Dragon Ball Z: The Show That Failed Three Times Before It Took Over America

Dragon Ball Z, Goku, Toonami, Cartoon Network, Funimation, Saban, Akira Toriyama, Toei Animation, Power Rangers, and Pokémon all come together in this deep dive into how Dragon Ball Z conquered America. Before it was the show every kid ran home to watch, Dragon Ball Z failed in America. The first try at bringing Dragon Ball over flopped, the syndicated run got cut and then dropped, and by 1998 it was a canceled show with 53 finished episodes. Then a cable programmer put it on weekdays at 5 o'clock, and everything flipped. This video explores how Gen Fukunaga and Funimation got the rights, the Saban deal and the Vancouver dub, the edits and the renamed afterlife, Bruce Faulconer's replacement score, the Toonami breakout, the "over 9000" meme, and how the version purists hated became the one that won. Whether you grew up watching Toonami after school or you're discovering it for the first time, this is the story of the show that should never have made it. #dragonballz #nostalgia #tvdocumentary