Information AboutSaban |
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Saban Entertainment (also known as '''Saban International''') was an independent/TV production company formed by music and television producers Haim Saban and Shuki Levy . This company is known for importing, '' Dubbing '', and adapting several Japanese series such as '' Maple Town '', '' Noozles '', '' Samurai Pizza Cats '', Kidd Video and '' Dragonball Z '' to North America and international markets for syndication, including both animation and live action shows. In doing so, the company also totally replaced the original production credits with their own. It also imported French shows, such as Jayce And The Wheeled Warriors , and Mysterious Cities Of Gold . Famous franchises include '' Digimon '', Shinzo , and various Toku Adapts (which include Power Rangers , Beetleborgs and VR Troopers ). EARLY OPERATION Early in its life, Saban was a non-union company, meaning that many of its union-member actors operated under pseudonyms. In the mid-90's, after much bad press regarding payment and treatment of actors, the company went union. Several original animated series were produced for Marvel Comics , and the company's dubbed products began to rapidly increase as the anime boom began. Through a merger with US Fox Children's Entertainment in 1996, Fox Kids was born, although the block had actually been promoting itself officially as "Fox Kids" since 1993; prior to that, they were just simply the "Fox Kids Network", and all shows at that time had been promoted as airing "on Fox". INTRODUCING THE US TO ANOTHER FORM OF JAPANESE ENTERTAINMENT During the Anime boom during the 80s-early 90s, Saban decided to take a risk and introduce the Henshin Hero genre to America. In Japan, the Henshin Hero Genre gain a lot of popularity led by manga writer Shotaro Ishinomori who is considered to be the "Father of Henshin Heroes." Meanwhile, in America, the only form of Tokusatsu that Americans were familiar with was mainly Godzilla , Gamera , and Ultraman ; all which were dubbed respectedly. USA Network did a dub parody of Dynaman for it's ''Night Flight Theatre'' time slot. So, it was decided that Saban would introduce the Henshin Hero genre in the early 90s starting with Super Sentai . Before Zyuranger , Saban had other choices in series to adapt; they include Sun Vulcan , Bioman , and Jetman , which was actually Saban's first choice for the first season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers . Many thought that the idea was too extreme and absurd and would ultimately fail. Surprisingly, the risk taking worked and the series became a hit. Afterward the success of Power Rangers , Saban would go on to introduce other genres in tokusatsu. The metal hero adaptations , VR Troopers & Beetleborgs became hits as well; but both lasted 2 seasons each due to lack of footage. However, when it came to introducing Kamen Rider , it turned out to be a disaster and actually offended many fans who were already familiar with Shotaro Ishinomori's work and much of the Power Rangers audience despite the fact that Masked Rider is part of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers continuity; a goal that has yet to be achieved by Toei . CRITICISM Predictably, such adaptations often receive strong criticism from fans of the original material. Although censorship for violent content is considered a necessary albeit semi-tolerated evil, many consider it excessive for harmless scenes. Other complaints about dialogue revisions in the script which are modified in attempts to make them more 'punchy', simpler, or humorous, with the implication they rarely succeed at doing so. Nevertheless, viewed with an unbiased eye, of the assorted companies producing dubs specifically for television, Saban was probably top of the pile. While many agree that 4Kids is much worse than Saban; he is still hated. Some of the more notorious crimes include an American Version of Sailor Moon , which didn't happen fortunately as rights to the series were given to DiC ; and the adapted version of Kamen Rider into Masked Rider , which reportedly offended the original creator, Shotaro Ishinomori , as it went against all the principles of what his trademark character stood for. RENAMING In October 2001, the group was sold to Disney , and renamed BVS Entertainment. Concurrently, Fox Kids was replaced with the Fox Box (now known as 4Kids TV ), featuring a line of shows from 4Kids Entertainment . Disney gained ownership of all Saban's products, and began to air many of them on ABC Family in a programming block dubbed JETIX . The European Fox Kids channel continued to run under that name until the beginning of 2005, when it was also rebranded as "Jetix", as is the former Fox Kids channel in Latin America. Meanwhile, the fates of the company's two most popular shows were somewhat ignominious. The entire production of Power Rangers was shut down, and moved to '' aired on ABC Family and Toon Disney in the USA and on the various Jetix channels around the world. Meanwhile ''Digimon'''s fourth season was produced and voiced by the same crew (under the banner of Sensation Animation , but farmed out to UPN as part of a deal between them and Disney for the 2002-2003 programming year. On this less-than-accessible channel, the show was subjected to a shifting timeslot and a saturation of re-runs that hurt it considerably. With its conclusion, and the breaking of the UPN/Disney deal, ''Digimon'' joined its brother and sister shows on ABC Family and Toon Disney. The fourth season as well as the previous seasons also aired on the Canadian station YTV. LIST OF TELEVISION SHOWS & FILMS 1960s 1970s 1980s
1990s
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