Why did the Ocean Dub have 3 actors for Goku?

[ATA]

Howdy,

Goku in the Ocean dub had 3 voices. The MAIN character and the face of the franchise had 3 voices. Now if this was a long running video game series like Sonic it's understandable. However Goku basically had a new voice in every arc that Ocean managed to dubbed.

Ian James Corlett stopped voicing Goku in early Namek Arc. I heard it was due to payment issues.

Peter Kelamis stopped voicing Goku I think during the Cell Arc. I'm not sure on the reasoning.

Kirby Morrow(RIP) was the final voice for Ocean Goku. He was later turned down for DBZ Kai Ocean Dub(That still has not aired). Which means in DBZ Kai we would've had a FOURTH Ocean Goku if it ever airs.

Was anyone who grew up in Canada and UK bothered by this? The main character getting a new voice every arc can't be good for business can it? Why was it hard for Ocean to have a consistent Goku?

[JulieYBM]

Ian Corlett want more money because DB hurt to work on. Kelamis wanted to focus on his comedy career (dubbing pays shit) and Morrow was felt to sound too 'cool' to voice Gokuu in Kai.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Ian Corlett was just in the right place at the wrong time. The payment issue was partly because union rules at the time didn't cater to a show as vocally stressful as Dragon Ball Z. By the time Ocean returned to continue dubbing Z independent of Funimation with Westwood Media handling production duties there were some changes whereby allowances were made for actors to be paid for screams and more break times were allowed between sessions for them to rest their voices.

Ironically enough It was those union changes that also led to Ocean casting a fourth and fifth Canadian adult Goku with Jeremiah Yurk and Jeffrey Watson respectively in the Blue Water dubs as Ken Morrison wanted to save money by not adhering to the new union rules in Vancouver and outsourced GT and original Dragon Ball to Calgary. Luckily by the time of Kai, Ocean dubs were utilising both the Vancouver and Calgary casts, so there was a happy medium that seemingly Morrison was happy with (as far as I can tell Ocean never went back to doing full Calgary dubs).

Getting back to the Vancouver Ocean dubs, as often happens in the dubbing business Peter Kelamis found there was more money to be made elsewhere, so he started to focus more on his comedy career. The fact the Westwood dub was rushed in the beginning probably didn't help, as Ocean had to act quick to be able to sell this dub to international audiences and compete with Funimation, and possibly had less time to plan sessions for Kelamis around his already busy schedule.

Conversely, it seems Kirby Morrow came in at the right time, he was able to commit to Z right until the end and came in at a time when the Westwood dub's production values began to increase. I would argue Morrow was better than Kelamis in the Westwood dub as his performance was more consistent. Sadly in Kai it seemed he wasn't what they were looking for, as he was told to kidify his performance but he ultimately didn't get the part.

Was anyone who grew up in Canada and UK bothered by this? The main character getting a new voice every arc can't be good for business can it? Why was it hard for Ocean to have a consistent Goku?

Not really, I kind of got used to it. Ironically I found it helpful for adjusting to Masako Nozawa's performance because I was so used to hearing so many different voices come from Goku rather than being attached to one.

[chitsunameru]

Cause money same as everything else. Ian wanted more money they said no so he got replaced. Kalamis well he didnt exactly ask for more money he was focusing on other parts of his career at the time and they went along without asking him to return. sadly that left us with kirby for the rest of the series.

[MasenkoHA]

Peter Kelamis stated in his Geekdom interview there was another big break in production after the first batch of episodes they recorded for the Westwood dub and he didn't want to wait around for another renewal that wasn't guaranteed and booked other gigs.

He did a number of other television acting gigs in the early 2000s so I'm not sure where the "quit acting to purse his stand up comedy career" came from

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

It's not that Kelamis left acting to further his comedy career, but more because dubbing is on the lower end of pay in his field of work it didn't make sense to make it a priority. Acting in live action and pre-lay as well as stand-up all pay better and were all taking place in Los Angeles, so it made less sense for Kelamis to remain in Canada for fewer gigs and lower pay. All of this was documented in Kelamis' 2002 interview with Duncan Roberts:

Peter Kelamis: I left the role when the show wasn't able to continue recording with me being in Los Angeles half the time as well as being busy with other work.

As far as "dubbing" goes, it is the least paying of animation work. Their budgets usually don't allow the actor to "phone patch" in their work. You are either able to physically make it to the gig or not.
If you tend to be a busy actor, unfortunately "dubbing" falls farther down the list than say on-screen work or "Pre-lay" recordings.

The part was fun to do and the people involved were great to work with, but I moved on. Kirby is a friend of mine and the show is lucky to have someone as good as him available to do the role.

The information about Kelamis leaving the show because there was a break in production comes from the Geekdom interview, which happened only a few years ago. I'd give more credence to what Kelamis said when the Westwood dub was being recorded and aired as memories of the time are naturally more reliable.

Peter Kelamis said back in 2001 that he chose to leave the show due to being in Los Angeles most of the time, but nowadays he's said they recast him without his knowledge after the show had temporarily stopped production. All due respect to the man (he's my favourite Goku and I love his standup comedy), but I'll tend to place more credence into what he said 17 years ago rather than now, because memory is a funny thing. Actors work on so many projects as it is that it can be hard for them to remember every detail of every project they ever worked on absolutely perfectly almost 2 decades later.

[90sDBZ]

Was anyone who grew up in Canada and UK bothered by this? The main character getting a new voice every arc can't be good for business can it? Why was it hard for Ocean to have a consistent Goku?

It was more than just 3 if you followed the entire UK broadcast. We had the dub switch multiple times on top of regular recasting. We had Ocean for the first 2 seasons, Funimation for the Ginyu-Trunks sagas, Ocean again for the Android-Fat Buu sagas, Funimation again for the 1st few runs of the Fusion saga, and Ocean again for later reruns of the Fusion saga plus the Kid Buu saga. Then we had the Blue Water dubs of GT and OG DB, and finally the Big Green dub for the movies and specials.

So we went from Ian Corlett, to Peter Kelamis, to Sean Schemmel, back to Peter Kelamis, to Kirby Morrow, back to Sean Schemmel, back to Kirby Morrow, to Jeremiah Yurk, to Jeffrey Watson, to David Gasman.

That's 7 different voices for adult Goku alone. To answer your question I did find it extremely jarring at times, although the main 4 from Z (Ian, Peter, Sean, Kirby) all had their strengths and gave us some solid performances.

[MasenkoHA]

Ooh that makes sense. Thanks for the thorough explanation.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Ooh that makes sense. Thanks for the thorough explanation.

No problem, to be honest I can't even blame Kelamis for forgetting the finer details of these things. It's not easy to recall things 15 or so years after the fact when you had so much on your plate at the time. I also wouldn't be aware of this info had Dark Vegeta-Sama not dug it up, so I must thank him for ensuring these facts about the Westwood dub's history weren't lost to time as they weren't as widely available once the old UKDB fansite that heavily researched this closed down.

[Codarik]

I'm not sure where the "quit acting to purse his stand up comedy career" came from

That's what I came here to ask. That's been the reason for years and yet never seen a source for that statement. I also found it weird that he would quit voicing Goku but still continue to voice Rolf in Ed, Edd n Eddy no problem if that was the real reason.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

I'm not sure where the "quit acting to purse his stand up comedy career" came from

That's what I came here to ask. That's been the reason for years and yet never seen a source for that statement. I also found it weird that he would quit voicing Goku but still continue to voice Rolf in Ed, Edd n Eddy no problem if that was the real reason.

As I said, prelay cartoon work pays better than dubbing, and Peter Kelamis also had to spend a lot of time in Los Angeles due to his comedy. Its less a case of quitting acting, but more that it wasn't practical for Kelamis to be up in Vancouver when he had more lucrative gigs down south. He has said in recent years he would be happy to return to the franchise if the opportunity presents itself, ala Brian Drummond as Copy Vegeta. It's a lot easier nowadays as the technology has improved to the point actors can be directed over the Internet and send high quality recordings over to the studio, so I hope Chris Sabat will consider Kelamis and other Ocean regulars for future dubs where possible.