Now, when many shows are starting off, it can understandably take them a while to get them warmed up to what would become their staple, and many of them eventually reached booming popularity. But what about those that have what is dubbed as "Early Episode Weirdness"? The early episodes of a series that seemed "off" in comparison to how it transformed later?
Dragon Ball: Basically, the first arc. This was when DB was still heavily inspired by Journey to the West, a classic novel of Chinese literature, and mostly consisted of episodic stories littered with various supporting characters and juvenile gags, something Toriyama was well-known for before DB (especially with his popular gag manga, Dr. Slump, which actually made a crossover in one or two chapters of the DB manga).
Anyway, DB eventually deviated away from this inspiration and shifted towards a more martial arts-oriented theme, starting with the main character Gokuu and his Shaolin monk-inspired friend Kuririn, training from a tournament comprised of the world's greatest warriors. And, of the original JttW-inspired crowd, only two of them continued to have some relevance in the plot: Gokuu and Yamcha, and even the latter just ended up becoming Toriyama's butt-monkey to show how much stronger characters such as Tenshinhan and Kami were.
Dragon Ball Z: Back in the late 90s, FUNimation had just gotten off the ground and their dub of DBZ was riddled with censorship, replaced music (which went from bland to "hardcore techno/rock", and played even when there was no music in the original Japanese version), poor voice acting, and inaccurate lines (such as Bardock being "a brilliant scientist"). Most of this appeared to be an effort to "Americanize" the show for children in the USA, as different practices existed back then. When they decided to go in-house dubbing, Chris Sabat and many of the others were still amateurs who basically imitated the previously hired Ocean Group actors (compare Sabat's Vegeta in the 1999 dub [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePZ1vmzgt0g] to his performance in the Dragon Ball Kai dub [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6H7ys4Wz7M].
Scrubs: The Janitor was originally intended to be a "Season 1"-only character that was merely a figment of JD's imagination, which explains why he was never shown interacting with anyone other than him until "Season 2".
The Simpsons: I think that Smithers used to be black, Nelson was just a bully before he later evolved to become one of Bart's friends, and Homer was a lot less dumb. Also, the humour seemed less random and pop culture-referential.
Dragon Ball: Basically, the first arc. This was when DB was still heavily inspired by Journey to the West, a classic novel of Chinese literature, and mostly consisted of episodic stories littered with various supporting characters and juvenile gags, something Toriyama was well-known for before DB (especially with his popular gag manga, Dr. Slump, which actually made a crossover in one or two chapters of the DB manga).
Anyway, DB eventually deviated away from this inspiration and shifted towards a more martial arts-oriented theme, starting with the main character Gokuu and his Shaolin monk-inspired friend Kuririn, training from a tournament comprised of the world's greatest warriors. And, of the original JttW-inspired crowd, only two of them continued to have some relevance in the plot: Gokuu and Yamcha, and even the latter just ended up becoming Toriyama's butt-monkey to show how much stronger characters such as Tenshinhan and Kami were.
Dragon Ball Z: Back in the late 90s, FUNimation had just gotten off the ground and their dub of DBZ was riddled with censorship, replaced music (which went from bland to "hardcore techno/rock", and played even when there was no music in the original Japanese version), poor voice acting, and inaccurate lines (such as Bardock being "a brilliant scientist"). Most of this appeared to be an effort to "Americanize" the show for children in the USA, as different practices existed back then. When they decided to go in-house dubbing, Chris Sabat and many of the others were still amateurs who basically imitated the previously hired Ocean Group actors (compare Sabat's Vegeta in the 1999 dub [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePZ1vmzgt0g] to his performance in the Dragon Ball Kai dub [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6H7ys4Wz7M].
Scrubs: The Janitor was originally intended to be a "Season 1"-only character that was merely a figment of JD's imagination, which explains why he was never shown interacting with anyone other than him until "Season 2".
The Simpsons: I think that Smithers used to be black, Nelson was just a bully before he later evolved to become one of Bart's friends, and Homer was a lot less dumb. Also, the humour seemed less random and pop culture-referential.
