A question to those who saw the Saban dub long after the fact

[omegacwa]

Does anyone else remember when Funimation did a poll to find what voice people liked best for Dragon Ball? They had voice clips you could listen to and then you voted.

Poor Ceyli Delgadillo lost out on playing Goku, who she had already voiced.

Oh wow, I forgot all about that. I think they also had up different auditions for Pilaf, Shu, and Mai during that poll.

For the most part, if I recall correctly, the voices they went with were the obvious best choices. I just feel bad for Ceyli because she had already been cast as Goku and got dumped.

[VegettoEX]

I have the Shuu and Pilaf voice options, but I'm afraid the Goku ones may be lost to time (I was never able to find them on any old hard drives).

[ABED]

Poor Ceyli Delgadillo lost out on playing Goku, who she had already voiced.

She was all wrong for the role to begin with. Her voice is too soft to voice a character as energetic as Goku.

And yes, I do absolutely remember those polls.

[MasenkoHA]

Poor Ceyli Delgadillo lost out on playing Goku, who she had already voiced.

She was all wrong for the role to begin with. Her voice is too soft to voice a character as energetic as Goku.

And yes, I do absolutely remember those polls.

By any chance do you remember who else was up for Goku? I’m guessing Kara Edwards and Laura Bailey but I have no clue.

[ABED]

Poor Ceyli Delgadillo lost out on playing Goku, who she had already voiced.

She was all wrong for the role to begin with. Her voice is too soft to voice a character as energetic as Goku.

And yes, I do absolutely remember those polls.

By any chance do you remember who else was up for Goku? I’m guessing Kara Edwards and Laura Bailey but I have no clue.

No, but I wish I could. I think the choices in the so called poll were designed to get the desired outcome FUNi wanted. I don't recall anyone sounding better than the choices they went with. That's not a testament to the actors we got.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

Wow that's quite interesting if Kara Edwards was indeed one of the choices they had up for Goku in the poll, considering she was later cast as Goten and also Videl and of course Laura Bailey as well who was chosen as the voice of kid Trunks.

[omegacwa]

Poor Ceyli Delgadillo lost out on playing Goku, who she had already voiced.

She was all wrong for the role to begin with. Her voice is too soft to voice a character as energetic as Goku.

And yes, I do absolutely remember those polls.

Oh, I wasn't saying she was right for the role, it just sucks to be cast as the main character, voice them, and then be dumped.

[MasenkoHA]

She was all wrong for the role to begin with. Her voice is too soft to voice a character as energetic as Goku.

And yes, I do absolutely remember those polls.

By any chance do you remember who else was up for Goku? I’m guessing Kara Edwards and Laura Bailey but I have no clue.

No, but I wish I could. I think the choices in the so called poll were designed to get the desired outcome FUNi wanted. I don't recall anyone sounding better than the choices they went with. That's not a testament to the actors we got.

Now that you mention it, here’s a video where Nadolny said she was given the role of Goku based on already being the voice of Gohan:

(About six minutes in)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eVZrSOf4zHM

Of course memories are fallible and it’s possible Miss Nadolny just forgot or wasn’t aware but it does suggest the poll was bogus especially when there was already a precedent set for Kid Goku and Kid Gohan sharing a voice actress with Saffron Henderson.

Same with Chuck Huber as Pilaf. Ocean had already set the precedent that Pilaf and Garlic Jr would share the same voice actor and it’s a tad coincidental that fans supposedly voted for Huber.

[WittyUsername]

I don’t really get why there’s such a fascination with Goku and Gohan having the same voice actors. Sure, Nozawa voices every male member of Goku’s biological family who isn’t Raditz, but if the dub is going to have a different actor play Goten, what reason even is there for Goku and Gohan to have the same voice as kids, especially if they're just gonna grow up to have completely different voices? Schemmel and Hebert sound nothing alike, so the idea that their characters sounded identical to one another as kids is kind of silly.

[Robo4900]

Meh. The UUE was probably the best work Funimation did with Z pre-Kai.

That is an exceptionally low bar.

Even if they did rely on recycling the 1996 scripts as much as possible. Dialog wise it’s not nearly as trash as episode 68-194.

Fair point.
I will note that better =/= good, however I do agree it is an improvement. I think a good part of it is the Saban scripts were just better-written in general, and likely with a longer timescale to work on them, meanwhile the OG Funi era, they were cost-cutting everywhere, so the scripts naturally weren't given a proper look.
UUE also has the benefit of taking those 1996 scripts and taking out a few of the more objectionable lines people often point to, as one of its many rather poor half-measures at attempting to improve on the '96 dub without actually doing the work of making a proper dub of the material...

It's rather a shame, really, that we have such a mess of bad, lazy decisions in with the good. But, nevertheless, yes, it was an improvement on their previous work, as is the case with basically every piece of work Funi did leading up to Kai TFC.

It should be said a lot of the Funimation dubs problems from the start of 1995 Dragon Ball dub all the way to GT (and arguably the UUE since it stuck close to the 96 scripts even though I believe Watson was gone by then) was because of Barry. He seemed to be heavily involved with drastically changing the series to fit whatever was cool with American kids at time.

Indeed... However, the '95 dub had notably little of this. I don't think he was actually involved in any of the scripting, it was all handled in Canada. Interestingly, the '95 dub is also the most accurate piece of dubbing work Funi would put out (excluding the Pioneer movie dubs, naturally, since Funi's hands weren't in that) until pretty much Kai.
There's censorship, but it's generally rather free of the bullshit Funi tended to pad their scripts out with after 1995. Then, whaddayaknow, when Barry Watson got more hands-on for Z, things took a down-turn, and have never quite recovered, only really taking a major step out of it once Watson was firmly out of the picture. (Though the attitudes that lead to a lot of the unnecessary "adaptation", let's say, continue to this day, just in a more diminished, more subtle form. "ooh i forgot my tractor", "HFIL", "wrooooong", "totally pwn'd", etc. etc. Much as some people like to excuse such one-off comedic lines, when they're popping up at least a couple of times every episode, it does make one question if things have really improved, or whether they've in fact degraded since the Kai 1.0 dub...)

They could have feasibly used those extra three episodes to get to a better stopping point for season 2. Like the end of the Ginyu battle.

Perhaps. But assuming they were to continue onto season 3 very soon, as they most certainly assumed would happen given the strong ratings, the Pioneer deal, etc., the endpoint they went with made for a rather good cliffhanger to leave people on for a few months while they get to work on season 3. And it adds a TV special to their roster, which could only be a good thing... Unless they happened to suddenly be cancelled after that season, without warning...

Was that because Saban had cancelled Dragon Ball Z or because Funimation cut ties with Pioneer to handle their own home video distribution? Seemed like Funimation decided it wasn’t necessary.

I've always chalked this up to Funi's across-the-board cost-cutting they did at pretty much every level of production, starting from Saban's cancellation. It's really not much different to their decision to move away from calling on the services of Ocean.

I also want to point out nothing was stopping Funimation, once they cut ties from Saban, from doing a faithful dub with the Japanese music intact and blah blah. They didn’t anyways. Because kids would have been deprived if Goku didn’t tell Burter he ate a lot of wholesome foods.

Well, it's more that it's more expensive to produce two dubs than it is to produce one and sell it two ways.
However, if Pioneer were going to make their own second dub and fund it themselves, that would mean Funi would only produce one dub, but get to sell two dubs. And they wouldn't even have to work on selling it themselves. Seems like a win-win.

Realistically, it's difficult to know exactly what was going on behind the scenes, but I think it stands to reason if Pioneer had still been handling home video, they'd have done their uncut dub. Precisely why Funi let Pioneer go is, admittedly, not certain, so I'm basically just speculating, but I like to think of it more as an educated guess than anything totally wild...
Funi let Ocean go, they let Pioneer go, they switched to a production method that allowed "uncut" DVD releases, etc., all starting from when Saban canned them. Calling all of this merely a coincidence would strike me as somewhat foolish. If Saban had renewed them for a third season, there would be no need, no drive for Funi to change anything. But with Saban out, they were where they were in '95/'96 again, and had to rethink their strategy... So, just like in '95/'96, everything was kicked up and shuffled around...

Basically, what I'm trying to say is, yeah, Funi really didn't care; the only reason we nearly got an accurate dub is because Pioneer were going to do it, and thus Funi wouldn't have to spend a penny on it, but would get money out of it... But we didn't get it, because Funi found a way to cheap out even further.

[MasenkoHA]

That is an exceptionally low bar.

Indeed

Even if they did rely on recycling the 1996 scripts as much as possible. Dialog wise it’s not nearly as trash as episode 68-194.

Fair point.

UUE also has the benefit of taking those 1996 scripts and taking out a few of the more objectionable lines people often point to, as one of its many rather poor half-measures at attempting to improve on the '96 dub without actually doing the work of making a proper dub of the material...

They had the benefit of being essentially the 1996 scripts without the heavy censorship memos and the scenes that were removed put back in.

I know they “fixed” some stuff but Bardock being a buh-rilliant scientist! is small potatoes to some of the crap Funimation pulled during the Cell saga which relied heavily on the Red Ribbon saga for backstory and made it apparent what a mistake it was for Funimation to skip most of Dragon Ball since they managed to get basically everything wrong; stuff that was never corrected for the remastered sets well after Dragon Ball had been dubbed.

It's rather a shame, really, that we have such a mess of bad, lazy decisions in with the good. But, nevertheless, yes, it was an improvement on their previous work, as is the case with basically every piece of work Funi did leading up to Kai TFC.

Indeed... However, the '95 dub had notably little of this. I don't think he was actually involved in any of the scripting, it was all handled in Canada.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wsdhnR0Y3Ho

He was one of the credited writers. Barry Watson actually flew down to Canada and was pretty heavily involved with the day to day production of the series.

Interestingly, Chris Forbis and Chris Neel were the only credited writers for Z during the Saban days. When ADR work moved in-house the only change was Terry Klassen was now part of the writing team. Or at least started being credited as such. Make of that what you will.

Undeniably the dialog got waaaaay worse in season 3 than it did in season 1 and 2 and season 1 and 2 were hardly The Sopranos to put it mildly. I have no idea if someone at Ocean was checking through the scripts to make sure the more idiotic parts were taken out or what.

Interestingly, the '95 dub is also the most accurate piece of dubbing work Funi would put out (excluding the Pioneer movie dubs, naturally, since Funi's hands weren't in that) until pretty much Kai.

Again, I disagree. It did some pretty heavy rewrites most of which were recycled into the 2001 redub. Parts of Funi’s Dragon Ball were pretty well done. Namely the 21st Tournament saga tended to have pretty dead on translations then they went back to butchering it.

And the first Broly movie was pretty faithful.

But yeah the BLT dub had tons of added crap some for the need to “censor the show” and some to make the show “funnier” which was probably Barry.

There's censorship, but it's generally rather free of the bullshit Funi tended to pad their scripts out with after 1995.

“I wanna chew on these bones but I’m too scared”

“Stop crying kid, I’m in the mood for a happy meal!”

Lot of added jokes in the 95 dub almost all of which got used in the in-house redub.The dialog was way less cringe than the shit they pulled in the immediate post-in house take-over during Namek, to be sure.

Well, it's more that it's more expensive to produce two dubs than it is to produce one and sell it two ways.
However, if Pioneer were going to make their own second dub and fund it themselves, that would mean Funi would only produce one dub, but get to sell two dubs. And they wouldn't even have to work on selling it themselves. Seems like a win-win.

Not the point. They didn’t need to have two dubs. They could have done just the faithful dub. The Pioneer movies already set a precedent for faithful scripts and the Japanese music intact (two of which played on Toonami even) but no they decided an uncut dub with even more childish dialog than the heavily censored Saban approved version and electronic technorock music blaring everything out was the way to go.

[Robo4900]

The Pioneer movies already set a precedent for faithful scripts and the Japanese music intact (two of which played on Toonami even) but no they decided an uncut dub with even more childish dialog than the heavily censored Saban approved version and electronic technorock music blaring everything out was the way to go.

... Which was a cheaper approach than getting a proper translation and a good writer on-board.

If Pioneer had gone on to make a second, more accurate dub, with Funi having to pay nothing, but getting money from Pioneer licensing it and selling it, then it'd be nothing but pluses for Funi. Remember; all Funi's ever cared about was the bottom line.

(To the rest of your points: Fair, all well made. I don't really have much else to say)

[MasenkoHA]

The Pioneer movies already set a precedent for faithful scripts and the Japanese music intact (two of which played on Toonami even) but no they decided an uncut dub with even more childish dialog than the heavily censored Saban approved version and electronic technorock music blaring everything out was the way to go.

... Which was a cheaper approach than getting a proper translation and a good writer on-board.

They had Steve Simmons doing the subtitles roughly around the time they started season 3 no? Maybe I’m wrong on that but it seems hard to buy they could pay someone to do accurate subtitles for the bilingual releases but using said individuals translations as a basis for the english adr script would have been mistaken.

I fully concede maybe they didn’t get Simmons hired in until after season 3 was dubbed but I thought it happened at the same time

[Robo4900]

The Pioneer movies already set a precedent for faithful scripts and the Japanese music intact (two of which played on Toonami even) but no they decided an uncut dub with even more childish dialog than the heavily censored Saban approved version and electronic technorock music blaring everything out was the way to go.

... Which was a cheaper approach than getting a proper translation and a good writer on-board.

They had Steve Simmons doing the subtitles roughly around the time they started season 3 no? Maybe I’m wrong on that but it seems hard to buy they could pay someone to do accurate subtitles for the bilingual releases but using said individuals translations as a basis for the english adr script would have been mistaken.

I fully concede maybe they didn’t get Simmons hired in until after season 3 was dubbed but I thought it happened at the same time

It's fuzzy, but I don't think the entire run was dubbed alongside Simmons doing the subtitles.
Admittedly, I do think some of the scripts may have been done based on Simmons work, but judging from what Chris Sabat was saying about the scripts the dub crew was working with in his Geekdom interview, I don't think Simmons work made it to the dubbing crew regularly, if ever.

[VegettoEX]

I happen to have already written up some of this for the wiki, so this may shed some light on the timing of Steve's work versus what dubbing was up to at the time:

Iterations of "The Dragon Ball Z Anti-Censorship Petition" on toriyama.org in early 1999 went on to set the groundwork for future releases from FUNimation. 3,562 signatures were received in support of an uncut home video release, while 1,631 signatures were received in support of uncut, bilingual, subtitled DVD releases; these signatures were provided to FUNimation CEO Gen Fukunaga by the site's administrative staff.[4]

That summer, the staff of toriyama.org began to work directly with FUNimation to investigate the feasibility of and business plan for releasing uncut, bilingual, subtitled DVD releases for the Dragon Ball franchise in America. On 01 October 1999, Brian Real posted a news story on toriyama.org formally announcing the upcoming DVD releases.[5] At the time, it was presumed the the fourth Dragon Ball Z theatrical film would be among the first of these DVD releases, and that the television series would pick up with "Season Three" (roughly episode 68) of the Dragon Ball Z television series; the first in this new line of DVDs to make it to market were "Captain Ginyu: Assault" and "Captain Ginyu: Double Cross" in June 2000, covering Dragon Ball Z television series episodes 68-70 and 71-74, respectively.

It was then in July 2000 that they actually revealed it was Steve himself doing it, but that's not necessarily the important part here.

[Daimao]

I happen to have already written up some of this for the wiki, so this may shed some light on the timing of Steve's work versus what dubbing was up to at the time:

Iterations of "The Dragon Ball Z Anti-Censorship Petition" on toriyama.org in early 1999 went on to set the groundwork for future releases from FUNimation. 3,562 signatures were received in support of an uncut home video release, while 1,631 signatures were received in support of uncut, bilingual, subtitled DVD releases; these signatures were provided to FUNimation CEO Gen Fukunaga by the site's administrative staff.[4]

That summer, the staff of toriyama.org began to work directly with FUNimation to investigate the feasibility of and business plan for releasing uncut, bilingual, subtitled DVD releases for the Dragon Ball franchise in America. On 01 October 1999, Brian Real posted a news story on toriyama.org formally announcing the upcoming DVD releases.[5] At the time, it was presumed the the fourth Dragon Ball Z theatrical film would be among the first of these DVD releases, and that the television series would pick up with "Season Three" (roughly episode 68) of the Dragon Ball Z television series; the first in this new line of DVDs to make it to market were "Captain Ginyu: Assault" and "Captain Ginyu: Double Cross" in June 2000, covering Dragon Ball Z television series episodes 68-70 and 71-74, respectively.

It was then in July 2000 that they actually revealed it was Steve himself doing it, but that's not necessarily the important part here.

Yeah, toriyama.org. Those were good times. I can't believe it's been 20 years already, though.
And as for whether or not that's the important part, it was important enough to me.

[Robo4900]

I suddenly feel vastly unqualified to be posting in this thread.

[gokaiblue]

Getting back to the original topic at hand, the Ocean dub is largely just a curiosity for me. I got into the series around the time that the redub starting to get going with the in-house cast, and my only exposure to the Ocean cast was the Over 9,000 meme and finding the odd old dub episode on YouTube. At the time, I thought I was watching a vastly superior version.....when in reality I was just watching a version with proper episode lengths and blood. Watching the uncut Pioneer dub of Tree of Might though was like stepping into an alternate universe.

[Kakacarrottop]

Getting back to the original topic at hand, the Ocean dub is largely just a curiosity for me. I got into the series around the time that the redub starting to get going with the in-house cast, and my only exposure to the Ocean cast was the Over 9,000 meme and finding the odd old dub episode on YouTube. At the time, I thought I was watching a vastly superior version.....when in reality I was just watching a version with proper episode lengths and blood. Watching the uncut Pioneer dub of Tree of Might though was like stepping into an alternate universe.

I recall that I got into the series really young, around the 2002 timeframe, JUST before the redub happened. As a kid in the early 2000s, I only saw a handful of episodes from the Namek saga (like the one where Zarbon transforms) as well as the Oozaru Vegeta episode from the Saiyan Saga and the uncut dub for Dead Zone, which I got on vhs or dvd. I can relate to the experience of discovering FUNi-Ocean era stuff many years down the road, but at the same time the cast and music is not completely foreign to me either, like it would be for an 18 year old today.