Weird Old Dub Stuff

[VegettoEX]

I doubt that they couldn't have got him. He was still traveling back to Texas to do the Z movie dubs & GT at the time they would've been rerecording the Z episodes. The only thing I can think of is if it was a timing thing since I can buy him not being able to record from NYC since that was before they did the voice recording over the phone thing since they would've had the money to pay him & pay for his plane ticket to & from Texas, especially since NYC has 2 different airports & Texas has multiple they could've bought tickets from.

You're misremembering the timeframe here.

The orange bricks were released across 2007-2009, so while any earliest re-recordings would have been late 2006, getting beyond the first 67 episodes for the actual substantial re-recodings wouldn't be for anything until stuff toward the end of the second box there in May 2007.

GT (with the "Lost Episodes" coming last) was done in 2005. Movies were done by mid/late 2006.

It was close at the nearest point, but it was indeed after all that.

For whatever it's worth, my memory is that Schemmel felt proud enough of the original work being done at the time as it was for what it was and stated as much, even if other factors also contributed to non-availability to go back and re-record things -- that doesn't preclude someone from ALSO thinking "hey my earlier stuff is nowhere as good as my more recent stuff".

Heck, some of those citations might even be kicking around from him on this very forum.

[Scsigs]

You're misremembering the timeframe here.

The orange bricks were released across 2007-2009, so while any earliest re-recordings would have been late 2006, getting beyond the first 67 episodes for the actual substantial re-recodings wouldn't be for anything until stuff toward the end of the second box there in May 2007.

GT (with the "Lost Episodes" coming last) was done in 2005. Movies were done by mid/late 2006.

It was close at the nearest point, but it was indeed after all that.

For whatever it's worth, my memory is that Schemmel felt proud enough of the original work being done at the time as it was for what it was and stated as much, even if other factors also contributed to non-availability to go back and re-record things -- that doesn't preclude someone from ALSO thinking "hey my earlier stuff is nowhere as good as my more recent stuff".

Heck, some of those citations might even be kicking around from him on this very forum.

Alright, gotcha. Another thing to bring up is that he would've also went back to Texas to record the video games every year, I imagine, so they could've also done it when he was doing those.

As for being proud of the work, maybe it was because of recency at the time, but I don't understand that. From my samplings of that point in the Z dub, he was really wooden & robotic sounding. The later parts of it, he wasn't GOOD, but certainly not those.

[WittyUsername]

I always heard that the supposed reason Schemmel didn’t redub his lines is because he wanted to keep his old performance intact as a reminder of how far he had come as a voice actor.

To this day, I’d still say the weirdest thing about the remastered redub is the fact that they went through the trouble of reducing several characters during the Garlic Jr. episodes, including Maron. Why bother? They even got J. Michael Tatum to redub the lines for Spice/Gasshu.

[Metalwario64]

I always heard that the supposed reason Schemmel didn’t redub his lines is because he wanted to keep his old performance intact as a reminder of how far he had come as a voice actor.

To this day, I’d still say the weirdest thing about the remastered redub is the fact that they went through the trouble of reducing several characters during the Garlic Jr. episodes, including Maron. Why bother? They even got J. Michael Tatum to redub the lines for Spice/Gasshu.

Yeah. Honestly I find the product worse for it. It both becomes an inconsistent mess, the new performances making the old lines and performances seem EVEN worse in comparison, and it is so inconsistent and half assed. Fucking Kyle Hebert redubs Ox King until like... the VERY end of the Cell games? You couldn't get him for ONE or TWO more episodes? lol Not to mention the revisionist history aspect where FUNimation treats it as the "original broadcast audio" on their releases. Not to mention all the previously unused lines like Babidi screaming when Vegeta's charging a blast against Buu or Goku's stupid speech about how "killing is wrong, so now I'm going to kill you" to Kid Buu during the spirit bomb.

[MasenkoHA]

I always heard that the supposed reason Schemmel didn’t redub his lines is because he wanted to keep his old performance intact as a reminder of how far he had come as a voice actor.

To this day, I’d still say the weirdest thing about the remastered redub is the fact that they went through the trouble of reducing several characters during the Garlic Jr. episodes, including Maron. Why bother? They even got J. Michael Tatum to redub the lines for Spice/Gasshu.

That’s what I always heard as well.

Though I kinda figured not wanting to buy a plane ticket on his own dime to re-record old lines of dialog also played a factor. Can’t imagine he would turn it down if Funimation compensated enough to justify a plane ticket

[Yellow Flower King]

I was about to wonder why he didnt go and re record, because recording more means more money... and then remembered Funimation hardly pays their VA's...

[MarioSonicU]

Then there are the moments where they made Goku more heroic by giving him dialogue that felt more like it was coming from a holy man than a country hick when he was talking to Omega.

This was definitely most notable in episodes adapted by Neil Bligh/Chris Neel. In fact, The only GT episode (that I can recall) that managed to be a tad faithful is episode 22 (and maybe 21, 41, and any episode adapted by Eric Vale, but those have your run-of-the-mill FUNi punch-ups)

[Metalwario64]

I do think hair's breadth is another weird Simmons-ism, though. I've only ever seen that expression in Dragon Ball Z's subs

It's not an uncommon term, but I would also say that it's a little old-fashioned? As far as idioms go, it feels quite formal to me. Mind you, we're talking about a translation that's over 20 years old now, right?

it’s definitely something you’d expect from a character like Spider-Man, not Goku.

It's exactly the kind of quip they'd give to the 1994 version of Spider-man; I can easily picture Christopher Daniel Barnes delivering that line as one of Spider-man's 'wisecracks'.

Simmons in Kai had Goku call Freeza's kienzan move a "bush league move' which is a baseball term and very strange for Goku to say lol. Maybe Yamcha. :p

[90sDBZ]

One thing I will say is Sean's Goku needed redubbing less than Sabat's Vegeta.

While Sean's acting had come a long way since 1999, the actual voice itself didn't change that much.

Sabat's Vegeta voice was completely different from how he started out, to the point of being almost unrecognisable. If any character needed redubbing for the sake of consistency, it was Vegeta. It's just unfortunate that it was abandoned after the Garlic Jr Saga, as his OG performance didn't start to deepen until Cell.

I still kind of wish the OG dub was included as a track on home releases, like maybe having it tied to the Faulconer score setting, and having the redub be tied to the Kikuchi setting.

[Doctor Seaweed Roll]

Dead Zone's Pioneer DVD release had as a joke a Namekian dub option that was region locked to only play Namekian DVD players

I'm not sure if this fits the scope of the thread but as it is from the early days of dubbed DBZ so I think it should.

Edit prevent double posting:

I found this funny dub clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-OhIgJAGOE

[Scsigs]

One thing I will say is Sean's Goku needed redubbing less than Sabat's Vegeta.

While Sean's acting had come a long way since 1999, the actual voice itself didn't change that much.

Sabat's Vegeta voice was completely different from how he started out, to the point of being almost unrecognisable. If any character needed redubbing for the sake of consistency, it was Vegeta. It's just unfortunate that it was abandoned after the Garlic Jr Saga, as his OG performance didn't start to deepen until Cell.

I still kind of wish the OG dub was included as a track on home releases, like maybe having it tied to the Faulconer score setting, and having the redub be tied to the Kikuchi setting.

I mean, you can say the same of Sonny Strait's Krillin, Stephanie Nadolny's Gohan, & Linda Young's Freeza, but they still did that. I also will argue against the voice staying the same. Early on, he was still trying to mimic the speech patterns of Peter Kelamis' Goku on top of not being a good VA, so he NEEDED to redubbing as well.

IMO, I would've wanted either the original version of the dub or the remastered dub to be tied tot he Faulconer score & a new, more accurate redub from the ground up with the actors tied to the Kikuchi score. They were redubbing the Z movies in the 2000s anyways, so I see no reason why not. Most people who have nostalgia for the Z dub from their childhoods don't watch the dub with the Kikuchi music & most people who watch with the Kikuchi music hate how inaccurate the dub's scripts are, so they please no one with not having redubbed it more accurately.

[TheBigBoy]

Dead Zone's Pioneer DVD release had as a joke a Namekian dub option that was region locked to only play Namekian DVD players

I'm not sure if this fits the scope of the thread but as it is from the early days of dubbed DBZ so I think it should.

Edit prevent double posting:

I found this funny dub clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-OhIgJAGOE

The Namekian language gag is pretty funny ngl. Same with the "caressing balls" clip. The Saban dub had more than a few problems but it had panache dammit

Since this is also sort of becoming an all purpose dub history thread - does anyone have the exact dates of

A. The debut date of the syndication of the Saban DBZ dub (starting with Raditz's arrival)?

B. The release dates of the Ginyu Assault and Ginyu Double Cross VHS tapes?

Just trying to place some memories here.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

The debut date of the syndication of the Saban DBZ dub (starting with Raditz's arrival)?

We don't know the definitive date, but it was between September 7th and 14th 1996.

The release dates of the Ginyu Assault and Ginyu Double Cross VHS tapes?

April 26, 1999.

[LostTimeLord]

The Namekian language gag is pretty funny ngl. Same with the "caressing balls" clip. The Saban dub had more than a few problems but it had panache dammit

Presumably Pioneer would have been behind that gag, as the DVD publisher, right? It's a nice throwback to when studios were, perhaps, having a little too much fun designing these things. Like, there's a Simpsons DVD that opens with the characters heads and bodies mismatched and you have to unscramble them by pressing enter a few times... it's almost amusing the first time you watch the disc and then annoying as hell every time you want to play it again.

"It's 1997 and look how cool DVDs are, it has menus! Never mind trailers, here's a full-screen page for every DBZ video with the blurb for each episode! Wanna read some single-sentence Character Bios with a picture-in-picture clip from the movie that you just watched?"

They were redubbing the Z movies in the 2000s anyways, so I see no reason why not. Most people who have nostalgia for the Z dub from their childhoods don't watch the dub with the Kikuchi music & most people who watch with the Kikuchi music hate how inaccurate the dub's scripts are, so they please no one with not having redubbed it more accurately.

It's the different between partially re-dubbing 70-odd episodes and fully re-dubbing 508 episodes, isn't it? That's a lot of work for something that's fairly niche in the grand scheme of things. I would have preferred a re-dub, of course, but I understand why the inconsistency was going to be more of an issue than accuracy to the Japanese version; the inaccuracy to the Japanese version is only an issue if someone doesn't like the changes on their own merits (clearly not an issue with a dub that was this popular) or if they are already familiar with the original, whereas inconsistent performances don't need any additional context to be distracting. I also suspect that many people who bought those sets didn't necessarily remember how it used to sound, but had their expectations set by more recent dubbed material.

[WittyUsername]

The reason FUNimation did the partial redub for the season sets was to make the transition from episode 67 to episode 68 less jarring and also because they were probably embarrassed by the original season three dub to a certain degree. Also, they wanted to keep the cast consistent throughout the dub and there were many characters who had been recast since season three.

[TheBigBoy]

The debut date of the syndication of the Saban DBZ dub (starting with Raditz's arrival)?

We don't know the definitive date, but it was between September 7th and 14th 1996.

The release dates of the Ginyu Assault and Ginyu Double Cross VHS tapes?

April 26, 1999.

Ah, thanks. I remember catching the first episode of DBZ in the US and being completely captivated by it. In my market it aired on Saturdays at 6:30 in the morning. My birthday is on Sept 20th which was a Friday that year and (coincidentally...?) I asked for a copy of Chrono Trigger that year and I remember explicitly skipping watching DBZ that week so I could get in more CT time. And I'm pretty sure it was the second episode I missed which falls in line with the September 14th date.

[Scsigs]

They were redubbing the Z movies in the 2000s anyways, so I see no reason why not. Most people who have nostalgia for the Z dub from their childhoods don't watch the dub with the Kikuchi music & most people who watch with the Kikuchi music hate how inaccurate the dub's scripts are, so they please no one with not having redubbed it more accurately.

It's the different between partially re-dubbing 70-odd episodes and fully re-dubbing 508 episodes, isn't it? That's a lot of work for something that's fairly niche in the grand scheme of things. I would have preferred a re-dub, of course, but I understand why the inconsistency was going to be more of an issue than accuracy to the Japanese version; the inaccuracy to the Japanese version is only an issue if someone doesn't like the changes on their own merits (clearly not an issue with a dub that was this popular) or if they are already familiar with the original, whereas inconsistent performances don't need any additional context to be distracting. I also suspect that many people who bought those sets didn't necessarily remember how it used to sound, but had their expectations set by more recent dubbed material.

I'm just talking Z. The OG DB dub is mostly fine & GT, who cares? GT's was also mostly accurate, they just inserted flowery language here & there.

[Metalwario64]

The reason FUNimation did the partial redub for the season sets was to make the transition from episode 67 to episode 68 less jarring and also because they were probably embarrassed by the original season three dub to a certain degree. Also, they wanted to keep the cast consistent throughout the dub and there were many characters who had been recast since season three.

And they failed. There are still instances of Dameon Clarke as Enma and Marc Britton as Ox King in the "remastered" dub.

[LostTimeLord]

I'm just talking Z. The OG DB dub is mostly fine & GT, who cares?

But if you re-dubbed Z 'from the ground up' you would then have inconsistencies with the Dragon Ball and GT dubs. Either that or you'd still have to compromise in some places in the way that Kai's dub had to. They weren't going to put themselves in a situation where, for example, the default audio track has Tien Shinhan's name change to Tenshinhan between series alongside half the other names and pronunciations.

[WittyUsername]

The reason FUNimation did the partial redub for the season sets was to make the transition from episode 67 to episode 68 less jarring and also because they were probably embarrassed by the original season three dub to a certain degree. Also, they wanted to keep the cast consistent throughout the dub and there were many characters who had been recast since season three.

And they failed. There are still instances of Dameon Clarke as Enma and Marc Britton as Ox King in the "remastered" dub.

It’s not exactly surprising that there’d be some oversights here and there. I imagine they were on something of a time crunch with the season sets. Of course, that makes it more baffling that they’d bother redubbing certain characters in the Garlic Jr. episodes.