I'm surprised to find out that UK airings of Z were briefly ahead of US and Canada's. I was always under the assumption things didn't catch up until the tail end but I guess it was more complicated.
CNX was a great little channel while it lasted and I'm glad I was there to witness it. Along with DBZ, I was introduced to Outlaw Star thanks to the late-night airings. Unlike the US broadcasts, ours ended up being completely uncut which was an eye-opening experience for me at the time. I wasn't used to anime characters swearing or showing nudity before then, it kind of changed the way I viewed animation going forward. I knew of them airing other mature Bandai shows like Cowboy Bebop and The Big O but unfortunately, I never got to catch those as they aired on the channel.
I have pretty vivid memories of first watching the premiere of Samurai Jack on the CNX channel, and it seemed longer than the usual cartoon episode length. Perhaps I'm misremembering that detail or it was just two episodes edited together or something, but it definitely felt like a very epic introduction for the time.
As far as Dragon Ball Z goes, CNX will forever be cemented in Dragon Ball Z's history for me. Not just because of the well-documented broadcast history, but also because of the Playstation 2 Budokai PAL release proudly displaying the channel logo on the cover (as well as containing a CNX ad within the game manual). It's a little piece of history nobody can erase (unlike the dub that aired here).
The channel promos were fantastic, as others have mentioned. The music choices during the CNX era were a lot more mature overall, although CN UK had started that trend earlier with promos like
this (which I hope is remastered some day) and the now lost Return of the Joker promo with that one 'Guess who's back' Eminem song. The style of presentation that appealed to all ages is something I miss from Cartoon Network. The playfully chaotic vibe was, unfortunately, something that was lost as the channel progressed, and at this point no longer even resembles the original mission statement of the channel.
The voice of many of the Toonami/CNX promos, Redd Pepper, was a superb choice too. He definitely gave Peter Cullen over on the US side a run for his money. At the time he had voiced the game Shadow Man but was most well-known for adverts and film trailers. I wish he had gotten to do more promos for CNX similar to the US Toonami
teasers for some of their shows but what we got was pretty epic nonetheless.
The most memorable promo for me was definitely the DBZ 'Frieza saga' promo posted above with
The Host of Seraphim as the accompanying song. The tone was totally unexpected for a DBZ ad at the time (not to mention a stark contrast to the tone of those dubbed Frieza saga episodes) yet it was an incredibly fitting choice for DBZ. I liked it so much that I even ended up syncing it to
DB footage myself.
Other noteworthy mentions that I haven't seen posted here are the
Gundam Wing promo and
channel intermission, along with this
Batman: Of the Future one. I was introduced to DJ Shadow through the Gundam promo so I'll always be thankful for that.
It's a shame we'll never know who edited these promos, I'm sure they must have some interesting stories.
But alas, the channel was short-lived due to the inability to attract advertisers, and even though it did stick around as Toonami in the kids section it was really the beginning of the end as it wasn't able to compete long-term with established channels like Cartoon Network and Fox Kids/Jetix. At least, that's the way it seems. I do hope we can get ahold of some ratings information someday but for now, it doesn't seem likely as the BARB ratings info was likely discarded long ago.
Dragon Ball Ireland wrote: Sat Oct 15, 2022 8:24 am
It wasn't until 2006 the two companies patched things up, as was seen when YTV rerun Dragon Ball Z episode 1 two years later on Bionix block in celebration of their 20th anniversary using the Funimation master from 1997 instead of the master provided by Ocean in 1999 when they had begun editing the Funimation dubbed episodes themselves.
A friend of mine went to an Anime North expo in Canada back in 2018 in which YTV employees supposedly attended. According to him, when asked about DBZ, they mentioned that the majority of YTV's DBZ masters were thrown away but some were held onto. Presumably, the episode that they aired during the anniversary was merely one that remained in their archive rather than something they newly acquired from Funimation, but I could be wrong. He did also mention that none of the episodes could be aired due to licensing issues so that part would probably involve them getting permission. I don't know if that counts as patching things up though.
On the subject of YTV, apparently one of the reasons they stopped airing DBZ sooner was due to them being fed up with having to deal with censorship. I can't say for sure if that's true but I don't doubt it being a factor in their decision.
This is a fan-made AMV that uses a Tekken 6 track btw. That said, I have always liked it. It's a nice tribute.
