American cartoons dubbed in different languages

P

Peter O

New member
People often complain about how America ruins cartoons from other countries, especially anime (in fact, almost exclusively anime)...but what do those other countries do to our shows?

Nickelodeon Japan has clips of some of their shows on their homepage, most notably Spongebob, Avatar, and Dora.
http://www.nickjapan.com/index.html
Most of the stuff is pretty good, but Patrick...oh god, what did they do to Patrick?!

And, of course, there's tons of multilanguage videos of Disney songs on YouTube. Good way to pass the time.

So, have you seen American cartoons in other languages, and if you have, what are your opinions on them?
 
The classic "Oh god, they better get the dub right!" thing. When you hear your show is heading over seas, you hope they get the dub right. But I have yet to see any clips.
 
I watched The Simpsons in Japanese once {the episode "Kamp Krusty"...it's on the season box set that includes that episode...}...For the most part,I thought the voices were fine....Homer sounds just as stupid/silly,Bart and Lisa sound fine....The only voice I had a problem with was Marge's...She sounds like a little girl,not a thirty-something mother of three....
 
The Irish language channel (TG4), has shown numerous dubbed American cartoons, most notably SpongeBob (they even did the theme song), but also others such as Juniper Lee & Foster's. All have been dubbed by Telegael as far as I know, which, by the way, co-produces Skunk Fu!, and was originally broadcast in Irish.

To give them credit, they mostly get the voices right; SpongeBob is probably the closest in terms of all the characters but in Foster's case, Mr Herriman, definitely does not have an English accent! The shows themselves are completely watchable, and being bilingual, I can safely say that the dubs are almost 100% accurate.

All this is great because I got to see all the cartoons that normally wouldn't be shown on a terrestrial station.

Now,as for movies, I haven't seen it, but the trailer for the American version of The Magic Roundabout ("Doogal")did not look good in any way.
 
Meh...watching an American show dubbed into a foreign language is about as appealing as watching a Japanese cartoon dubbed into English. Which is why I tend to avoid both of them like the plague.
 
I've always been fond of Italy's version of foriegn shows (American, French, Japanese, whatever) because they usually have awesome theme songs. My favorite being W.I.T.C.H (ironic, since the comic originates from Italy, even though the show is American)
 
Usually American cartoons are dubbed correctly into Spanish. Sometimes of course they take small liberties like with the simpsons, which sometimes they add latin puns or cliches, but usually for what I seen.. they get the dubs right. Not everything can be translated from English to spanish word per word.

One thing I like about spanish dubs.. they usually have better voices for their cartoons chracthers. Like Garfield for example.. has a great voice in the spanish dub. and the flinstones sound much better in spanish.
 
There's some woman who actually is responsible for quite a lot of them, actually. Her name escapes me at the moment... but she has her own youtube page. The songs are dramatically different, especially Taz-Mania. They are pretty catchy. I think she even has albums full of those songs. And it's not uncommon to see those album covers feature both Inspector gadget and Goku on the cover.



Anyone remember Ned's Newt? I remember seeing several episodes on a Spanish Language station. They changed all of Newton's impersonations, altering the celebrity references.




I gotta check that out... but who needs Dora when you got Doraemon?
 
I once watched Totally Spies in Welsh. The Welsh version is called Tair Slic and, surprisingly, they even went to the effort of changing the title logo.

I don't remember what Sam, Alex or Jerry sound like, but I do remember Clover's voice. It sounds nothing like the original. Instead of talking like a valley girl, Clover sounds quite snobbish.
 
If you think Marge sounds off in Japanese, in the Czech dub she sounds like a man.

I've seen some of Earthworm Jim dubbed into German. The voices are pretty spot on and the translation seems oddly literal.

Disney does a good job with their dubbing into foreign languages. I've seen parts of Snow White and Aladdin in Japanese and Arabic.
South Park dubbed into Japanese is interesting. Cartman sounds more like a kid than in the English version and Kyle sounds exactly like InuYasha from the Japanese version, and is in fact voiced by Kappei Yamaguchi.

While it isn't animation, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" is an interesting experience in its Japanese dub, since two of the Python members are voiced by Lupin III and Zenigata's Japanese voice actors.
 
Did I ever watched American cartoon in another language? To me that's more of a rethorical question... Its almost all I ever watched in my childhood :p

The Simpson have their own dub in Quebec (we don't use France's version) and it is EXTREMELY good... in fact I just outright prefer it to the original! There was quite an uproar when the early Simpson DVD sets didn't have it.

Here's the movie trailer for you to judge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeyJbZuefs8

Now when it comes to dub from France the quality is VERY uneven. Some dub show that nobody really gives a damn about it and the actors are really lame...others like say the Avatar dub are pretty good quality. Sometimes they do change the celebrity references but its rare. Live action dubs though just suck most of the time :p
 
SO here's the question... what do you like more in these foreign dubs of US cartoons? Original music, or them just rerecording or dubbing the original opening titles. I've heard both, and I don't know what I like better.

The french Ghostbusters (filmation) has a song based loosely around the US version (they keep the "Let's Go, Ghostbusters, Let's go" part... in English). The Japanese opening of Wacky Races is a theme song, rather than a narration (if you have ever played the NES game "Wacky Races" they use the Japanese theme song in the US release). The Arabic version of Doraemon has a more traditional Arabic tune.

By contrast, I heard the French version of Ducktales, and they use the same tune, but rerecorded the music. Plus, they hit a much higher note than the US singers did when they get to the "Or Rewrite History" part. Japan rerecorded the 1980's TMNT theme when they got it to be a couple keys lower, making it sound more ominous.
 
That sounds pretty ignorant on Fox's part that the early DVD sets had the "wrong" French dub. Reminds me of when Disney had the Spain dub of Miyzaki's "Kiki's Delivery Service" on the US DVD when there was already a Latin American dub floating around that would've been more market-friendly.

I'm not used to the French version of The Simpsons much, but I do prefer the Mexican Spanish dub over the one from Spain. The one from Mexico I've seen prior to the DVD sets due to my local Fox station having broadcast it on the second audio channel. The one from Spain isn't bad, but they use a form of Spanish I'm not used to.
 
Yeah Fox is one of those company that doesn't understand the difference between France and Quebec. A lot of company don't bother dubbing their movies here, but its been shown that movies dubbed here are far more popular than those dubbed in France... plus we use a lot less slangs and regionalisms, which makes our dub more marketable to other French markets outside of France. Heck the only reason we aren't allowed to send our dubs to France is because of the laws there! Disney/Buena Vista and I think Warner always dub their movies here for our market... or at the very least the mass market and family ones.



I must say a lot of French song from the 1980s and 1990s were really cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7locRnvRygE

Even when they are just translation of the original. Some are original songs though. A lot of it is due to nostalgia I guess... but I like them to this day:

Denver:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqwczhiiwFI

Inspector Gadget (well that was partly French to begin with but you get the idea)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDAOYUHmrSM

The Smurfs, being most French were given LOTS of various theme songs, the classic one by Children Show host Doroth?e (her and Bernard Minet account for 90% of the French theme songs of the 80s :p, mostly of Japanese production though ).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kewHMRQXc8Y

Tailspin(Though this one isn't the one used in France):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA-ZrSwv_fA

TMNT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieirOf1_I9w

Aladdin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpeNGFOpyck

Like said before Disney always does GREAT dubs. They also have the understanding that Quebec and France don't have the same exact French and thus we get our own dubs :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_riPk5hmfs

Oh and just for fun the Spongebob opening:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux58UwpeHbk

And South Park opening put on top of a screen shot montage(can't find a real opening):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeJXyvM3IDw

Still my favorite French songs usually go to anime... its more common for them to go for original music instead of just translations.
 
I've watched some South Park in Japanese, and they sound so much more adult, especially Kyle and Stan, Cartman's Japanese voice is deadly, I'm also searching for the Japanese dub of X-Men: TAS which has several veteran seiyu, namely Yamadera Koichi, Wakamoto Norio, Ebara Masashi etc...
 
I know it's not animated,but how about that Wulin puppet show where they made that Scar guy speak when in original version he was mute.

BTW,creepiest show ever!
 
Back
Top