This is most likely the case with Tiga- Tsuburaya recalls and erases any dubs they do not find up to their standard after the international broadcasts. This also happened with the Turner dub of Ultra Seven (which thankfully has been fully preserved through fan recordings)
I can't believe they don't have copies of the OG show dub. The one that's most famous in the US.
The 1966 Ultraman? Yes they do. Its been released on DVD and some select episodes have been released on Blu ray recently.
Some more slight bad news... I talked with another former 4kids worker and they said Konami probably only has the masters to only yugioh related material after the 4kids ownership change. They don't know who exactly would have whatever masters of 4kids old works except things staying at the 4Licensing corp branch, but now that they are defunct, who knows where the masters are now and they could be trashed unless someone took the initiative to save it somewhere via backups.
I talked to the dub voice director on Tiga. They don't remember much. They did two seasons and casted all the voices for the dub. They said 2 episodes were done per week. The work load was done fast at 4kids. They don't know where the masters are due to 4kids closing. The 4kids Flashback podcast is going to talk to the producer of the Tiga dub, Norman Grossfeld, sooner light too for more tidbits.
I talked to the dub voice director on Tiga. They don't remember much. They did two seasons and casted all the voices for the dub. They said 2 episodes were done per week. The work load was done fast at 4kids. They are not sure where the masters are due do 4kids closing. The 4kids Flashback podcast is going to talk to the producer of the Tiga dub, Norman Grossfeld, sooner too for more tidbits.
web.archive.org/web/20030402094557/http://www.henshinonline.com/index.html 4kids initial plan was to bring back the Tiga dub for the Fall of 2003 with lots of merchandise and their initial plan was to air a new ultraman show each year. I still say the timeline matches up on them completing a full enough dub cause contract obligations with Tsuburaya and the whole "two seasons" thing. In summer 2002, when those fox box toys r Us promo tapes were being sent out, the dub had dub clips up to the early 20s guts Into space 2 parter so production was coming far along quickly cause 4kids was working fast and even overtime at nights with these shows as evidenced by former workers saying so. I wouldn't be surprised if production wrapped up in early 2003 before it stopped airing completely on Fox box.
The new 4kids flashback podcast interviewed the co-producer of the dub, Mike Pecoriello, and he confirmed the English version was fully completed! Lots of neat details in that interview.
4kids Ultraman Tiga English dub adaption Additional Voices per episode based on the credits sequence from available Fox Box recordings.
1) The Prophecy
Roxanne Beck
Kathleen Delaney
2) The Monster in the Mines
Roxanne Beck
Kathleen Delaney
3) The False Prophet
David Wills
Greg Lansing
Karen Neill
Joey Workman
Jimmy Zazzali Jr
4) Spark of Evil
Roxanne Beck
Priscilla Everet
Karen Neill
Mike Pollock
Richard Will
Jimmy Zazzali Jr
5) Munakata’s Monster
Richard Hoefer
Zach Lieber
Cathy Myler
David Wills
Jimmy Zazzali Jr
6) The Dark Cloud
Kathleen Delaney
Douglas Kiddle
Ed Paul
7) Alien Invasion
Ken Bolden
Elizabeth Kipp-Gi
Ed Paul
Stan Smith
Richard Will
David Wills
8) All Hallow’s Eve
Beverly Glenn
Cheyenne Binswanger
Max Dworin
9) Stranded
Cheyenne Binswanger
Shayne Dukevitch
Steve Hollow
Greg Lansing
Lily Li
James Zazzali
10) Afraid of the Park (initially skipped and combined with Japanese episode 24 to form dub ep 23)
Peter Timothy
Glenn Rainey
Rob Ray
David Wills
11) Friend or Foe
Zach Lieber
Priscilla Everett
12) Mutant from the Sea
David Wills
Douglas Kiddle
John Campbell
Ed Paul
13) Attack of the Crow Men
Max Dworin
Joey Workman
14) Nowhere to Hide (dubs credits MIA listing based on educated guesses)
J. David Brimmer
15) Revenge of Gazoto
Dave Wills
Joey Workman
Leon Von Hoene
Kathleen Delaney
16) The Monster Slayer Returns
Greg Abbey
Blackie Willet
Jesus Vega
Dan Green
Jason Samuels
Adam Jacobs
Mike Pollock
17) Dark Vs. Light
Susan Meredith
Karen Neill
Stan Smith
Ryan Brack
Zach Lieber
James Zazzali
18) Golza is Back!
Shayne Dukevitch
Dave Wills
George Hoefer
19) The Power of Light Part 1
Dave Wills
Joey Workman
Leon Von Hone
Karen Neill
20) The Power of Light Part 2
Dave Wills
Joey Workman
Leon Von Hoene
Kathleen Delaney
21) The Show Must Go on!
Peter Timothy
Glenn Rainey
Rob Roy
David Wills
22) The Fog
Tara Jayne
23) Prehistoric Danger
Kathleen Delaney
Shayne Dukevitch
Denise Hill
Douglas C. Krueger
Dave Wills
24) Toxic Terror (the last ep to air on US TV and combined with Japanese episode 10 to form dub ep 23)
Peter Timothy
Glenn Rainey
Rob Ray
David Wills
The rest of the dub episodes aired on TV channel pogo and the remaining surviving episode titles survive via achieved pogo tv channel schedule archives. Jonathan Todd Ross told me at a convention that he voiced a vampire character which shows up in Japanese episode 33 aka “Vampire City”, dub title is unknown. The rest of the voice actors are unknown in the episodes. The whole full dub is safe with the Co-producer.
I also believe 4kids adapted all 52 episodes of the dub based on some research I've done. We should get Mill Creek to release it all for streaming.
Mill Creek very well might NOT even be able to license the dub from Tsuburaya! This is why we have never received an official release of the "TBS dub" of Ultraseven- Tsuburaya hated it so much that they recalled the master tapes from TBS and destroyed them. Same can be said for a lot of the Southeast Asian English dubs- if Tsuburaya doesn't like the voice actors or specific changes- they are not going to let it see the light of day again.
I'm curious why Tsuburaya let superhuman samurai syber squad get a DVD release within the past few years?
Disappointingly, a lot of the fox box archives of the dub have been removed from the Internet Archive while bizarrely the sub is still left up there... Now the paint edits of the dub that aired are lost media... Unless something is happening behind the scenes...
I talked to Erica Schroeder, the voice of Rena in the dub, and she seems aware about the "second season" lost media currently. She also said she thinks her husband voiced in 3 episodes, a bad guy and some regular folks, but she could not tell from the available episodes and I think her husbands name isn't in the currently available credits screens. Probably, her husband voiced people in the 2nd half in the dub. I'd be interesting if her husband voiced the Evil Tiga host, Keigo Masaki. I'm still hoping for the best for the full dub to see the light of day.
Here’s some interesting things from the 4kids Flashback podcast with the Co-Producer of the 4kids Ultraman Tiga English dub adaptation, Mike Pecoriello.
They did a lot of the translation/adapting work by using VHS tapes and rewinding back and forth to create the English dub script.
The mouth flaps were very challenging since it’s live action and they tried their best to fit the word in them and I agree that it was decently done.
People told them to make the show for adults and put it on Cartoon Network at night.
They confirmed the whole show was adapted and they have all the eps in English. Only 24 out of 52 aired in the US.
And more with the dubs production. Hopefully the rest of the dub is archived more eventually.
The 4kids Flashback podcast is doing a short Q&A with the co-producer of the dub, Mike, Pecoriello tommerow if anyone else wants to join. I skimmed eps 25-52 to see what 4kids could've potentially edit out and shockingly the series is pretty tame throughout, but the are some things here and there that are objectional. Maybe a couple eps make me wish to see how 4kids would've rewrote it cause there's no way that plot would've worked on US Saturday mornings.
