Here is how it worked:Saiyan BayBays wrote:You know, I've heard a lot of names attached to the DBZ dub that was broadcasted in Canada and the UK. I know the voice actors from the original Saiyan and Namek saga episodes returned to reprise their roles, but was it still a production of the Ocean Group? The reason I ask is because I've also heard people use Blue Water, Westwood, and AB dub.
Even though everyone refers to it as "The Ocean Dub" it was not a production of the Ocean Group in the formal sense, though Ocean Studios was involved in some mixing/post-production aspects of it.
The studio in charge of the dub was Westwood Media, a Vancouver-based studio that is closely tied to Ocean Studios but is technically its own entity. Since Ocean was involved in some capacity, you could think of it as a dual production.
Yes, the voice actors from the original Saiyan and Namek sagas returned to reprise their roles. Some left over time (most notably Peter Kelamis as Goku and Saffron Henderson as Gohan, to be replaced by Kirby Morrow and Jillian Michaels, respectively) but the majority of the cast stayed the same throughout. We had fan-favorites like Brian Drummond's Vegeta, Scott McNeil's Piccolo, Ted Cole's Yamcha, and the rest right through to the end of DBZ.
It must be said that this dub was relatively low-budget due to it being a TV-only dub meant for international distribution, which is why the majority of the music was recycled from other shows and the scripts were nearly the same as FUNimation's (though this could also be due to Terry Klassen, Ocean's Krillin, having been a former FUNimation staff writer). It wasn't until later in the series (think midway through the Buu Saga) when production values noticeably increased and there was some original music composed for the show, as well as special audio effects like reverb, echo, and whatnot used to assist the actors in their performances. This also coincided with a dramatic shift in scripting and dialogue, as they became far less "kid-friendly" and we finally got to hear the characters say "die" and "kill" instead of the lame subsitutes like "hurt" and "destroy." I must say, one of the cooler moments of the later Buu Saga (when the heroes are trying to get the people of earth to give Goku their energy for his spirit bomb) is getting to hear Brian Drummond's Vegeta shout out "RAISE YOUR HANDS NOW OR YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!" at the top of his lungs. It was world's away from when we had "the other dimension," which, for those who recall the days of season 2, was uttered the most by Brian Drummond's Vegeta. It must also be mentioned that the Ocean dub used FUNimation's edited video tracks and titles cards, which raises the question of what part exactly FUNimation themselves may have played in this. It's most likely that Westwood merely paid FUNimation to use their video tracks instead of having to go to Toei, but still, it makes you wonder if FUNi received any kind of royalties from this dub, or if they had any other major involvement in it behind the scenes. And, by extension, it brings to mind the question of whether or not FUNimation could release this dub on DVD if they wanted to. As far as I know, they easily could, but sadly they never will for obvious reasons.
It's never been quite clear what part the AB Group had in this dub. AB Group is a company based in France that oversees the European rights to the Dragonball series. The only apparently significant contribution that AB made to the Ocean dub is that they provided the video tracks from their French dub for the last 4 episodes of Dragonball Z because Westwood actually got around to dubbing those episodes before FUNimation did, hence FUNi's video tracks were not available for use. It would seem that it would also be possible for AB to release the Ocean dub on DVD in Europe, especially given that the United Kingdom (where the Ocean dub aired more or less in its entirety) has never gotten any type of official release of the series. Sadly, AB seems to cater primarily to the French market, so this hasn't happened yet and likely never will.
As for Blue Water? Due to a man named Ken Morrison, who was in charge of Ocean, when it came time to dubbing Dragonball GT and Dragonball, the voice work was farmed out to a Calgary-based subsidiary of Ocean Studios called Blue Water Studios. It is more or less known as the "less talented" branch of Ocean, and you can tell if you actually watch any shows dubbed by them (for those of you in the United States, G-Gundam comes to mind as something that you could easily find on DVD that was dubbed by Blue Water). By the end of 2002 when dubbing of DBZ was completed, the Vancouver-based actors were demanding higher salaries and Ken Morrison, notorious for being a cheap bastard, didn't want to pay them any more than he legally had to. So, DBGT and DB were royally fucked over by being farmed out to Calgary, and there went our chance of ever having the brilliant and incredibly talented Ocean cast voicing either of these shows. It's worth noting that AB had a bigger part in the production of DB and DBGT however, as the video tracks used for these series were from AB's very own French dub. Sadly, the video quality of the French dub has always been incredibly poor, so it looked even worse here. On the other hand, DB and DBGT aired almost completely uncut and uncensored, and the scripts were not based on FUNimation's but instead were relatively accurate translations of the Japanese version. If only Ocean had voiced these series as originally intended, these would have more or less been the perfect dubs, save for the shitty video tracks. Oh well.