TOONAMI - Retro Rewind w/ Steve Blum & Christopher Sabat

Welcome to Chris Stuckman's in-depth retrospective on Toonami. I'm Steve Blum, the voice of Tom. Enjoy the video, friends. Bang. In the early 90s when I was in school, it was considered very uncool to like anime. It was a very niche medium of entertainment in America. Very few people knew about it, and those who did probably referred to it as Japanimation, and it seemed forever destined to populate the early Sure, there were many shows that had reached American shores, and some films that garnered attention such as Ghost in the Shell and Akira, but they still weren't reaching a wider audience, and little respect was given to the English dubbing process of some earlier titles. I'll never forget one of my first encounters with anime being popular. I was on the school bus, and I would say it was about in sixth grade. All of these kids were piled around this other kid like he had found the first issue of Superman or something. One of the cool kids had opened up his trapper keeper, and I was shocked to discover that he was actually bragging about his collection of Pokemon cards. He was showing off his rare foils and everything. Within a matter of weeks, it was suddenly cool to like anime, and I was uncool because I didn't have any Pokemon cards. What's incredible to me is that they are still immensely popular today. Before filming this video, I was easily able to obtain these booster packs at a store less than a mile away from my house. In America, Pokemon received early exposure in this May 1996 issue of Nintendo Power. The Super Famicom game from Japan was called Pocket Monsters, and there were two variations of it. The article stated that some players are so enamored of Pocket Monsters that they have purchased both versions in order to own all the monsters. Nintendo Power had no idea that within a short time, they'd have a section of their magazine entitled Poke Center dedicated entirely to the franchise. But on March 17, 1997, everything changed forever. Cartoon Network debuted a new programming block called Toonami. It was dedicated to bringing awesome action-oriented cartoons to a younger audience, and nearly all of the shows that they have aired have been anime. In the block's prestigious history, it has literally inspired an entire generation to appreciate art from another land. Its original host was Moltar from the show Space Ghost. Some of the shows that Toonami is responsible for popularizing are Muyo, Sailor Moon, Rurouni Kenshin, Ronin Warriors, and of course, Dragon Ball Z. I vividly remember being bored out of my mind in class and a kid who I was pals with leaning over and saying, hey, are you watching Dragon Ball Z? I had no idea what he was talking about, but nevertheless, I was intrigued. After school, the first episode I watched was called Dende's Demise, and from then on, I was hooked. I once took a quiz that asked me what my favorite part of school was. I replied that I could run home from it to watch Toonami. Now, back then, I lived in a pretty big apartment complex, and the school bus only dropped us off at the entrance of said complex, so I still had about a mile to walk home, and most of that time was me running, trying to get home in time for Toonami to start. Homework? What was that? I didn't know what that was. Toonami was on! Probably not the best motto to live by, but hey, I was a kid. I became obsessed with DBZ. My neighborhood comic store is called JC Comics, and I still go there to this day. The store owner has essentially seen me grow up, and we've gone from talking about whatever the newest DBZ VHS tape release date is to how awesome Guardians of the Galaxy was. Nothing has really changed, to be honest. I used to have a massive DBZ VHS collection, as seen here, which have now been upgraded to the recently released Blu-rays. Wait a second. Look at my old computer. Dear lord! I religiously read the manga, collected countless toys, had temporary tattoo books, which, by the way, still have working tats. I even made some comics of my own, complete with hand-drawn panels! To pile on the nerd even more, my friends and I had our own Dragon Ball Z club, in which we would host pseudo-battles between ourselves. We'd build up our powers list by completing certain tasks in real life, and then we'd have those battles, and if we did really well throughout the week, we could unleash a Kamehameha wave and defeat our friends. I love my childhood. My first introduction to Dragon Ball Z was just walking up to the Funimation Studios, and they had all these posters that they've gotten from Japan, and I don't think anybody really knew who everyone in the entire cast was, but I remember staring at the posters going, is that Goku? They're like, no, that's Gohan. I'm like, oh, is that Go-10? They're like, no, that's Goku in GT. And then my second introduction to Dragon Ball Z was them handing me a big old bag, and them telling me, go watch all of this! And so I had to take it home and watch a bag of videotapes of the entire Frieza saga, and they only gave me a few days to do it, so it was just torture trying to get through it so fast. Interesting, because I'd never experienced anything quite like it before. I'd never experienced a serial anime before in my life. I'd seen Ghost in the Shell, I'd seen Akira, but I hadn't seen anything quite like that. I don't think it really sunk in for me until, I guess in 1999, we had a cast party with all the initial Dragon Ball Z actors in it. We were at this bar called Lonigans, I still remember the name, and we were all watching it run for the first time on Toonami with a new cast, and that was insane. Like, I'd never heard my voice on TV before, much less, you know, on Dragon Ball Z, and everyone was just glued to the television watching and cheering. I would like to think that that was my first true experience with Dragon Ball Z, because that was the time when it finally sunk in that, wow, we're doing something crazy awesome. Through the years, due to Toonami, I began watching other great titles and discovered many of the shows mentioned earlier. At first, watching Ronin Warriors or Sailor Moon was simply because they came on before DBZ, but eventually I became fans of those, as well as Outlaw Star and Rurouni Kenshin. I'm ashamed to admit it's just been in the past few weeks that my wife has introduced me to Yu Yu Hakusho, but I'm loving it so far. How'd you first discover it? Because I didn't watch it back in the day. I didn't watch it on Toonami. I watched it on Toonami the first time. Because I don't remember watching it, and I think it's because most of the time I was asleep, but you said that you used to watch... Midnight Run. Right. I always watched the Midnight Run. And what was one of the first things we ever bonded over? First time we talked, we talked about Toonami and our love of Dragon Ball Z. It was vastly easier to record Yu Yu Hakusho than it was Dragon Ball Z. To put in perspective, when we started dubbing Dragon Ball Z, we were dubbing into old, archaic, terrible equipment that barely worked. Just barely, barely worked. And working on Yu Yu, we'd already, you know, worked out a lot of the kinks in the recording software. And on top of that, when we started recording Dragon Ball Z, we had about 11 actors on our actor list that we could trust to do it. I mean, we're talking Sonny Strait, Sean Schimmel, myself. By the time we got to Yu Yu Hakusho, we had a, you know, at least we had some sort of sizable cast list. Casting Yu Yu and recording Yu Yu was a completely different experience. We'd already gone through the war, and it was just pretty easy after that. On July 10th, 1999, Toonami introduced a new host named Tom, who hung out in space on his ship, the Absolution, introducing us to each show. This is around the time where Toonami's success skyrocketed, and they were able to do things which were mini-stories taking place during the breaks of the shows. I can remember being very excited for The Intruder, which told the story of a strange entity invading the ship. This concluded with a brand new Tom, voiced by the incomparable Steve Blum. Well, I think first and foremost, Toonami gave credibility to this art form of anime that, prior to that time, was very difficult for the American palette. And those who did watch anime, or Japanimation as they called it in those days, really were intent on watching it in its original form, subtitled. And what we were doing was an aberration. And I was accused of ruining the art form several times during my career. So I think one of the great gifts that Toonami gave to America was showing them that anime is a huge, diverse universe of animation that we had never seen before. Unabashedly unafraid to address situations like dysfunction in the family, or violence, or loneliness. The things that all of us go through, separation, not fitting in, those sorts of emotions that so many of us go through in our early years, and some into our later years. And anime kind of created this community where we all sort of felt we could have a place. You go to conventions at this point, and you see people dressed up in costumes who live very normal, conservative lives, for the most part. And they go to these conventions, and that's when they feel most free. That's what fans tell me. That they can be who they want to be. They've got a community who understands them and doesn't judge them. Toonami was a huge gateway for that to happen, and continues to be to this day. So I'm personally very grateful to Toonami for giving hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, a place to go. The Midnight Run was soon introduced, which allowed Toonami to air more intense entertainment from midnight to 5am. They even aired some of Daft Punk's Interstellar 5555 and Gorillaz music videos. The Rising Sun was Toonami's Saturday morning block, running from 9am to noon. This block was particularly popular for airing the DBZ Garlic Jr. Saga. Three hours of Toonami programming. Consider ourselves fortunate. And it's not even a school day. Toonami, The Rising Sun, Saturday from 9 to noon. You just made my day. A day which will lose in April. Now the victory's mine! On April 17th, 2004, Toonami moved from weekdays to Saturdays, and its lineup included Naruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball GT, and shows produced in America like Teen Titans and Justice League Unlimited. Toonami even did something called a month of Miyazaki, airing Castle in the Sky, Nausicaa, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away. The amount of amazing entertainment they've helped young audiences to appreciate is astounding. But on September 20th, 2008, Toonami was unfortunately cancelled, and the current incarnation of Tom had this to say. Well, this is the end, beautiful friends. After more than 11 years, this is Toonami's final broadcast. It's been a lot of fun, and we'd like to thank each and every one of you who've made this journey with us. Toonami wouldn't have been anything without you. Hopefully, we've left you with some good memories. So, until we meet again, stay gold. I had kept in touch with the guys in Atlanta throughout that period, and we had done a few other little things together, but I never thought that we'd actually get to go back on the air. The outpouring of support during Toonami's hiatus was amazing. The fans are rallying. There are websites that were dedicated to bringing Toonami back, and I'm grateful to those guys because they kind of kept it alive. It was a very sad time for anime fans and fans of Toonami in general. For years, I participated in petitions to revive the block, and I even started my own YouTube channel, which was one of my first YouTube channels, that was entirely composed of my attempts to recreate Toonami promos, and it actually did okay. The channel's no longer up anymore, but here is a look at one of my original promos. Can he be so strong? He's blocking my attacks like they were nothing. I am a super elite. Now he's sealed his fate. This planet is history. Galick Gun! Who is this fool that he's dealing with? He's beneath me. Why is his power superior to mine? A powerful saint in the universe. Then, on April 1, 2012, Cartoon Network's highly successful block Adult Swim did its annual April Fool's Day joke. And while in the past that was generally an all-night marathon of the so-bad-that-it's-good classic The Room, for one night, they re-aired classic shows from Toonami, complete with the bumpers and everything. Many people dubbed it the night no 90s kid slept. I remember getting that call to do the April Fool's evening, and how great that felt, even if we only got to do it for one more night, and to bring Toonami back to its former glory for at least that one night. I remember getting online that night. I had some friends who called me and texted me and said, dude, there's a bunch of stuff going on out there on the net. You got to check it out. Get on Twitter. And I didn't even know if I had a Twitter account at the time. But I got on Twitter that night, and I stayed up all night with the fans. And it was crazy. I think the viewership that night went from something like 200,000 viewers, the normal viewership, to 1.4 million. And it really showed that people cared about Toonami and wanted to bring it back, and that there was an audience. And we had concrete proof to show the network. I was just so excited to be part of that wave. It was really fun. It was really fun. And I felt like I had nothing to do with it personally. It was the fans that brought it back. So give yourselves a pat on the back out there, you guys. You did an amazing thing. Kind of an unprecedented thing, I think. So thank you. This sparked an even greater demand for the block's return. And finally, on May 16, 2012, it was announced that on Saturday nights, Adult Swim would be taken over by Toonami, and a bevy of new shows like Cash Run Sins, Samurai 7, and Full Metal Alchemist have been included in the lineup and received widespread love. They even began airing Cowboy Bebop again after Adult Swim initially helped popularize it back in 2001. Shows like Inuyasha, Bleach, and Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex are part of the new lineup as well. Even now, the show that made Toonami famous in the 90s is back. This time, however, it's the filler-less DBZ Kai. Whether that's staying positive when everything seems against you. No matter how nasty this place may be, you and me are gonna fight our way through it. Or being positive and helping somebody else out. There's a great power inside you just waiting to be unlocked. Believe in your ability. There's one thing I'm sure of. Your positivity will be your light in the darkness. You can do it, Goku! Now, let's get back out there and keep fighting the fight. I am not about to give up! How does it feel to be part of something that's so positively shaped lives? Well, humbling. It never gets old. And it gives me a new center every time I hear a fan tell me that Toonami was their childhood. And I hear that a lot these days. And my standard answer is, well, look how great you turned out despite that. As irreverent as we were throughout all the years in Toonami, we really, underneath it all, were delivering a positive message and we were delivering a great product. So yeah, I mean, humbled is probably the best word that would describe being even just the smallest part of any of that. I will say one of the most incredible fan experiences I had was talking to a guy who showed me his arm and there was barely any of it left, really. It was just this wrinkled up leathery skin over a small bone. And that was supposed to be like his shoulder. He told me that when he was really young, he's playing hide and go seek with his brothers and sisters and friends. And he ran through the kitchen and poured, by accident, of course, a boiling pot of water all over him. And he told me that it was the most excruciating pain he'd ever had. And he was in the hospital for months and months and months with reconstructive surgeries. And he said that all he did during that time was watch Dragon Ball Z. And it was something that was very dear to him and it helped him get the strength he needed to kind of keep going. And that one really, that one got me, man. That one really got me. Toonami has been a major part of my life. Even if you were a fan of anime before Toonami came along, it's because of Toonami that we've had the opportunity to see so many other awesome animes in America. Because they made people realize that anime is something to be reckoned with. It's something that a lot of people can enjoy. And it's an art form that has inspired countless filmmakers around the entire world. Nowadays, we gather around our computers, hoping to stream our favorite shows. But there was a time period in the late 90s and early 2000s where it felt like my entire world stopped to watch Toonami. My friends and I would gather to discuss the latest cliffhanger on DBZ. And since the internet was still in its relative infancy, it was considerably easier to avoid spoilers from Japan since these shows had all aired there already. I spent a large portion of my youth drawing these characters and imagining these worlds. Who am I kidding? I'm an adult and I still do it. The storytelling of many of these shows helped me understand a lot about action entertainment and to appreciate something that was from another land. Without it, I wouldn't be the same person I am today. Just a special thank you to Jason DeMarco, Gil Austin, and our old buddy Sean Akins for creating Toonami and bringing it back after all these years to a whole new audience. I'm really grateful to you guys and to everybody at Adult Swim and everybody on William Street. You guys have have gone above and beyond to bring this back to the audience and a lot of you guys out there don't know that these guys did a lot of this on their own time. And I'm talking about the engineers, the post-production people, everybody involved in Toonami and there are a lot of them who did this stuff on their own time because of the love of the genre and because of the love of Toonami and because of their love and respect for you guys. And so they really do care. And so thank you guys for bringing me back on board and keeping Toonami going for all these years. Very, very grateful. Stay gold. Bang. Guys, thank you so much for watching my inaugural episode of Retro Rewind. I'm gonna have a lot more of this kind of stuff for you guys. I've never had more fun making a video ever. I thank you so much for watching it. And I have a special guest to sign this video off. You may recognize him. His name is Christopher Sabbat and he just so happens to be the voice of Vegeta and Piccolo. Thanks guys. Oh, look at all you peons out there behind your worthless computer screens. Wait, what is this? You're not stuckmanized yet? Oh, you've got to be kidding me. I am the prince of all Saiyans and I command you to get stuckmanized.