English Dub History
In 1995, Funimation Entertainment licensed Dragon Ball Z for an English-language release in the United States. They contracted Saban Entertainment to help finance and distribute the series to television, Pioneer Entertainment to handle home video distribution, Ocean Productions to dub the anime, and Shuki Levy to compose an alternate musical score. This dub of Dragon Ball Z was heavily edited for content, as well as length; reducing the first 67 episodes into 53. The series premiered in the U.S. on September 13, 1996 in first-run syndication, but was cancelled after two seasons due to low ratings.
On August 31, 1998, however, the same cancelled dubbed episodes began airing on Cartoon Network as part of the channel's Toonami programming block, where the series received much more popularity. Soon after, Funimation, having dissolved their partnership with Saban and Pioneer, continued dubbing and distributing the series by themselves, now using their own in-house voice cast, a new musical score composed by Bruce Faulconer, and less editing due to fewer restrictions on cable programming. Dragon Ball Z was now in full production in the U.S. and the new dub of the series aired on Cartoon Network from September 13, 1999 to April 7, 2003.
The Funimation dubbed episodes also aired in Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, and New Zealand. However, beginning with episode 108, Westwood Media (in association with Ocean Productions) produced an alternate English dub. The alternate dub was broadcast in the UK, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Canada, while Funimation's dub continued to air in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. In 2004, Pioneer lost its distribution rights to the first 53/67 episodes of Dragon Ball Z, allowing Funimation to re-dub them with their in-house voice cast and restore the removed content. These re-dubbed episodes aired on Cartoon Network in the U.S. during the summer of 2005.
In 2006, Funimation remastered the episodes in 16:9 widescreen format and then began re-releasing the series to Region 1 DVD in nine individual season box sets. The first set was released on February 6, 2007; the final set on May 19, 2009. In July 2009, Funimation announced that they would again be re-releasing Dragon Ball Z in a new seven-volume DVD set called "Dragon Box Z", which was previously released in Japan as a two-volume set. Based on the original series masters with frame-by-frame restoration, the episodes are uncut and, unlike the previous season box sets, are presented in 4:3 fullscreen format. The first set was released on November 10, 2009; the final set was released on October 11, 2011.
In July 2011, Funimation announced plans to release Dragon Ball Z in Blu-ray format. Dragon Ball Z Level 1.1, containing the first 17 episodes, was released on November 8, 2011.
Read more about this topic: List Of Dragon Ball Z Episodes
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