Did you notice the cast/score change growing up?

[Kakacarrottop]

Obviously this question is for people from English speaking countries who were familiar with the FUNi and Ocean DBZ dubs back in the day. Personally i had no idea the early episodes had different people behind it before i became a teenager since that kind of info wasn't readily available those days due to the internet not being as popular as it is now.

Growing up i mainly watched the original FUNi dub stuff although i saw a fair bit of the Saban/Ocean dub for the Namek saga (it was probably my first exposure to the show), nearly nothing of their Saiyan saga dub and the uncut Ocean dub for Dead Zone as well. Unlike most English speaking fans, i didn't find out about the show through Toonami (who constantly aired Season 1-2 Ocean reruns making the cast/music change more noticeable) but rather through Home video and my local TV network. Whenever i saw the early episodes i noticed some of the voices were a little different (Piccolo for example) and also that the music sounded either really creepy or happy (like during the scenes on King Kai's planet) and not similar to the later FUNi Faulconer score. Also i remember hating the music that was used in the first movie (The original Japanese score Ocean used) because it sounded so different to the action/metal score for the show and later movies. If you were one of the people who knew the cast changed then how did you react to the change in voices and music back then? and if you're a late bloomer who only grew up with FUNi then how did you react when you first heard the old Ocean DBZ dub?

[Ajay]

I grew up in the UK so we had the 'Ocean cast' to start with, then a bunch of the regular FUNi cast as we know them today and then back to the 'Ocean/Westwood cast' after Freeza's defeat.

We had a different voice for Goku every two seconds it felt like! Corlett, Schemmel, Kelamis and Morrow. Thing is, I noticed he sounded different between arcs but I never cottoned onto the fact it was a bunch of different people when I was a kid. It was just...Goku. He had multiple sounds to him and for some reason that was totally normal to me. I think the fact that it was relatively consistent between arcs helped a lot. It wasn't like one episode he was one person and the next he was another.

With the music, I didn't notice a difference. Levy sounded like Faulconer who sounded like Megaman music to my kiddy brain. It was just Dragon Ball's music and I paid very little attention to it.

I remember taking a trip to the US and catching episodes of the Cell arc there. We had our own voice actors for that and I was totally used to them since that's what I'd been watching the week before the trip. Getting there and hearing FUNi's actors was very strange.

I think having an ever-changing Goku made my ascendance into the original Japanese far easier. I didn't really have an attachment to any voice in that role.

[thaman91]

I was 8 years old at the time and had gotten pretty tired of watching seasons 1 and 2 over and over and over again. I remember being super excited when I saw the promos for the new batch of episodes. When I finally saw "Ginyu Assault" for the first time, I noticed that something was off.

Right away, I could tell that the voices for the main characters were different. Kuririn, in particular, sounded drastically different from his Ocean counterpart. And although the other voices sounded kind of similar, they still sounded slightly off. Regarding the minor characters, I didn't really notice their cast change because I guess I never really paid much attention to them anyway.

I could also tell that the music had changed. Initially, I didn't really feel that it was better or worse. But after a few episodes into it, I really started to enjoy and even remember some of the new musical themes.

But because I was so young, I convinced myself that I must have simply imagined these changes. I tried talking to my fellow 2nd graders about it, but they neither noticed nor cared and were instead too preoccupied with the plot to worry about things like casting changes. And so I convinced myself that I must have imagined the change. However, after season 3 finished airing, Toonami started rerunning the series starting from the beginning. It was then that I was able to confirm my suspicions that the cast and music for the first batch of episodes were in fact different. Still, nobody I talked to seemed to care except me. It wasn't until many years later that I learned the full story about the creation of the American dub.

[Dbzfan94]

I didn't get into the series until FUNi took over, so no not really.
But there was still a few voice changes I completely missed within the dub itself growing up, that being Dale Kelly as the narrator.

Dale Kelly was the narrator until (I think) the end of the Cell Saga, and as a kid they sounded exactly the same so I never realized. Does that count?

[NitroEX]

As a kid in the UK I definitely noticed, especially with the music. I started watching the show during the westwood Imperfect Cell saga so when I saw reruns for the first time of the earlier Saban episodes it was quite a jarring change of tone despite the Ocean cast being pretty much the same. I recall the Saiyan saga in particular feeling quite eerie and foreboding with the Shuki Levi score.

The episodes with the Funi in house cast didn't leave much of an impression on me. I can only remember that I didn't like Krillin,Vegeta and Piccolo's new voices but I stuck with it regardless. It was only until the Garlic Jr episodes that I even noticed the Faulconer music but I think that was because of the Garlic jr theme playing so often. The Trunk's debut was the only moment I remembered fondly from that dub before carrying on with the rest of the westwood dub.

The change from kelamis to Kirby Morrow midway during the Perfect Cell saga was noticeable for me but I didn't mind it as much since the rest of the cast remained the same. In hindsight I think the transition was aided by the fact that both Goku and Gohan went in to the time chamber with their old voices and came out with new appearances and voices to match. As for the Megaman/Monster Rancher score I had no issues with it, afterall it was the default DBZ score to my young mind.

GT and the original Dragon Ball aired with the Blue water dubs which took the most getting used to as the voices for the most part were pretty awful but by the DB dub the characters were so far removed from where they were in Z I could appreciate it as it's own thing. The Japanese score in GT caught my attention most as I remember it feeling very... old. The whole show felt dated really which was weird since it was meant to be newer than DBZ. After a while I grew to love the GT score as it was oddly nostalgic and reminded me of early 90s cartoons and anime I had watched when I was younger.

After that I moved country and saw more of the Funi dub through the DBZ movie DVDs and rewatching GT broadcasts on a different television station (this time with the Funi dub and Menza score).
By this time I was so numb to dub changes and had already seen GT anyway so I really didn't care for what I was watching. I did think the movies were cool with the American rock soundtrack but the GT rap opening was laughably bad even then and had nothing on the blue water intro.

Looking back I dodged a bullet as I just missed the airing of the Big Green dub movies in the Uk. I only learned about them much later through the internet.

[Kakacarrottop]

By this time I was so numb to dub changes and had already seen GT anyway so I really didn't care for what I was watching. I did think the movies were cool with the American rock soundtrack but the GT rap opening was laughably bad even then and had nothing on the blue water intro.

Looking back I dodged a bullet as I just missed the airing of the Big Green dub movies in the Uk. I only learned about them much later through the internet.

When i was a kid i actually thought that rap rock song for GT was pretty cool. I remember 7 year old me dancing around in my grandparents lounge to that song (although obviously now i can't listen to it without cringing).

In all honesty i feel a bit sorry for all the UK fans who had to grow up with Vegeta sounding like Ren Hoek (Ocean dub), then a constipated chain-smoking biker (FUNi dub), a nerd (Blue Water dub) and then finally a frail old man (Big Green dub), you guys must of been wondering what the hell was going on. No wonder the show never really took off over there. Here in Australia we pretty much got what Americans did; the Saban dub for the first two seasons, Pioneer dub for the first 3 movies, then FUNi for everything else.

[Straw]

Oh God, yeah. After two years or so of watching Saban's seasons over and over, my ears picked up the different actors and music completely.

For one thing, even for a 12 year old, the dialogue and acting were noticeably worse. Much worse. To the point where I really wasn't feeling the show for the longest time because I couldn't get over how cheesy it was. The Faulconer score didn't bother me at the time-- it was less droning and abrasive than the Shuki Levy score.

But yeah, the further I got into Season 3, and the more I went back to the dubs of Dead Zone and The World's Strongest, the more I wanted to see the original version of the show.

Thanks, Season 3. You did me a huge favor.

[ABED]

I couldn't tell the difference between the American and Japanese footage for Power Rangers, so I guess I could see someone not noticing a difference, but with DBZ, it was pretty blatant. Granted, I was 13 when I first saw Ginyu - Assault.

[VegettoEX]

Kind of a hard question to answer, because what I consider "growing up" these days is different than what I considered a "growing up" timeframe 15 years ago .

I was in high school and already running my website for a year and a half or so when the voice cast change happened. We knew it was coming for quite some time, so the raw fact of there being different voices wasn't a shock to me.

[Theophrastus]

Nope. I somehow noticed the title cards being less fancy, but I was too young and/or excited over the fact that they were actually airing new episodes to really notice or care about the voice and music differences.

[jjgp1112]

I started watching when the Cell saga was airing on Toonami, and after that was over with they went back to the Saiyan saga...and the cast and music differences were incredibly obvious.

[ABED]

Nope. I somehow noticed the title cards being less fancy, but I was too young and/or excited over the fact that they were actually airing new episodes to really notice or care about the voice and music differences.

My experience was similar. I noticed the changes, but I didn't care because after what seemed like forever, I was watching new episodes of my favorite show.