out Barry Watson actually.

1) He had no prior experience with anime or TV
2) He was the guy making decisions about music, casting, scripting, etc
3) He's no longer at the company.

He might have been referring to the script writers as well, I dunno them as well.

[GS7X7]

Barry didn't make the best decisions but, Barry wasn't the most powerful person in the company.

Gen/Cindy Fukunaga and the Cocanoughers all outranked him greatly, and I know they got a lot of e-mails, letters begging them to do differently.

I'm not the biggest Barry fan (he did a nice job on Movie 6, I gotta give him that) but, I'd never go so far as to put everything wrong with DBZ solely on his shoulders.

Imo, Sean probably has bad blood with Barry over something in the past. Not sure who else is no longer at Funimation. (is Neel Bligh still there? I know he was a script writer in Canada who was disliked enough that someone from Funimation e-mailed me once to fuss about him.)

I wonder, what would Barry say if he saw this? Everyone at early Funimation seemed to make mistakes but Sean seems to put all the blame on Barry's shoulders. There's just too much blame to go around to give Barry the lion's share.

[TVfan721]

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.)

The funny thing is, I would have left your post alone but you just had to call me a troll and although you didn't use my name, people here still know who you're refering to so all I'm going to say is this: I still stand 100% by all the criticism I made towards your work. Your work on DBZOA and DBZU2 was indeed psychotic in nature. You may be "normal" now as you claim but it doesn't change facts, you were a nutcase all those years ago in your work and the fact that you brought this up yet again, just proves once again that everything I've said about you is indeed true.

It's the exact same thing with the Sean/Penguintruth debate. Penguintruth was being arrogant and acting like an idiot for trying to personally insult Sean rather than try to stay constructive. Yeah, Penguintruth had some valid points and I get what he was trying to say but facts are facts, he handled it wrong and acted out of line. He can try all he wants to say that Sean was being mean or whatever for posting it on his facebook but facts are facts, Penguintruth started the whole thing in the first place and he was acting like a moron to Sean. The End.

People like GSM777 and Penguintruth are perfect examples of why the online DBZ fandom can get so embarassing and why I've been critical of it. People get way too serious with this show and makes them act crazy and go way too far when there's something that they don't like. It's a fucking cartoon show people, there's way worse things going on in the world. Good for Sean for saying what he wanted to say, he's a class act. I'm not much of a fan of his voice for Goku but I don't care enough to start a shitstorm, it's just a cartoon show.

[Fionordequester]

How is it "psychotic" in nature? Being crazy is a serious medical disorder, it's not just a state of mind that arbitrarily comes and goes. If anything, he's just spending way too much time obsessing over something, like I do sometimes.

[penguintruth]

Uh huh. So I was being an idiot.

Well, I admit I was wasting my time being overly critical, but I wasn't mindlessly trolling. Do people here really consider me a troll? I support my opinions. If Sean Schemmel is so sensitive he can't take a bit of criticism, maybe he shouldn't be in the business.

"Constructive"? It would constructive if he didn't have a heavy, grainy voice and had acting skills back in the days of the DBZ dub. What is, exactly, the sort of "constructive" criticism I could have given him? It was just a lot of ball-sucking by his sycophants and me being honest. I was not a fan of his Goku and I didn't like his "Dragon Soul". I went into why.

If I'm guilty of something it's caring too much about who voices who in a cartoon and how well they do.

HOWEVER, I have grown fond of Schemmel's Goku in Kai, where he has excelled. He's not my preferred Goku, though.

For him to cherry-pick my criticisms instead of looking into my detailed reasonings, that's on him, not me. He wanted to paint me as some bully and I frankly resented it.

There's nothing classy about his behavior. It was classy when Wendee Lee sent me an e-mail asking me to clarify some criticism I had of her. She's classy. Calling me out on a Facebook page isn't classy, it's cowardly.

[Gaffer Tape]

Well, I admit I was wasting my time being overly critical, but I wasn't mindlessly trolling. Do people here really consider me a troll?

No.

Then again, that is just my opinion. Facts are facts, and not a single thing in tvfan's post was a fact, just his opinions, which he apparently likes to call "fact."

[TVfan721]

If I was in your shoes and I was talking to Sean in that thread from mid 2010, this is what I would've said:

Hey Sean, I respect what you've done in the past 11 years and you've really come a long way as a voice actor for Anime and television in general. You've done a lot for fans and you definitely got talent as an actor. But I'm just not a fan of your voice for Goku as it's not the kind of voice that I would prefer for Goku because I personally prefer a voice for Goku that's not as deep, more young, childlike and more smooth. I loved the original Japanese voice for Goku and I really prefer that style but hey it's just my opinion and we've all got our own opinions. You've certainly improved over the years and obviously you got tons of fans praising your work so you must be doing something right! Cheers man.


And that's it. It's laid back, gives constructive criticism and still remains classy and respectful. The point is made and it doesn't sound all anal and obsessive.

[penguintruth]

That's practically an apology for an opinion.

[Fionordequester]

Mmm, you have the general idea right. Maybe just cut down a bit on the "You've come such a long way and I respect you greatly" stuff, and maybe go into more detail about what exactly he does with his inflections that bothers you (rather than some blanket statement of "you're too deep") and you'd more or less accurately present a constructive response that would still represent Penguintruth.

[Gaffer Tape]

Wow. I'm the kind of guy who rarely gets into it with anybody, but there HAS to be some middle ground between penguintruth's comments and just licking the guy's feet.

[cRookie_Monster]

Barry didn't make the best decisions but, Barry wasn't the most powerful person in the company.

Gen/Cindy Fukunaga and the Cocanoughers all outranked him greatly, and I know they got a lot of e-mails, letters begging them to do differently.

Well Barry was the director. From what I understood and saw, the Fukunagas had almost zero hand in what actually happened with the show itself.(not that they lacked power) For instance at first, all the music instructions we used get when I first started were hand written by Barry himself. Eventually Evan Jones started doing that.

Wow. I'm the kind of guy who rarely gets into it with anybody, but there HAS to be some middle ground between penguintruth's comments and just licking the guy's feet.

The trick is to be as specific about what you don't like as you can be, otherwise it's pointless and just insulting...especially to someone's face. And you don't want to put the person down as a whole, just politely mention what you didn't like about what they did. For instance, I'd like to hear more french horns in the Japanese score and less vibraslap. Also you don't want to call your opinion fact, that's rude and inaccurate. I didn't say french horns were better than vibraslap, I *like* french horns more than vibraslap. That's my taste.

[GS7X7]

How is it "psychotic" in nature? Being crazy is a serious medical disorder, it's not just a state of mind that arbitrarily comes and goes. If anything, he's just spending way too much time obsessing over something, like I do sometimes.

Thank you good sir or madam.

[GS7X7]

I gotta ask.... cRookie_Monster what exactly did the Cocanoughers do at the company?

Daniel Cocanougher, Allen Cocanougher, and Robert Cocanougher specifically? They hardly ever did interviews and I've barely read anything about what they did at the company. (besides Daniel explaining that he decided to censor "Dragon God" to "The Dragon" even though tons of religious leaders said it wasn't a big deal)

As far as I can tell it seems like they mostly just put up the majority of the money for Funimation and got to put their names on lots of stuff and take a ton of credit without doing too much. (kind of like some big-time Hollywood investors for films)

[GS7X7]

If I was in your shoes and I was talking to Sean in that thread from mid 2010, this is what I would've said:

Hey Sean, I respect what you've done in the past 11 years and you've really come a long way as a voice actor for Anime and television in general. You've done a lot for fans and you definitely got talent as an actor. But I'm just not a fan of your voice for Goku as it's not the kind of voice that I would prefer for Goku because I personally prefer a voice for Goku that's not as deep, more young, childlike and more smooth. I loved the original Japanese voice for Goku and I really prefer that style but hey it's just my opinion and we've all got our own opinions. You've certainly improved over the years and obviously you got tons of fans praising your work so you must be doing something right! Cheers man.


And that's it. It's laid back, gives constructive criticism and still remains classy and respectful. The point is made and it doesn't sound all anal and obsessive.

You make an excellent point about a middle ground, tvfan. Could you please apply those same standards to me?

Some of my work at DBZU2/Dbzoa was pretty awesome....

http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... ubfan.html
http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... rview.html
http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... music.html
http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... mov08.html
http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... kusho.html
http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... sucks.html

And some of it really sucked.

http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... rdock.html
http://animecauldron.com/dbzuncensored2 ... runks.html (note- redoing those 2 movie reviews later, they suck)

You've never said anything nice about me or my work before but you've had lots of very negative things to say. It's like you have tunnel vision on everything negative I've said or done before and you ignore the positive.

I'm just pointing that out because it seems odd that you spent so long bashing me and then you complain to penguin_truth that he should have been nicer and more diplomatic in expressing negative opinions to Schemmel.

So please, I'm just asking you to try to express your views about me the same you way you'd like penguin_truth to do so with Schemmel.

[cRookie_Monster]

I gotta ask.... cRookie_Monster what exactly did the Cocanoughers do at the company?

Daniel Cocanougher, Allen Cocanougher, and Robert Cocanougher specifically? They hardly ever did interviews and I've barely read anything about what they did at the company. (besides Daniel explaining that he decided to censor "Dragon God" to "The Dragon" even though tons of religious leaders said it wasn't a big deal)

As far as I can tell it seems like they mostly just put up the majority of the money for Funimation and got to put their names on lots of stuff and take a ton of credit without doing too much. (kind of like some big-time Hollywood investors for films)

Honestly, I have no idea. I pretty much never heard their names or met them or anything. I really didn't even know who they were until reading the wiki lol. When I was at Cakemix\Faulconer Productions, everything was Barry, Barry, Barry, Barry.

Actually, my general impression is the Fukanagas and Cocanoughers handled licensing, money, and all the business aspects. Barry was Mr. Creative.

[GS7X7]

I gotta ask.... cRookie_Monster what exactly did the Cocanoughers do at the company?

Daniel Cocanougher, Allen Cocanougher, and Robert Cocanougher specifically? They hardly ever did interviews and I've barely read anything about what they did at the company. (besides Daniel explaining that he decided to censor "Dragon God" to "The Dragon" even though tons of religious leaders said it wasn't a big deal)

As far as I can tell it seems like they mostly just put up the majority of the money for Funimation and got to put their names on lots of stuff and take a ton of credit without doing too much. (kind of like some big-time Hollywood investors for films)

Honestly, I have no idea. I pretty much never heard their names or met them or anything. I really didn't even know who they were until reading the wiki lol. When I was at Cakemix\Faulconer Productions, everything was Barry, Barry, Barry, Barry.

Actually, my general impression is the Fukanagas and Cocanoughers handled licensing, money, and all the business aspects. Barry was Mr. Creative.

Interesting.... thank you.

I guess when you're rich and you can invest a huge amount of money into something, and can kinda just laze around and have everyone else do all the hard work for you.

One more question.... what exactly did Gen himself do at Funimation?

I do know that his wife Cindy handled hiring new employees and interviewing them around 2004-2005. Her long-time work there, despite the family's massive wealth, suggest she enjoys her job there a lot and that her working there after Funi struck CN gold wasn't born of economic necessity. Same with Gen's dude working as a professor at a university.

(DISREGARD ABOVE QUESTION, I only caught part of your post before making this post)


Also, although I posted under a pseudonym... kinda had to.... Daniel did respond to an e-mail that suggested the DVD boxed sets would use the Japanese masters from those massive releases.

Of course, then they went and cut off like 10-20% of the screen or whatever with their disastrous remaking of all the eps.

He e-mailed me around 2003ish... He actually responded to like 2 or 3 of my pseudonyms. Why so many? Because I'd always wind up ruining talking to him by getting mad at Funimation for something he did and sending him a really insulting e-mail, lol. Heh heh, I was quite the fanatical otaku back then! Good times!

[GS7X7]

Last (probably, maybe) post for the topic!

Anyway, it got pretty far off-topic from from where it started trying to find some Planet Namek chat sessions with Sean (guilty as charged) but, if anyone has any of them then please post them. I still want to see the legendary, "Fuck you guys, I won't say Super Duper Saiyan!" chat from Schemmel!

[SJR]

I really regret the disgraceful way the idiots at the DBZOA treated this guy. He deserved so much better than that.

[TVfan721]

I really regret the disgraceful way the idiots at the DBZOA treated this guy. He deserved so much better than that.

Yeah, they were certainly idiots and I have a lot of respect for you admitting that but don't regret it man, I don't think there's anything you could've done to change things. The people at DBZOA were loons that took the DBZ fandom to a very unhealthy and obsessive level and were terribly rude and disrespectful to pretty much everyone at Funimation as a result. I don't think there's anything that could've been done to change their ways. No worries SJR.

[GS7X7]

Lol, the love you two have for hating the DBZOA is very impressive. You two often seem to post in tangent on matters relating to DBZOA, lol. It's interesting to see you guys post about it a lot at least.

It's kind of funny seeing you say that since SJR was once a fellow staff member at DBZOA. (and even the head of it temporarily) Although his views changed over times for whatever personal reasons, he was once quite the "Anti-Funimation loon" much like myself and many others from the old days of DBZOA. He even once told me he was a really big fan of a lot of my work, though that was before our big fight a few years back.