Ron Wasserman / Saban DBZ Score / Rock the Dragon

[Ashura]

So, in reference to another thread, I actually did some legwork and contacted Ron Wasserman about the DBZ score he did oh so long ago. He's known to be a great guy in the fan community, and was very gracious and answered a few questions for me (and then gave me permission to repost them here.) While short, the response is pretty interesting I would say.

I had also asked him about releasing some unreleased tracks, but unfortunately he didn't keep any of it like he did some of his Power Rangers stuff. (He released almost everything Power Rangers he had to the community a long time ago, which is the only reason I asked.) BTW, I'm a big fan of his rock stuff from Power Rangers, so that's what the first line is in reference to.

Anyway, such a great guy and I really appreciate him taking the time to email me back considering he's busy scoring a network tv show currently.

Hi Ash,

Thanks so much for writing and I'm very flattered to know my work was part of your childhood.

DBZ - To tell you the truth, I can not remember if I wrote [Rock the Dragon]. I 'think' so, but a majority of my work was the score. I remember doing these huge ethereal music cues and Saban was not in my way as they did not give a darn about that show.

I never backed up any of the score and took it home like I did with some of the Power Rangers stuff so I unfortunately don't have any of it to search for. Sorry about that.

Hope all is well!

Ron Wasserman

[cRookie_Monster]

Lol, Mike Smith is like that too. "Did I write that? I'm honestly not sure" But he wrote a $%*& ton of music.

[Ashura]

The comment about Saban is interesting, because for Power Rangers he was stifled creatively I think. I read he was supposed to write the music for the movie, too, but at the last minute Saban changed his mind and went to someone else without telling him. He was allowed one song on the soundtrack, which became Cross My Line (which was about the whole situation I read.)

It's interesting to see that DBZ allowed him freedom. I guess it's a peek into his music untethered. Even if it was wall to wall, I always really liked the Saban DBZ score.

[Levlik]

Well this is certainly interesting! I always assumed it was just Shuki Levy and Kussa Mahehi, as the official soundtrack states. I suppose given how similar the 1996 score is to MMPR it definitely makes sense.

[Gonstead]

Damn, looks like we'll never get those unreleased tracks unless Shuki and Kussa have some.

Good post though!

[Ashura]

Yeah, that's the big thing about Saban. They paid other people to do the music and kept the rights, so they could then get the music residuals on all the anime they released and sublicensed. (You have to realize their output around the Power Rangers era was huge, so one person couldn't realistically do all that music.)

Funimation sort of followed suit with this when they continued to dub DBZ.

[Attitudefan]

You think that some of the scores still exist or were thrown away after the show was cancelled?

[Gonstead]

They probably threw them away, since DBZ wasn't raking in the cash, why keep what you can't make money off?

Someone should contact Shuki and/or Kussa to see if they have perhaps have copies.

[JulieYBM]

Hardly. Saban wouldn't throw away music they could reuse in another show. Look at Masked Rider and Digimon, both used some of the same music.

[Gaffer Tape]

I find the comment that Saban was not at all interested in the show very, um, interesting. Namely due to the fact that, once their association was over, FUNimation threw all the blame in regards to the ridiculous level of censorship on Saban's shoulders when, up to that point, everyone had believed FUNimation to be responsible. But if Saban really didn't care, it doesn't sound like they'd be hovering over the thing and meticulously demanding edits. Very interesting...

[Attitudefan]

So then, did Saban like DBZ or not, obviously FUNi saw potential in making it cheaply with it still being popular and earning lots of profit. Saban did the edits but didn't care about the show? I am very confused??? What I thought before is being turned upside down!

Saban couldn't have been overseer as they had nothing to do with the home releases of the movies which were uncut and no Saban music....

[Ashura]

Saban had notoriously strict BS&P guidelines at the time. If they could've broadcast the show unedited within their and broadcast tv's guidelines then I'm sure they wouldn'tve spent (or made Funimation spend) the money to censor it; it wasn't as easy as after effects is now and was likely time consuming to do.

To show how ridiculous their BS&P was, Saban in that era had mandates for their shows that there couldn't be more than a complete second of absolute silence. Any completely black frames had to be tinted a little so it wouldn't trigger their commercial break system, and they would generally omit any episodes of a show deemed to be too slow that it would lose the attention of kids as well. This is the reason the first episode of Escaflowne was skipped; they felt little boys wouldn't sit through it. (Remember, Saban controlled Fox Kids at the time.) All the stuff that was edited out of DBZ likely did not lay within their BS&P at that point.

When he said Saban didn't care very much about the show, it's likely that Saban didn't see it as the juggernaut that was Power Rangers and his interests were probably far more focused there. He likely saw DBZ as just an entity by which they could make more money, like Samurai Pizza Cats and what have you. Not top tier, but likely profitable.

Remember, Ron did all the memorable music in Power Rangers, and it was Saban's pride and joy at the time. I think he had a bit of hard time creatively working on the music in MMPR, and with DBZ he probably just got to do what he wanted so long as it was wall to wall and didn't include cursewords or negative messages or something that broke their BS&P.

[Pokewhiz7]

Any completely black frames had to be tinted a little so it wouldn't trigger their commercial break system,

Commercial break system?

[Ashura]

Any completely black frames had to be tinted a little so it wouldn't trigger their commercial break system,

Commercial break system?

IIRC, the guy who edited Escaflowne and started editing Slayers for them was talking about how they had to remove any completely black frames from show. This was apparently because the way the commercial break system worked (for at least Fox Kids) is that completely black frames signaled the system to run commercials.

[Gaffer Tape]

Actually, regular Fox was like that too. In the commentary for the first episode of Firefly, Joss Whedon comments on an act break where there is a moment of black with score right before going to commercial that had to be tinted gray because of that.

[Ashura]

Ahhh, thanks Gaffer! I'm glad there's another source to corroborate what I remember so it's just not going on my memory of 10 year old newsgroup posts or whatever!

[Attitudefan]

Huh, I never knew about the commercial break system. DBZ has many white and black flashes, so does that mean it's not #000000 completely?

Interesting really, but hell, DBZ had some really cool music back in the 1990's. I never heard anything really like it before or even now!