How long would have taken Funimation to dub DBZ if they didn't skip the rest of DB?

[Hellspawn28]

Had the Pilaf saga been a hit on American TV in 1995 and Funimation finish the rest of the show, how long would have taken for them to reach DBZ to do so? Skipping the rest of DB and going staight to DBZ felt like a double edge sword to me. It did help the series become more popular, but also made people feel like the first DB show isn't worth your time. Airing shows on TV in America is different in Japan since they would have likely had breaks between episodes.

Who knows if they would have kept the Ocean cast or not. Barry Watson might have hired a in house voice cast to keep things cheaper.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Pre-production was completed for a potential BLT episodes 14-26 so we can probably assume the plan would have been for 26 episode seasons. Although maybe TOEI would have advised Funimation to speed it up since the original series lasted only 3 years in Japan. I'm going to guess we would have been looking at a 1999 or 2000 start for Dragon Ball Z.

I don't think Funimation would have dropped the Vancouver cast. Remember the reason they did this in the first place was because they no longer had Saban's backing and were looking for ways to cut costs. I guess you could say Barry would have still gotten sick of the constant flights but, Funimation were still a new company, so as NitroEX once suggested that likely involved making comprises to get their show on the air. Pioneer were allowed to produce a dub of 3 movies independent of Funimation and Ocean were allowed use Funimation's materials as they pleased to edit the show for YTV and later create their own product with the Westwood dub. I could see a similar scenario with SeaGull having to agree with the decision to drop a cast people likely would have grown to love.

Speaking of Ocean, this could have potentially led to a situation where Ocean Productions was never involved with Dragon Ball in any capacity. It was only in 1996 when Funimation partnered with Saban that they moved recording duties from Dick & Rogers to Ocean Studios.

SeaGull and Kidmark probably would have been more likely to stick around as they weren't as big names as Saban and probably weren't in the position of being able to risk exiting the syndication and home video businesses respectively to pursue original content. Kidmark held on to the license for those first 13 episodes for long enough so clearly they must have wanted to squeeze whatever profits they could out of the series when Funimation took the remainder and ran with them. I could see SeaGull having a similar mindset by wanting to stay partnered with Funimation as the show continued to grow in popularity, which again likely would have involved Funimation having to respect the wishes of established companies like SeaGull.

The reason the BLT dub didn't catch on as Funimation and TOEI wanted it to was because it was airing at like 5am on syndicated networks. I'm sure if SeaGull could have worked out a deal for better timeslots, and ideally some slots on more mainstream channels it would have been much more successful.

[MasenkoHA]

There's a lot of variables to consider. There was a planned 26 episode first season, which sounds like they were maybe planning on combining the Goku vs Jackie Chun 3-parter into a single episode (unless they were planning on ending the season on a cliffhanger but that sounds doubtful) if they had continued at that rate, even assuming some episodes would be skipped or merged (and I could see them just trying to get through the Red Ribbon saga in a 26 episode season ) it would still probably take at least 5 seasons so they wouldn't have even started Z until 2001.

But Dragon Ball Z also had a 26 episode first season but eventually did much bigger season orders after Cartoon Network picked the show up. Whose to say the original Dragon Ball wouldn't have eventually been picked up by Fox Kids or KidsWb or Cartoon Network and got more episodes ordered to done faster.

I don't think Funimation would have dropped the Vancouver cast. Remember the reason they did this in the first place was because they no longer had Saban's backing and were looking for ways to cut costs.

I don't know why this misconception continues to persist.

Funimation outsourcing to Vancouver predates their partnership with Saban. Saban had jack squat to do with the Ocean cast. Saban was not funding them. Funimation went to Ocean BECAUSE they were so cheap."Oh they couldn't afford Ocean anymore without Saban" is just more fandom bull that gives Funimation a pass on their absolutely baffling business decision. Because I guess it's just easier to believe Funimation's hands were tied than to believe they're just incompetent.

Had Funimation decided to dub all of Dragon Ball first it's just as likely they would have gone local by season 3 or so. Because again that decision had nothing to do with parting ways with Saban.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Saban had jack squat to do with the Ocean cast.

I never said they did. Saban's job was to get Dragon Ball Z timeslots for TV, the "Ocean cast" itself is a bit of a misnomer because they were independent contractors, the term only emerged because the 1996 dub happened to be recorded at Ocean Studios in Vancouver. As I said the BLT dub notably wasn't, despite having many of the actors people associate with the "Ocean cast" branding.

I'm also sure Funimation could have afforded to continue using Ocean as their recording outlet, no other dubbing company to my knowledge started using Ocean at that time only to drop them and hire nobodies off the street.

As I've said though, by partnering with these companies Funimation likely had to make compromises because they were the new company that had to prove themselves with an IP that had not yet made it big in English-speaking countries. Its likely Funimation parting ways with Saban, Ocean and Pioneer was all to have more control of their product and not have to share profits with middlemen.

Maybe they would have dropped SeaGull as their distributor and Kidmark ad their home video partner, but it may have been too risky unless they landed a timeslot on a major network. I suspect Dragon Ball Z coming to Cartoon Network helped them have the means to do more inhouse, so it all would have depended on whether the original series still got picked up by them, Fox Kids or Kids WB.