Guldo's "Death" in the Funimation Ocean dub.

[TheGreatness25]

I just wonder what the conversation with the censors was like to get stuff like that done.

Funi: Hey we have a scene where a guy gets his head cut off and then the head talks to the guy that did it before his head gets vaporized.
Censors: nope can't do that.
Funi: so we can't kill him? That's going to take some crazy edits.
Censors: Oh no, you go right ahead and kill him, let the other guy talk smack to him and vaporize him. Just don't cut his head off first.
Funi: ummmmmmm.....k....

Ah, what it means to grow up in the 2000s and not know what it was like when TV stations had a set of rules to abide by. You should check out the list that Fox sent the team that did Batman: The Animated Series.

[dario03]

I just wonder what the conversation with the censors was like to get stuff like that done.

Funi: Hey we have a scene where a guy gets his head cut off and then the head talks to the guy that did it before his head gets vaporized.
Censors: nope can't do that.
Funi: so we can't kill him? That's going to take some crazy edits.
Censors: Oh no, you go right ahead and kill him, let the other guy talk smack to him and vaporize him. Just don't cut his head off first.
Funi: ummmmmmm.....k....

Ah, what it means to grow up in the 2000s and not know what it was like when TV stations had a set of rules to abide by. You should check out the list that Fox sent the team that did Batman: The Animated Series.

Yeah, though in BTAS' case most of the censorship was for sexually suggestive scenes. And they got away with a decent amount of stuff because of decoys.
And they still have rules to follow, and do if they want to get a lower age rating. Only way not to, is to put the cartoon on late at night and do whatever you want like Beavis and Butthead and Southpark did in the 90's.

[TheGreatness25]

There were heavy restrictions for anything related to religion, anything related to sex, anything related to drugs or alcohol, anything that looks like someone might be killing anyone, anything related to realistic weaponry (that's why a lot of cartoons from the 90's have guns that shoot laser beams), etc. etc. etc.

In fact, "Season 3" of Dragon Ball Z was the first cartoon I've seen that had blood. I remember they did the episode recap and it went from Vegeta with no blood on his face (edited) to suddenly half of Vegeta's face was covered in blood. I'd say that was pretty revolutionary at the time.

[divad86]

Quick and dirty VLC capture:

https://youtu.be/bPoY0fOEbk0

Oh how I miss "The next dimension".

[TheGreatness25]

"Next dimension" isn't that inaccurate really lol In Dragon Ball, when they die, they actually do go to a different dimension.

[Adrian Malacoda]

"Next dimension" isn't that inaccurate really lol In Dragon Ball, when they die, they actually do go to a different dimension.

The issue isn't so much with the term "next dimension" itself, it's the fact it replaces mentions of "kill" or "die." In fact, the term for the afterlife is "other world" and I don't think I'd have a problem with it being translated as "other dimension" or "next dimension" (at the same time, if they insisted on saying "sent to other world" instead of "killed" that would still be a problem)

[Son Gara]

Did anyone really actually think he went to another dimension? Even when I watched it for the first time way back then, I knew that when a character was "sent there", that they were being killed. Guess I just interpreted it that that was their name for Hell in that universe.

[TheGreatness25]

I also interpreted it as the characters being killed even back then. The weird one was about Tenshinhan growing his arm back; that's probably the most bizarre piece of censoring that they did.

[Son Gara]

I also interpreted it as the characters being killed even back then. The weird one was about Tenshinhan growing his arm back; that's probably the most bizarre piece of censoring that they did.

I also thought that was weird, but then again at time I knew next to nothing about the previous series, save for the "Saga of Goku" vhs tapes from Kidmark. So, at the time, my reasoning was maybe he does have that ability and that that has already been establish in Dragon Ball and I just having gotten to that part yet. I mean I've seen Piccolo grow his back already, why not Tenshinhan?

[ErikB]

To be honest, I prefer Saban's "next dimension" shorthand (erm...longhand? alternate term) for death by a country mile to the Westwood dub's insistence of replacing "dead" with "hurt". At least "sent to the next dimension" is interpretable as death.

[dario03]

There were heavy restrictions for anything related to religion, anything related to sex, anything related to drugs or alcohol, anything that looks like someone might be killing anyone, anything related to realistic weaponry (that's why a lot of cartoons from the 90's have guns that shoot laser beams), etc. etc. etc.

In fact, "Season 3" of Dragon Ball Z was the first cartoon I've seen that had blood. I remember they did the episode recap and it went from Vegeta with no blood on his face (edited) to suddenly half of Vegeta's face was covered in blood. I'd say that was pretty revolutionary at the time.

Yeah cartoons aimed at kids usually limit all of that stuff. But BTAS sneaks in a bunch of sexually suggestive stuff because they didn't draw a ton of attention to it and used decoys to get around the censors. They did with other stuff too, but that's what I recall the most. Though I do recall them having a little bit of blood in BTAS, and its original run was before DBZ was on American TV. BTAS also had real guns with people sometimes actually getting shot. Which again just further confuses me on why censors let some things through because Spider-Man The Animated Series didn't get away with that stuff and it came out a couple years after BTAS. Spider-man was all ray guns and he couldn't even punch people most of the time.
But yet people did die in those shows, it just wasn't done graphically. And then DBZ comes out and people get vaporized left and right but its ok because oh, they're not dead, they just went to another dimension, or they had parachutes, or don't worry that arm will grow back...

[TheGreatness25]

Though I do recall them having a little bit of blood in BTAS...

The only real places where there is blood is in Mask of the Phantasm and Return of the Joker -- both being movies. There are a couple of times in the series (On Leather Wings, the first episode) where Batman looks like he's bleeding, but it's really just black marks on his face (kind of like how DBZ censored blood to look black sometimes).

BTAS also had real guns with people sometimes actually getting shot.

They did, though they were never to be aimed at the camera or directly at a character. Also, no character ever got shot; they got "grazed"

[TheBlackPaladin]

To be honest, I prefer Saban's "next dimension" shorthand (erm...longhand? alternate term) for death by a country mile to the Westwood dub's insistence of replacing "dead" with "hurt". At least "sent to the next dimension" is interpretable as death.

That's how I interpreted it growing up. I didn't understand until almost a decade later that FUNimation was trying to make "death" and "being sent to the next dimension" two different things. Even as a kid, when me and my friends were discussing whatever episode aired on Toonami the day before, we always assumed that the characters were actually dying, and that "I'll send you to the next dimension" was just a more stylish way for a character to say that he was going to kill someone.

I remember finding out years later that it was actually a censorship effort, and thinking, "Well that was lame, now I understand what those complaints on the internet are about."

[8000 Saiyan]

Spider-man was all ray guns and he couldn't even punch people most of the time.

What a damn shame that Spider-Man TAS was so censored. According to reliable sources, one network censor actually wrote: “When Spider-Man lands on the rooftop, be sure that he doesn’t harm any pigeons.”

At least in the 60's cartoon Spidey could punch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMdh4DkslVk

[TheGreatness25]

And yet Spider-Man The Animated Series was by far my favorite Spider-Man related form of media. In my opinion, I've never seen anything else that made me interested in Spider-Man.

[Super Sonic]

There were heavy restrictions for anything related to religion, anything related to sex, anything related to drugs or alcohol, anything that looks like someone might be killing anyone, anything related to realistic weaponry (that's why a lot of cartoons from the 90's have guns that shoot laser beams), etc. etc. etc.

In fact, "Season 3" of Dragon Ball Z was the first cartoon I've seen that had blood. I remember they did the episode recap and it went from Vegeta with no blood on his face (edited) to suddenly half of Vegeta's face was covered in blood. I'd say that was pretty revolutionary at the time.

Yeah cartoons aimed at kids usually limit all of that stuff. But BTAS sneaks in a bunch of sexually suggestive stuff because they didn't draw a ton of attention to it and used decoys to get around the censors. They did with other stuff too, but that's what I recall the most. Though I do recall them having a little bit of blood in BTAS, and its original run was before DBZ was on American TV. BTAS also had real guns with people sometimes actually getting shot. Which again just further confuses me on why censors let some things through because Spider-Man The Animated Series didn't get away with that stuff and it came out a couple years after BTAS. Spider-man was all ray guns and he couldn't even punch people most of the time.
But yet people did die in those shows, it just wasn't done graphically. And then DBZ comes out and people get vaporized left and right but its ok because oh, they're not dead, they just went to another dimension, or they had parachutes, or don't worry that arm will grow back...

Fox's censors got really anal after the first season of MMPR when some parents were complaining about the violence and was getting banned in European countries because of said "violence". and since batman and X-Men premiered before MMPR, they got away with stuff Spidey, which premiered afterwards wasn't able to. I believe Saban took notice and it was why their censorship on DBZ was high as well, though as time went on, some stuff on Digimon and later PR seasons got away with things that the old DBZ dub couldn't get away with.

[Robo4900]

And yet Spider-Man The Animated Series was by far my favorite Spider-Man related form of media. In my opinion, I've never seen anything else that made me interested in Spider-Man.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that nothing else has got me interested in Spider-Man(I loved Spectacular, the Sam Raimi movies, the few comics I've read, and Captain America 3), but I agree about '90s Spider-Man being my favourite overall Spider-Man adaptation; aside from its animation problems, it's the Spider-Man equivalent of Batman: The Animated Series.

Anyway, I haven't seen the Ocean dub of DBZ in years, and this clip reminds me why -- great acting, good soundtrack, poor dialogue, bad censorship. Having said that, I will never get tired of Brian Drummond as Vegeta and Scott McNeil as Piccolo. Those two always nailed every single line in the best way possible.

[TheGreatness25]

Anyway, I haven't seen the Ocean dub of DBZ in years, and this clip reminds me why -- great acting, good soundtrack, poor dialogue, bad censorship. Having said that, I will never get tired of Brian Drummond as Vegeta and Scott McNeil as Piccolo. Those two always nailed every single line in the best way possible.

Agreed and agreed. This is not me just saying it for nostalgic purposes -- because having spent the last 17 years with Funimation's in-house dub team, it's hard not to think of them as the best English dub team -- but man, the Ocean dub is fantastic. This is actually a very unbiased opinion. So yeah, we got great stuff from Funimation lately: Kai, the movies, etc. I would always see "Funimation vs Ocean dub" threads pop up and every time I heard the Westwood dub (the Ocean cast doing the later episodes in the U.K. and possibly other English-speaking countries), I'd cringe. The Westwood dub is a simple curiosity for me. And yet, I went back and watched the original Ocean dub of the "Saiyan Conflict" and "Namek Saga." Their performances are so good. For whatever reason, with the Westwood dub, timing, directing, the music, something messed that up. But if you put Funimation side by side with Ocean for the first "two seasons" of Dragon Ball Z, there is no comparison. The Ocean cast has such great acting and the voices sound natural, not cartoony and forced like with Funimation. Even Funimaton's Goku sounds forced, which is crazy because that basically is Sean Schemmel's voice. It's like nobody would ever sound like that, it sounds like someone making a cartoon voice. On the other hand, you've got the Ocean dub which is very, very well made. That sounds like a top-notch dub. Even though it was obviously short-lived, Ian James Corlett is the English-speaking Goku for me. Scott McNeil's Piccolo makes Chris Sabat's Piccolo look goofy. Every voice was just dead-on. Brian Drummond was perfect as Vegeta -- though I will admit that it's hard for me to picture him as a more mature Vegeta from the later arcs.

Anyway, yeah the censorship was "bad," even though not uncommon for the time. What's more interesting is the pacing that they decided to use. They cut out so much not for censorship purposes. The way they edited the show, it is clear to see that they didn't have a lot of faith in Dragon Ball Z to attract an audience when left by itself.

[8000 Saiyan]

I wouldn't go as far as to say that nothing else has got me interested in Spider-Man(I loved Spectacular, the Sam Raimi movies, the few comics I've read, and Captain America 3), but I agree about '90s Spider-Man being my favourite overall Spider-Man adaptation; aside from its animation problems, it's the Spider-Man equivalent of Batman: The Animated Series.

It annoys me that the animation team for Spider-Man TAS didn't do the character designs for Spectacular.

Agreed and agreed. This is not me just saying it for nostalgic purposes -- because having spent the last 17 years with Funimation's in-house dub team, it's hard not to think of them as the best English dub team -- but man, the Ocean dub is fantastic. This is actually a very unbiased opinion. So yeah, we got great stuff from Funimation lately: Kai, the movies, etc. I would always see "Funimation vs Ocean dub" threads pop up and every time I heard the Westwood dub (the Ocean cast doing the later episodes in the U.K. and possibly other English-speaking countries), I'd cringe. The Westwood dub is a simple curiosity for me. And yet, I went back and watched the original Ocean dub of the "Saiyan Conflict" and "Namek Saga." Their performances are so good. For whatever reason, with the Westwood dub, timing, directing, the music, something messed that up. But if you put Funimation side by side with Ocean for the first "two seasons" of Dragon Ball Z, there is no comparison. The Ocean cast has such great acting and the voices sound natural, not cartoony and forced like with Funimation. Even Funimaton's Goku sounds forced, which is crazy because that basically is Sean Schemmel's voice. It's like nobody would ever sound like that, it sounds like someone making a cartoon voice. On the other hand, you've got the Ocean dub which is very, very well made. That sounds like a top-notch dub. Even though it was obviously short-lived, Ian James Corlett is the English-speaking Goku for me. Scott McNeil's Piccolo makes Chris Sabat's Piccolo look goofy. Every voice was just dead-on. Brian Drummond was perfect as Vegeta -- though I will admit that it's hard for me to picture him as a more mature Vegeta from the later arcs.

Anyway, yeah the censorship was "bad," even though not uncommon for the time. What's more interesting is the pacing that they decided to use. They cut out so much not for censorship purposes. The way they edited the show, it is clear to see that they didn't have a lot of faith in Dragon Ball Z to attract an audience when left by itself.

The Westwood dub was of poor quality, because of a rushed schedule and poor direction. At least, Drummond, McNeil and Henderson did okay in that dub.

[TheGreatness25]

I think even Drummon did poorly in the Westwood version. I guess it's because there was always a sense of them speeding through the lines. I have a similar problem with Funimation's redubbing of the first two "seasons" and from Kai in some respects. I think that the pacing of the original Saban-Ocean era was great. Being unbiased, I'd say that when the Ocean cast is on their game, they make Funimation look like the popcorn poppers at the county fair.