Could have Dragon Ball survived in the English Speaking world without Cartoon Network?

[jjgp1112]

Mickey Mouse is literally in the damn Disney logo. He's not going anywhere any time soon.

[MyVisionity]

Mickey Mouse is dead. I don't consider some soulless theme park robots a substitute for years and years of classic animated shorts. I feel for all those poor little bastards whose parents will drag them to that damn place without ever having provided any proper exposure to the Disney archives and its characters.

That is not what is happening with anime. *It's* the one that's not going anywhere. As opposed to the classic animation by Disney, Warner Brothers, Hanna Barbera, et al., that will fade out. "Bugs who?" Meanwhile the name Son Goku will grow larger.

[ABED]

Mickey Mouse is dead. I don't consider some soulless theme park robots a substitute for years and years of classic animated shorts. I feel for all those poor little bastards whose parents will drag them to that damn place without ever having provided any proper exposure to the Disney archives and its characters.

That is not what is happening with anime. *It's* the one that's not going anywhere. As opposed to the classic animation by Disney, Warner Brothers, Hanna Barbera, et al., that will fade out. "Bugs who?" Meanwhile the name Son Goku will grow larger.

Not the question before the court. The issue is how well known they are..

Again, you are comparing individual characters with practically an entire medium.

And everyone knows who Bugs Bunny is and many of people have watched a handful of Loony Toons shorts. In an age of streaming, I'm sure that will be even more the case especially since nostalgia and vintage are en vogue. No one will ask who Bugs Bunny is

[Kid Buu]

As ABED said, you can't compare a medium to fictional characters. A more apt comparison would just be Superman and Dragon Ball/Goku.

Even in that one I'd say that, going by the past two decades so far I'd say Superman has way more product awareness in the US. Dragon Ball's had two new cartoons, one of which was just an edited version of a previous show. There's been 3 animated movies, which all saw limited theratical release in US and a low budget Hollywood film.

Meanwhile Superman has been involved in many shows, most notably Smallville which actually ran for an entire decade. He's also had several Hollywood blockbusters, all of which sold more tickets than Dragon Ball Evolution.

[MyVisionity]

The issue is how well known they are..

I don't consider names and imagery "knowing" the characters.

Again, you are comparing individual characters with practically an entire medium.

I'm comparing Japanese animation with classic American animation. It's not just about the individual characters. All of the classic Disney films and shorts will be forgotten.

And everyone knows who Bugs Bunny is and many of people have watched a handful of Loony Toons shorts. In an age of streaming, I'm sure that will be even more the case especially since nostalgia and vintage are en vogue. No one will ask who Bugs Bunny is.

Every adult may know him, but the kids? I'm sure they are already asking that question. But to be fair, I don't spend time around many children so who knows for sure. I just can't imagine today's children streaming any of that stuff.

[ABED]

The issue is how well known they are..

I don't consider names and imagery "knowing" the characters.

Again, you are comparing individual characters with practically an entire medium.

I'm comparing Japanese animation with classic American animation. It's not just about the individual characters. All of the classic Disney films and shorts will be forgotten.

And everyone knows who Bugs Bunny is and many of people have watched a handful of Loony Toons shorts. In an age of streaming, I'm sure that will be even more the case especially since nostalgia and vintage are en vogue. No one will ask who Bugs Bunny is.

Every adult may know him, but the kids? I'm sure they are already asking that question. But to be fair, I don't spend time around many children so who knows for sure. I just can't imagine today's children streaming any of that stuff.

No you are not. You said everyone knows anime but not everyone knows Mickey Mouse. No shit everyone knows anime. It's a medium and everyone has seen and enjoyed at least one anime show or movie.

I'm 34, but Loony Toons was old even when I was a kid and yet everyone knew those characters.

It feels like you're moving the goal post with this issue.

[Kid Buu]

Of the top of my head I can recall Mickey Mouses's Steamboat Willie, The Mad Doctor and Fantasia - all of which predate my existence by a long shot. Plus, Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny are still getting TV series. Micky Mouse is even a character on South Park.

[MyVisionity]

The issue is how well known they are..

I don't consider names and imagery "knowing" the characters.

Again, you are comparing individual characters with practically an entire medium.

I'm comparing Japanese animation with classic American animation. It's not just about the individual characters. All of the classic Disney films and shorts will be forgotten.

And everyone knows who Bugs Bunny is and many of people have watched a handful of Loony Toons shorts. In an age of streaming, I'm sure that will be even more the case especially since nostalgia and vintage are en vogue. No one will ask who Bugs Bunny is.

Every adult may know him, but the kids? I'm sure they are already asking that question. But to be fair, I don't spend time around many children so who knows for sure. I just can't imagine today's children streaming any of that stuff.

No you are not. You said everyone knows anime but not everyone knows Mickey Mouse. No shit everyone knows anime. It's a medium and everyone has seen and enjoyed at least one anime show or movie.

Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, and everything that they represent in animation. No one knows those cartoons anymore.

I'm 34, but Loony Toons was old even when I was a kid and yet everyone knew those characters.

Yes of course everyone knew Warner Bros animation because it was popular in the 90s. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were still a thing on television back then, so once kids saw it, they got to know it. Same with Disney, but to a lesser extent. But once the 2000s rolled around, this wasn't the case no more. That era of animation began to fade away. I doubt the kids of today have that level of awareness.

[ABED]

I don't consider names and imagery "knowing" the characters.




I'm comparing Japanese animation with classic American animation. It's not just about the individual characters. All of the classic Disney films and shorts will be forgotten.




Every adult may know him, but the kids? I'm sure they are already asking that question. But to be fair, I don't spend time around many children so who knows for sure. I just can't imagine today's children streaming any of that stuff.

No you are not. You said everyone knows anime but not everyone knows Mickey Mouse. No shit everyone knows anime. It's a medium and everyone has seen and enjoyed at least one anime show or movie.

Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, and everything that they represent in animation. No one knows those cartoons anymore.

I'm 34, but Loony Toons was old even when I was a kid and yet everyone knew those characters.

Yes of course everyone knew Warner Bros animation because it was popular in the 90s. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were still a thing on television back then, so once kids saw it, they got to know it. Same with Disney, but to a lesser extent. But once the 2000s rolled around, this wasn't the case no more. That era of animation began to fade away. I doubt the kids of today have that level of awareness.

This isn't about depth of knowledge, it's about awareness.

You said yourself you aren't in tune with what kids are watching these days and yet you're taking such a hardline stance on this issue that they don't know of all characters - fucking Superman! The first superhero in the most popular genre in pop culture and he's somehow fading into obscurity?

Regardless, anime is mainstream. When that happened, I don't know but it's not the same thing as specific characters being mainstream. Anime is a medium unto itself practically, meaning it's so wide and diverse in the type of stories that get told there's pretty much guaranteed to be a movie or TV series that speaks to everyone.

[jjgp1112]

SuperMan was literally just in two movies that, while being critically lambasted disappointments, still made a combined 1.5 billion dollars. Looney Tunes has a new show on cartoon network right now. They're not going anywhere, brudda.

[Dr. Casey]

At this point, Looney Tunes are kind of like a societal night light. They're around because they're so old and familiar that people want them to always be around in some form. I think they'd reached that point by the 90s or perhaps even the 80s (I'm sure that by Who Framed Roger Rabbit, they were viewed as retro classics rather than being modern or contemporary in any way).

I'm not an expert on Warner Brothers cartoons or Looney Tunes and only watched the occasional episode as a kid, but based on what I know of their general history, the closest they came to any sort of permanent death would be after the end of the Classic Era around 1965, 1966. The mainstreaming of television was the main culprit, but audiences might have been more open to saying goodbye to them because by that point the characters were old enough to be getting tiresome, but not so old to be given elevated status as a societal fixture. They were mostly around the same age as The Simpsons at that point. The characters were largely retired until Mickey's Christmas Carol in '83, and have maintained some kind of presence in one form or another (movies, TV shows, etc) ever since.

[DBZAOTA482]

Astro Boy, Speed Racer, Gatchaman (under all its localized names) Kimba the White Lion, Voltron, and Robotech were all mainstream kids broadcast tv anime that proceeded Dragon Ball

Westerners weren't actually aware those titles were "anime" during their heydays considering how heavily edited and localized they were. Dragon Ball became mainstream at the time when more and more people were becoming aware of what anime is.

[MasenkoHA]

Astro Boy, Speed Racer, Gatchaman (under all its localized names) Kimba the White Lion, Voltron, and Robotech were all mainstream kids broadcast tv anime that proceeded Dragon Ball

Westerners weren't actually aware those titles were "anime" during their heydays considering how heavily edited and localized they were. Dragon Ball became mainstream at the time when more and more people were becoming aware of what anime is.

Again, that’s not true in the slightest and people with far more knowledge than I have gone into detail.

Also Dragon Ball Z was heavily edited and localized so your own reasoning doesn’t hold up.

[jjgp1112]

Before the word "anime" became widespread in America, "Japanimation" was the old descriptor and Speed Racer was THE stereotypical poster child for "Japanimation." I wasn't even alive for Speed Racer's heyday with American audiences and I know that.

[DBZAOTA482]

Anime was being embraced by American Pop Culture long before Z hit Toonami.

Sci Fi had its own anime block in 1995

Akira was getting critical acclaim in the late 80s by the like of Roger Ebert. It was also influential on Batman Beyond whose show runners were definitely not introduced to anime by the likes of DBZ and Sailor Moon

MTV also was semi-regularly airing anime on their channel by as early as around 1990 or so; and it only increased in visibility by 1994/1995, where they would regularly advertise anime VHS releases, like Yotoden and Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie for just a few examples.

If anyone here wants to try and make the case that MTV throughout the 1990s was somehow a "cult/niche" channel watched only by a select few people... I mean you're by all means welcome to try, but you're going to look absolutely laughably ridiculous and completely ahistorical while doing so.

The Sci-Fi anime block aired mostly hyper-violent edgy anime which doesn't exactly lend itself to mainstream appeal.

First of all: lets just set aside the fact that Sci Fi aired PLENTY of less violent/non-hyper gory anime like Galaxy Express 999, Robot Carnival, Project A-Ko, Urusei Yatsura, and Iria and whatnot. Because it very much did, and frequently so: so even just on that baseline surface level, this statement is complete and total bunk.

No, I want to tear a little deeper into the implicit framing & assumptions put forth by statements like this (which are insanely and insidiously commonplace around here, and always have been from pretty much nearly day one of this forum's whole existence).

So this is where I once again opine that this community - as a broader, collective whole mind you - clearly has a massive, massive ingrained bias that puts most of its focus and emphasis on children's media: and framing like this is a prime example.

The essential framing of this statement quoted above is that anything that's hyper violent or "edgy" (whatever the fuck that word is even supposed to mean at this point in time: its been so overused and misused throughout recent years that its lost any real solid definition in the current climate) is inherently not mainstream friendly, and is thus relegated to niche status by its very nature.

This of course totally ignores the fact that not just a lot, but an overwhelming majority of a great deal of mainstream media all throughout the 1980s and 1990s tended to skew INCREDIBLY hyper-violent more times than not. Most of the biggest, most mainstream films of the 80s were unbelievably gory horror and slasher/splatter films (Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Hellraiser, etc) and plenty of hard R rated action and sci fi films were massive mainstream hits that spawned huge, huge franchises (Die Hard, Predator, Aliens, Robocop, Total Recall, Highlander, Lethal Weapon, Terminator, etc).

Again, many of these were NOT in ANY WAY "niche" culty little piffles seen only by a handful of folks: these kinds of films played to STACKED multiplex showings every night, sold like hotcakes on home video, and had a MASSIVE mainstream presence on TV, in print media, and just in day to day life, etc. I'm speaking not just from a distant, historical lens, but from my having personally grown up within that very environment at the time.

I was there, and I personally as a little kid saw burnt-faced, knife-fingered, child murderer extraordinaire Freddy Kruger (who's movies, especially the earlier ones, were chock full of all kinds of grisly body horror and hacking and slashing) hamming it up and vamping the night away alongside then-mainstream bands like Dokken, The Fat Boys, and Whodini on MTV in front of millions and millions of people in the late 1980s, as well as Hockey Masked, ax wielding Jason Voorhees (who's movies were filled with arguably WAY more intensely violent and sexual content than Freddy's: enough to where I've gotten into trouble with the mods here a time or two in the past just for posting random gifs from a few of those films) casually chilling out on the Arsenio Hall show at around the same time: Arsenio in the late 1980s being about on par in terms of mainstream talk show visibility with the likes of Conan O'Brien, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Falon and whatnot in today's terms.

I was also there for when Robocop, a movie character famous for (among other things) blowing off the male genitals of criminals, for his origin as a normal human cop who is brutally dismembered in grueling, graphic detail onscreen by shotgun-wielding thugs, for slowly, agonizingly melting the flesh off of one of said thugs with toxic waste, and for his robot nemesis ED-209 graphically turning one hapless yuppie into fleshy human paste with high powered gunfire, had spawned a whole line of toys and action figures and a shitty Saturday morning cartoon.

And I was around for Highlander, where violent beheadings are a key, central part of its whole premise (and where weirdly drawn out, graphic sex scenes were something of a bizarre, inexplicable franchise tradition) having been a franchise that was SO mainstream from the getgo that it had Queen do the original soundtrack and had a primetime network TV show that lasted nearly a decade plus spinoffs, and all manner of merchandise.

Lets not even go into Hellraiser, a franchise that is literally about Sadomasochist, leather-daddy demons who religiously worship pain and gruesome physical disfigurement as a sexual fetish who prey upon the most nihilistic, soul-deadened motherfuckers who open their magic puzzle box, and how that also became a mainstream mega-franchise in the 80s and 90s referenced and spoofed everywhere from The Simpsons to SNL. The list quite frankly just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

I'd say that the idea that "hyper violent = not mainstream friendly" is something that more applies to the 2000s and beyond (where the mainstream film landscape, at least for a time there, DID become more noticeably and relatively more watered down and family friendly for awhile): but that wouldn't take into account non-children's prime time and cable Television, which has only grown VASTLY more hyper violent while remaining as mainstream as ever: The Walking Dead, The Sopranos, Oz, Breaking Bad, Dexter, The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, The Boys, etc. are all incredibly violent (and I guess "edgy"?) shows that are/were as visibly mainstream as it gets.

What this kind of basic framework really betrays is the implicit focus on the American/Western children's media landscape: which has ALWAYS been fairly consistently "non-violent = mainstream friendly and anything the least bit violent is not" right up to this day. By that standard, then yes of course an anime like Akira, or Golgo 13, or Ninja Scroll, or Vampire Hunter D or whatnot would NOT be suitably mainstream-friendly for children: because those kinds of anime were NOT and NEVER WERE intended for children in the first place (either in Japan or anywhere else).

Those anime DID however have PLENTY of "mainstream appeal" for older/non-children audiences in the 1980s and 1990s, who were used to and weaned on films like The Thing, Mad Max, Scanners, Evil Dead, The Shining, Pulp Fiction, Dawn of the Dead, The Killer, La Femme Nikita, Leon: The Professional, and stuff of that nature: and indeed, THAT'S the kind of audience that those particular kinds of anime (like you'd see on MTV and the Sci Fi channel back in the early/mid 90s) were being aimed at at the time, and NOT at small Power Rangers' obsessed tykes.

I mean, you would think that an audience like this one here that's as seemingly obsessed with tearing down the whole "animation age ghetto" (i.e. not all cartoons/animation are solely for kids and can be mature and for adults too!) wouldn't also be so quick to project assumptions that all or most anime are made to appeal to the same "children/Shonen" demographic: or that the children/Shonen demographic is the main/only demographic that's in any way even WORTH appealing to. But that then leads into how ridiculously selectively/inconsistently the whole "animation age ghetto" concept/argument is often used by fandoms like this one, which is a whole other, separate digression in itself.

All of this ultimately begs the general question: in the minds of most community members here overall, as an aggregated net majority - does a non-children's audience that isn't plugged into stuff like Digimon or Power Rangers etc. actually in ANY way count to you as a "mainstream audience" of ANY kind? Or does an audience inherently HAVE to be a very young, elementary school aged audience who's focus in mainly on stuff like Transformers and Yu Gi Oh and whatnot in order to therefore qualify to you as "mainstream?"

If a given work of media (be it an anime or anything else) ISN'T in any way being targeted at toy and merch-buying children/family audiences, if its inherently adult focused in both its content and themes... CAN it thus in ANY respect still be considered "mainstream" in your eyes? Or does it HAVE to be something like Transformers or Pokemon and whatnot in order to be sufficiently seen as "mainstream" in your collective views? By your views, is a film like say, Pulp Fiction for example, therefore NOT actually "mainstream" despite how widely seen it was (and remains) and oft-referenced it is in not just mainstream media, but frankly in fucking day to day life both back then and even still to this day?

If that is indeed the case to many of you, then how do you explain the heavily mainstream presence of many of the above hard R rated film franchises I listed earlier? Or similarly mature modern cable/primetime shows? Is it just "out of sight, out of mind" to many of you because you weren't really alive of cognizant for any of the 80s or 90s examples? Then what about modern TV examples? Hell, what about the Saw or Hostel franchises for a few more recent film examples? Or Kill Bill vol. 1 and 2? Are those somehow still "niche" works that aren't all that mainstream in some way, despite being multi-gazillion dollar grossing, sequel/franchise-spawning blockbuster films in their time that were heavily referenced all throughout pop culture and throughout the mainstream media discourse?

My personal conclusion that I'd come to awhile ago (again, partly from having had WAY too much time and experience talking to countless community members here off the forums) is that for a lot of you (but again not all of you), you either weren't alive yet or weren't really paying attention to the older examples from the 80s and 90s and never actually took the time to go back and see for yourselves what sort of works were actually a big thing in the mainstream of the time, and for the modern examples... a lot of you, even as adults, STILL aren't really paying all that close attention to many of THOSE examples either, and are instead still mostly focused on the same kinds of children's media that you grew up with as a kid. Which, I'm sorry to say this, is NOT actually all that "normal" of a media habit to stick with for most people in the mainstream.

Hell, I've often seen the converse of this from a lot of folks here: where some of you will insist that stuff like Full Metal Alchemist, or the movie The Iron Giant, and stuff of that nature are WAY more visibly "mainstream" (at least in a U.S. context) than they actually are. There was always a lot of this kind of thing going on since back in the day, but it was even readily visible as recently as stuff like the whole Vic Mignogna thread, where there were folks here who were genuinely convinced that Mignogna's anime voice actor roles were a MUCH bigger presence in the Western mainstream media world than they're in any remote way actually even vaguely close to being.

My broader point is: what some of you personally put your focus on and what actually IS a thing in the mainstream zeitgeist aren't always necessarily the same thing, or even close to it. Having the implicit framework that "violent content = not mainstream-friendly" isn't just ahistorical to previous decades like the 70s, 80s, and 90s, its frankly completely ignoring basic media reality of TODAY, RIGHT NOW.

Hyper violent content has ALWAYS had a mainstream appeal for as long as I've been alive (and for a fair bit longer frankly), and just because the kinds of "edgy" more Seinen-y anime that aired on mainstream outlets like MTV and Sci Fi back in the day weren't suitable for the Kids WB and Nickelodeon crowd that this community calls its home turf doesn't therefore mean that there existed NO sort of mainstream audience out in the broader world back then to whom that stuff was being targeted towards: there ABSOLUTELY was for a stone cold historical fact, and frankly there absolutely STILL is such a mainstream audience for that kind of stuff today. This community not having either been aware of it or ever really been a part of that audience doesn't therefore mean that it doesn't/didn't exist or that it isn't somehow "mainstream".

There is - and always has been - a MASSIVE underselling of how mainstream (or mainstream palatable) a lot of non-children's properties are around here (many of which are INSANELY violent), along with a likewise massive overselling of how "mainstream" plenty of children's properties actually are when push comes to shove.

The average person on the street probably has FAR more familiarity with something like a classic Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick like Conan the Barbarian (chock full of plenty of splatter and gore) or with a piece of Italian Mafia media like Scorsese's Goodfellas or The Sopranos or the Godfather (all of which again, are INCREDIBLY, brutally violent) than they would something like My Hero Academia or Digimon: Tamers - yet to hear it from plenty of folks here, Joe and Jane Average apparently have never even heard of movies like Aliens or Saw or Taxi Driver, but can somehow or other quote you every other episode of season 12 of the Pokemon anime chapter and verse, can name every original Power Ranger, and knows all the character dynamics & relationships among the core cast of Naruto.

Its absurd and idiotic on its face, and its totally disconnected from the reality of where the mainstream not only is now presently, but where its ALWAYS been since more than 30+ years ago.

Akira was a cult film that had an extremely limited showing so it isn't surprising someone as media savvy as Roger Ebert would acknowledge it.

Akira's U.S. theatrical run was extremely limited: its home video/VHS release however was quite literally ANYTHING BUT limited. Akira VHS tapes were ABUNDANTLY distributed and available front and center in pretty much every major retail chain or mom & pop outlet that sold movies. Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, FYE, Suncoast, you name the 90s retail outlet: they ALL had dozens and dozens and dozens of copies of Akira. And they sold. People watched that fucking movie all throughout the 90s. Not necessarily in theaters obviously, but DEFINITELY on home video/VHS without a doubt. Not in Avengers: Endgame numbers, but CERTAINLY in Reservoir Dogs numbers: and that ain't nothing to scoff at.

Again, the fact that giant swaths of this community has seemingly never heard of a media phenomenon or popular work of the 80s and 90s that is largely within the domain of home video and non-children's TV airings rather than children's TV airings exclusively in no way detracts from the fact that WAY more people than not, on average, back in the 80s and 90s got most of their media either from home video or from non-children's TV outlets.

Unless people here legitimately believe, sincerely, that the average 15 to 40 year old throughout the 1980s and 1990s was glued almost exclusively to Nicktoons and Fox Kids and whatnot after work or college or what have you, simply because that's what many of YOU were glued to as little kids back then: and it seems, very much for real, that there are a ton of folks on here who seem to ACTUALLY unironically believe that to be the case.

What I said came out weirdly. I meant to say most of the anime on that Sci-Fi block used violence and edgy content as a selling points since they were still trying to capitalize in the cult success of Akira. The other stuff just didn't reach mainstream status.

Also, the Akira VHS' only sold like 100,000 in the states and 60,000 in the UK.

Astro Boy, Speed Racer, Gatchaman (under all its localized names) Kimba the White Lion, Voltron, and Robotech were all mainstream kids broadcast tv anime that proceeded Dragon Ball

Westerners weren't actually aware those titles were "anime" during their heydays considering how heavily edited and localized they were. Dragon Ball became mainstream at the time when more and more people were becoming aware of what anime is.

Again, that’s not true in the slightest and people with far more knowledge than I have gone into detail.

Also Dragon Ball Z was heavily edited and localized so your own reasoning doesn’t hold up.

DBZ wasn't that edited and localized. In fact, one of the highlights of the FUNimation dub is the more lenient edits.

Some of the shows you mentioned were so heavily edited and localized that they became their own things when brought over to the west. "Astro Boy" and "Speed Racer" are even called "Mighty Atom and "Mach a Go-Go" in Japan.

Before the word "anime" became widespread in America, "Japanimation" was the old descriptor and Speed Racer was THE stereotypical poster child for "Japanimation." I wasn't even alive for Speed Racer's heyday with American audiences and I know that.

Back then it didn't matter to the audience if they were from Japan or not as long as it was good. Back the time Akira hit the scene is when people started to take the medium more seriously.

[ArmenianPepsi]

DBZ wasn't that edited and localized. In fact, one of the highlights of the FUNimation dub is the more lenient edits.

Some of the shows you mentioned were so heavily edited and localized that they became their own things when brought over to the west. "Astro Boy" and "Speed Racer" are even called "Mighty Atom and "Mach a Go-Go" in Japan.

Same can apply to other Pre-DBZ anime that came to the states that are mentioned in this thread.

Comparing Voltron to the original Beast King Go-Lion, or Vehicle Voltron to Armored Fleet Dairugger 15, or Robotech to SD Macross / SD Southern Cross.The differences made between them when they were localized for the US are so sweeping, they basically become two different properties, with the only thing kept the same between both versions is the actual footage used. Kind of like Power Rangers.

Characters, themes, names, and stories are would be totally at odds with eachother. And the dubs themselves, to say the least, are quite poor, some would even make Saban super-censored DBZ look like Kai in comparison.

In the case of Robotech, the third part of the original series was created from footage of an anime entirely disconnected to the Super Dimension series, Genesis Climber MOSPEDA, and was tied back to the other 2 parts by Harmony Gold's own created pseudo continuity.

Beast King Go-Lion and Dairugger 15 also have no connection whatsoever, but again for the US Voltron series, they were stitched together in the dub by the writers making some psuedo-continuity by implying that the two series share the same universe.

[Planetnamek]

Mickey Mouse ain't dead yet, there's a new series that started last year that tries to invoke the slapstick feel of the classic Disney shorts plus Kingdom Hearts 3 came out last year and got some DLC recently and Mickey is a huge part of that franchise.

Anyways I do think DBZ could have conceivably survived on MTV maybe, but it might not have had the widespread success it had on CN, as pretty much all of MTV's animated series aside from Beavis and Butthead and Daria were mostly forgotten(too bad, because it had some great shows like Good Vibes, Spy Groove and their underrated Spider-Man animated series) and didn't last long.

[Hellspawn28]

MTV was good with animated shows to aim towards teens and young adults. DBZ in America was never aimed towards that general audience and would have been a bad idea to have it aired on MTV at the time. If Toon Disney was able to get away with airing Gargoyles in the mid-late 90s, they could have gotten away with DBZ.