So let's be real the vast majority of the english-speaking Dragon Ball fandom in America discovered the series for the very first time while watching the Toonami block at five o'clock Eastern Every afternoon on Cartoon Network they all watched Dragon Ball Z and the vast majority of them who were still fans to this day Became hooked on the series would go on to watch the other subsequent series in various different Languages play the video games watch the movies and pretty much became fans for life and many of them are well people like you who? Are watching this video right now in? 2017 now 2017 is a very important year in the history of Cartoon Network because Cartoon Network is celebrating 25 years of being on the air So I'm thinking well if Cartoon Network is celebrating 25 years of being on the air one of their biggest shows ever Without question that pulled some of the biggest ratings in the history of the network was Dragonball Z Which is my specialty in thus on this edition of Dragonball and dept? I present to you Dragonball Z on Toonami the inside story the entire history of cartoon network toonami and Dragon Ball Z's run together the entire story from beginning to end of an era that Literally made millions of people fans of not, just Dragonball, but anime in general Let's look back and celebrate all these years together on Dragonball in dept Konoe also gonna sponsor a take your day or Christmas In a changing world one company is changing the way the world communicates With the nation's number one cable network year after year, and the world's leader in the television news From the fastest 30 minute news services to original productions sports and timeless motion pictures the one and only 24-hour Cartoon Network programming for the world at Turner Broadcasting today One of the unquestionable truisms about this story is that if it wasn't for Dragonball Z and the Toonami block There would not have been an anime boom in the late 90s Dragonball Z and the Toonami block was one of the biggest contributors to this anime boom along with Sailor Moon and Pokemon and a few other shows that came along after or right before and there would not even be a Toonami if there was no Cartoon Network Cartoon Network was the home for Toonami Greek philosopher Aristotle believed in the theory of the unmoved mover which to keep it simple states that nothing can come from nothing Something has to come from something so where did Cartoon Network come from Cartoon Network was birthed by media mogul Ted Turner Now before Cartoon Network was even a twinkle in Ted Turner's. Eye. He had already become a very successful businessman on television with other networks such as Wtbs the super station then later TNT and then his big coup de Gras was the first 24-hour news network CNN the cable news network Which many thought at the time was an ambitious idea and one that would fail? I know it's kind of hard for young people to understand this but at one time you could not get your news 24 hours a day seven days a week you had to wait for the evening news or the Late-night news this is years before the internet would even become close to what it is today and there just wasn't a 24-hour news cycle in existence at the time so Ted Turner was the first one to really have the vision of a 24-hour news cycle now in the 1980s Television would become bigger than a head have been before there were brand new networks Popping Up Left And Right Cable TV became a household thing in the 80s as more and more Families began to have cable installed in their homes and had access to a plethora of new channels and at the time Turner Broadcasting Was already a huge player in the television game so by the mid 80s Turner Broadcasting Decided it was time to expand their tape library to add new Content and more content to the existing cable companies and cable providers and create newer and more diverse Television stations to add to the cable tear and to provide more content for viewers at home Who were getting on this cable bandwagon in? 1986 Turner Broadcasting purchased the video library from metro-goldwyn-mayer and United Artists mgm/ua for one and a half billion dollars And this was supposed to be the beginning of the expansion of more content being provided for all the different Turner Broadcasting television stations but there were some problems when it came to financing and It didn't go as they had expected this would lead to Ted selling MGM back but Ted would retain several tape libraries that he got from the initial purchase including films like Casablanca and over a Thousand or so cartoons from the MGM and Warner Brothers library including Tom and Jerry and old Bugs Bunny cartoons and things of that nature That would actually air in theaters decades prior so Turner Broadcasting Had a huge chunk of cartoons already in their library, but it wasn't until 1991 when they purchased the entire Hanna-barbera tape library that the idea for a cartoon network much like Cartoon Network's predecessor CNN a 24 hour news network a 24 hour network that airs only cartoons would become a reality and one year later on October 1st 1992 Cartoon Network was born I mean it makes sense if you have all these tapes of all these different Cartoons like scooby-doo and the Flintstones and the Jetsons you gotta air them somewhere right and the idea for a 24-hour Cartoon Network Was met with a lot of skepticism who would watch cartoons at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning? Well the answer was all of us and as a result of that the early Cartoon Network began and a lot of it was strictly Hanna-barbera at MGM cartoons and although these were old shows They really were the foundation of Cartoon Network, and as the network would evolve throughout the years Then we would see things like anime become incorporated and of course eventually Cartoon Network, we're starting to make its own cartoons like Dexter's Laboratory and the Powerpuff Girls And they were able to create their own studio to produce these cartoons Exclusively and not have to rely on old cartoons to carry the network so the question you're asking is ok That's fair Where does Toonami come in in order to fully grasp the genesis of what would become the Toonami block and what it would evolve into One has to look at the idea behind an action cartoon block that would become the foundation Of what would eventually be Toonami well you know? primarily children watch cartoons But but but but adults watch cartoons too in fact in The evening on the average evening more people more adults are tuned into the cartoon that we're going to turn to singing in Cartoon Network began October 1st 1992 and they wasted no time in establishing an afternoon block of Action-oriented cartoons, which is exactly what Toonami would become in the late 90s? But in the early 90s it was called super adventures and much like the rest of the early embryonic Cartoon Network era most of the shows that would air on here would be directly from the hanna-barbera library such as the Fantastic Four Space Ghost Birdman and the original Jonny Quest among others Which is funny because the new Johnny Quest cartoon would actually be one of the big staples of the early Toonami era many years later Super adventures would be one of many afternoon cartoon blocks that would air back in those days Alongside the Disney Afternoon and the Fox kids afternoon lineup in the early 90s But they also had super adventure Saturday Which is the weekend version of course? We all know about Saturday morning cartoons, but that's a video for another day and maybe even another channel, but nonetheless Super adventure Saturday could be seen as a prelude to what would become the Toonami Rising Sun but more on that later super adventures would last from 1992 until 1994 but they didn't just give up on having an afternoon block of action shows no Instead they rebranded it and thus in 1994 super adventures would become Afternoon adventures and this time they ran newer shows like James Bond jr. SWAT cats and Captain Planet, and the Planeteers which was actually a cartoon that was produced by Turner Broadcasting So it was almost like a predecessor so to speak to shows like Powerpuff Girls at Johnny Bravo Which would come years later? That would be produced in-house and not be from the old tapes afternoon adventures would last from 94 to 1996 when it would be replaced by the powers own But before we get to 1996 we have to talk about a very very important and crucial piece of history that is often overlooked and that is what happened a year earlier in 1995 the first time that we saw Japanese animation on Cartoon Network You asked for it and now the Cartoon Network is going to give it to you Six hours of intense Japanese animation with robot carnival vampire hundred II my light of the cockroaches It's the Cartoon Network's night of the vampire robots Saturday night at midnight on the best place for cartoons Now as much as I am tempted to go into the entire history of anime and What it was in the 80s and 90s in North America? That's a video for another day, but I do want to talk about Anime on Cartoon Network and the first time we saw anime on Cartoon Network It was not in the afternoon you see back then anime was well first of all it was called japanimation and during that era a lot of different anime films and anime TV shows were kind of seen as being taboo because Japanese cartoons were typically more violent and more sexualized than what the American audience was used to but Cartoon Network took a gamble and on January 28 1995 starting at midnight until 6 a.m. They aired a three movie block called night of the vampire robots on Cartoon Network featuring three anime movies dubbed Robot carnival vampire hunter D and twilight of the cockroaches now these had actually aired on sci-fi Channel a few years prior, but for the broadcast on Cartoon Network. They were of course gonna be heavily edited and censored because if you've seen vampire hunter D You know a lot of that stuff ain't for kids But this was also the beginning This was the birth the origin of what would become the anime boom, and it was all thanks to Toonami incorporating anime into its lineup for the after-school crowd so in 1996 afternoon adventures became the power zone and would add Speed Racer to the lineup another Japanese show, which had been dubbed ages earlier for American broadcast But it's presumed that the reason this show even made it there is because of Cartoon Network producer and executive Michael as oh now I wish I could do an entire video on Michael Lazos influence on Cartoon Network and what he brought to the table But essentially he was a huge fan of anime as a kid watching Astro Boy and Speed Racer, and this would kind of become an adult love that he would bring to Cartoon Network So as the story goes Michael Lazo at the time was handling programming and original production on Cartoon Network You would enlist the services of guys like Shawn Aikens Jason DeMarco And a handful of others that would really lay the groundwork for what Toonami would become these guys would often brainstorm what they wanted the ideal cartoon block to be and as Jason DeMarco recounts he would frequent a Japanese video store in Atlanta that was basically run by Japanese people for the Japanese people in Atlanta But they would have tons and tons of videotapes of shows from Japan many of these tapes were not even Subtitled they were essentially anime and live-action shows from the Orient and these guys would frequently rent these tapes Watch them and become marveled at this Incredible animation from the Far East now there were a lot of things going on in 1996 one of which being the debut of the English dub the original ocean studios Funimation Saban English dub of dragon ball z which would begin the same year So before Dragonball Z actually made a to Cartoon Network on Toonami. It was running on syndication now I'm not gonna go into the entire history and a thorough explanation of what syndication is but to sum it up Different TV networks would purchase the rights to air the TV shows in different markets, so depending on where you lived in the United States depending on whether or not you even got to see Dragonball Z and if You did get to see it when it would air it wasn't just on one network and it wasn't just on cable it was on various networks one of which of course being the WB which a lot of Dragon Ball Z fans remember watching when they were little kids either Saturday or Sunday morning from 1996 to 1997 the combination of ocean studios Saban and Funimation would produce two seasons of Dragon Ball Z for syndication from 1996 to 1998, but it was in 1997 that we would see the birth of Toonami After having long discussions about what to call this damn thing? Lazo Incans DeMarco the whole crew over there at Cartoon Network finally settled on the name to Nami and on March 17 1997 Power zone was out and tsunami was in Originally hosted by Malta this would be the realization of the dream of the after school afternoon block of cartoons loaded with action The early days of Toonami were very different than what it would evolve into the first lineup included Thundercats cartoon roulette Voltron and the real Adventures of Johnny quest and this would be the lineup for pretty much all of 1997 but then in 1998 we began to see the incorporation of new shows well new hull shows like Robo tech and transformers But the big coup that changed tsunami would happen on June 1st 1998 when Sailor Moon aired for the first time on cable television became part of Toonami and try to understand that during this era Sailor Moon was as Popular if not more so than even Dragonball Z was so this was huge huge for Cartoon Network Brand-new superstars like they got a crush on a Girl But even though you may think that it was automatically a success there were still a lot of uncertainty from the executives They weren't sure if this was gonna work and even though they were given tons of creative liberties They still weren't sure this would actually be a success because the ratings would still be kind of here or there Sailor Moon gave them a huge bump though and as a result. They wanted more anime so just two months later on August 31st 1998 Dragon Ball Z the previously syndicated first two seasons of DBZ Began to air on Cartoon Network's Toonami block and history was made without question if it wasn't for Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z the anime boom would not be what it is Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z together helped usher in the era of Anime being a popular thing to watch and would open the doors for more anime to be brought on such as ronin warriors Such as Gundam Wing Tenchi Muyo the big o outlaw star and all the other big shows from toonami it all Started really with Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z now as I mentioned these DBZ episodes were already aired in syndication For the past couple of years they were heavily edited. They were dubbed by the ocean group they were tremendously censored but most of the kids were watching at the time had no idea that there was a more gory or uncut version out there in other countries So they would just watch it because Dragon Ball Z was a great show to watch and the series Skyrocketed on Cartoon Network and quickly became the most popular show on the network But they ran into a bit of a problem because well to put it simple they ran of episodes They only had fifty-three Censored dubbed episodes to air and that was it so once we all watched our hero Goku finally make it to Planet Namek and knock out raccoon with one elbow It was back to the arrival of Raddatz for what seemed like an eternity but Cartoon Network persevered Now in addition to the early TV episodes of Dragon Ball Z that were dubbed at the time Funimation and ocean Studios also dubbed exclusively for home release the first three Dragon Ball Z movies dead zone The world's strongest and the tree of might and these were produced Significantly different in the TV episodes they weren't anywhere close to being a censored they kept the original Japanese music they were dubbed with a better script and some consider this to be the greatest dub in the history of DBZ because of how good it was with the ocean voices talking like an actual serious anime release not a goofy censored kiddie cartoon That would be what aired during the DBZ run on syndication But what's interesting is that actually what they did at one time was they took the tree of might? Movie and cut it up into three episodes and aired on syndication sometimes during the Namek saga, so there are actually two original ocean dubs of the tree of my movie one that was cut up for TV and one that aired on the home video version so Toonami Needed more Dragonball Z so they went with the three Dragon Ball Z movies and would air the movies on three consecutive weeks on Friday with commercial breaks for the first time ever on Television now the tree of my version that they use for week one Was the edited ocean dub version with the replacement score from Sookie levy however? When it came to showing the world's strongest and dead zone, not only did they air the? Uncut home versions of these films, which not only had a much more accurate script to the original movies, but played the original Kikuchi score for the first time ever on Cartoon Network, but also they hired the world famous legendary trailer voice of the time Don LaFontaine so if you watched these movies when they first aired the legendary voice of the movies you heard the epic trailer voice of Don LaFontaine Talking about Goku in a world. That's powered by violence It's Christmas Eve in LA special agent, John Kruger Harry Tasker a New York cop John McClane now They're about to collide his loyalty is to a child Fighting for everything he holds dear They would steal a child for the key to immortality, but now they must face his father. The Earth's greatest champion His name is The battle for our planet begins again Cartoon Network presents a special Dragon Ball Z episode Friday at 4 But that's not all during the teaser for the world's strongest you got to hear the voice of Masako, Nozawa as Goku for the first and maybe only time on Cartoon Network Has granted a wish that could destroy the earth after a half century of president dr. Winger is free only to survive To take over the planet he means the perfect vessel for his brilliant mind, and he means the world's strongest fighter Goku is gonna give it to it Cartoon Network presents the exclusive premiere of a special Dragon Ball Z movie the world's strongest next Friday at 4 And that's certainly not the only Top-notch voice talent that was involved with Toonami during this time period it would be a crime if I didn't talk about see Martin croaker the voice of Malta the original host of Toonami and a man who would be very very important when it came to Cartoon Network and Adult Swim and everything that came out of that branch after Malta Cartoon Network decided to create its own unique host for the block the tsunami operations module otherwise known as Tom the robot and this also had a very strong Dragon Ball Z tie-in because the original version of Tom was voiced by Sonny Strait who is known as the voice of Kremlin in the Dragon Ball Z Funimation dub and then all the subsequent versions of Tom were hosted by Steve Blum Another legendary voice actor who also has a connection to Dragon Ball from years prior Steve Blum voiced goku in the very rare Dragon Ball GT Final bow for the English release of the ps1 game as the host of Toonami Tom would introduce the show's to you give his Commentary sometimes review games as well as sometimes give Inspirational speeches to all of us watching at home aboard the spaceship absolution And it would be these little bumpers and promos and video packages that so many of us would remember as being such high quality Editing and you could tell that there was so much love put into these things Every single time they aired and Cartoon Network really had a knack for Explaining to the viewer what a show was about within 30 seconds which to me is why so many people remember this era so fondly And speaking of legendary voices besides just Steve Blum and Don LaFontaine And all these guys that were major players who could forget the fact that Toonami recruited Peter Cullen himself the legendary voice of Optimus Prime to do some of the best Voiceover work and narration in the history of the network Even to this day I'm kind of still in disbelief that these things actually Happen like that so after the three movies aired Cartoon Network was once again out of episodes Dragon Ball Z fans wanted to see what happened they wanted to see Goku fight Frieza they wanted to see where the story would go and many of them did not have access to fansubs or Tape trading or watching the show in other languages so Cartoon Network took the initiative and teamed up with Funimation and said hey give us more Dragon Ball Z and thus Funimation would begin production on what would become season 3 of Dragon Ball Z covering the remainder of the frieza saga But the problem was that Funimation at the time was not a financially healthy company and thus in order to cut costs They could no longer outsource to ocean studios in Vancouver and had to find new voices to voice these characters So what they did was they held auditions in Texas and found who would become the? cast of Dragon Ball Z the Funimation cast of Dragon Ball Z featuring Chris Abbott Shawn Schemmel and many others who would actually stay on to voice these Characters even to this day now because this would be on cable Funimation had a little bit more elbow room to make the series less censored so we saw more blood and way less censorship Than they had previously with Saban now speaking of Saban because there was no Saban there was no Sookie Levy involved in this dub, so they had to reach out for a new composer, and that's when they found sock under Productions Which I have already covered in a previous edition of Dragon Ball in-depth? So you can check that out so you can learn the history of how that came about So Dragon Ball Z on TV was still censored, but not anywhere close to how it had been previously Toonami would promote Dragon Ball Z season 3 as a major deal This was the long awaited second half of the frieza saga when Goku would finally achieve his grand golden transformation and they took a page right out of the Bible and called it the Dragon Ball Z Second Coming the damages Dragon Ball diary So by the time we got to season three Dragon Ball Z's ratings began to skyrocket And the series would gain such a cultural following that it would become a part of pop culture Often being the number one program of the week on cable television between the ages of nine and twenty four consistently Dragonball Z was ranked in the top three programs on all of television competing with shows like CBS survivor Competing with WWF Monday Night Raw and other huge shows of the time in fact at the time Dragonball Z was such a huge pop culture staple that it even received an article in The Wall Street Journal condemning the show for its violence and its brutality You know when the Wall Street Journal makes an article complaining about you being too violent for kids You know you've made it so once the frieza saga came to an end during its first run there were still a handful of Episodes at the end of the frieza saga part of season 3 that, we would know as the Garlic jr. Saga so what Toonami did instead of airing on its regular afternoon block Cartoon Network would begin to establish its own Saturday morning cartoon block like it did in the early 90s, but this time it was called the Toonami Rising Sun and that's when they aired the Garlic jr. Saga, but that wasn't enough Dragon Ball Z continued to grow in popularity Funimation began to rake in the money, and thus the rest of the series was finally set to be dubbed and thus season four Seventy-seven new episodes of Dragon Ball Z would begin airing starting on September 1st 2000 and this would cover the entire cell saga and be known as Season 4 of Dragon Ball Z now we're talking about the original run Seasons not what they list on the orange bricks the orange bricks cut the series up into nine seasons But that's completely fabricated because Dragon Ball Z was not nine seasons on Toonami. It was only six as Season five would begin the following year with the other world tournament in the first half of the bou' saga And then season six would finally air the year after that in 2002 But that would be cut up into two parts so Dragon Ball Z would continue to air all the way until the last episode aired on April 7 2003 but of course by this time Dragon Ball GT and Dragon Ball had also began being dubbed and Toonami would air those series as well So the first run of Dragon Ball Z came to an end in April of 2003 and then we'd get our expected reruns for the next few months But wait what about those original first two seasons that were dubbed by the ocean group would we ever get an unedited? Funimation in-house dub the answer is yes in 2005 Cartoon Network would begin to air the ultimate uncut editions of the first two seasons dubbed in-house by Funimation With composer Nathan Johnson doing the music this would appear late nights and would be the first time that American audiences would see an English dub of the first 67 Dragon Ball Z episodes without them being all chopped up like the original first two Ocean slash Saban seasons were so once all the episodes of all the series had finally aired Dragon Ball Z just became one of those shows that people watch whenever they wanted to and Tsunami would show other anime and debut other shows in the years to come but none would really have the same impact that Dragon Ball Z had during that late 90s anime boom but one thing that I found very very interesting is that? many years later on April 1st 2012 Adult Swim actually aired Dragon Ball Z along with other classic Toonami era anime as part of their April Fool's run This was the original version that aired in the 90s and 2000's with the Bruce falconer score Exactly like how it aired the first time which was a nice treat for those fans nostalgic for the era of coming home after school Sitting in front of the TV and watching Earth's Mightiest Heroes defend the universe from the worst tyrant in existence But alas nothing lasts forever and in 2008 the Toonami block came to an end But there's been a few revivals here and there and really anime is still being shown on Cartoon Network Consistently even to this day And if it wasn't for the Toonami block none of this would be possible that block exposed so many people to so many different shows and it's a time period That will never be forgotten for those of us who had the pleasure of living? The more things change the more they stay the same as even to this day Cartoon Network is still airing Dragon Ball currently airing Dragon Ball super Saturday nights as well as Dragon Ball Z Kai and none of this would be possible if it wasn't for that original Toonami run and the importance of Toonami not just on Dragon Ball Z not just on anime, but I would dare to say all of animation and it all began with the genesis of Cartoon Network, which would create tsunami Create the anime boom or at least significantly helped push the anime boom which is really why many of us are still here? Today talking about the series covering the new series and just having a blast Thank you, so very much for allowing me to create this video for you It was a lot of work, and I appreciate if you watch the entire thing you made it this far I am Very blessed and humbled to be talking about Dragon Ball Z and I know for a fact that If it wasn't for this Toonami run I would not be doing this so it's Very important to always remember that no matter how many mistakes the original English dub made and how many dub is amande All the problems with it it really created that new audience that would eventually become hardcore fans which is many of you so I thank you for that and I hope you enjoyed this edition of Dragon Ball in death I hope you have a great day, and let's all celebrate 25 years of Cartoon Network And let's hope we get another 25. I'll catch you down the road You
