Review So did anyone ever find out why John Loeffler and Manny Corallo got replaced after Season 16's dub (BW)?

[AgedVeteranofShow]

We all know about what happened between Seasons 8 & 9 in the dub during the controversy period to a majority of the original English VA cast & writing staff when 4Kids & TAJ/PUSA had basically a feudal war than ended up closing both (former) companies over time, but do we know exactly why John Loeffler & Manny got replaced after Season 16 + Ed Goldfarb then got the reigns over the dub's music work for the Pokemon Anime between BW & XY?

I'm just curious, research into it hasn't yielded much aside from that Ed Goldfarb took over from Season 17 onward so far on Bulbapedia. Was there another falling out due to creative differences? Cost cutting procedure like the former?

 

[Vengeful Ghost]

I see a few possibilities:

1. They decided not to renew their contract/TPCi decided to not renew their contract
2. They left for another project
3. Cost cutting
4. Background controversy

 

[Tree99]

I reckon that Loeffler was just burnt out by that point, he had been on the series since the start back in 1998 after all.

 

[Poke Trey]

I reckon that Loeffler was just burnt out by that point, he had been on the series since the start back in 1998 after all.

Can only think the same with Goldfarb now. He's composed for 10 years, 2014-2023. I imagine after that much time the burnt-out is, If not will happen to him. That's why I've been curious about Geoff Li, if he by chance will take over as THE composer for the Horizons dub. I'm seeing signs that could lead to this.

 

[snowmint]

Please just keep the Japanese music only.

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

Please just keep the Japanese music only.

I agree, as it’s 2023, but they’ve got to make those royalties apparently. If they won’t stop dub music, I hope what Trey said occurs and Goldfarb is at least departing (Li cannot be this underwhelming, I hope).

No one knows what happened to Loeffler etc, just speculation, I hope PokePress does an interview with him asking why he left. Like the recasting controversy in late 2006, the full story is hard to tell but I’m thinking Rachael Lillis’ story was correct the most.

 

[snowmint]

What did Rachel say?

 

[AgedVeteranofShow]

What did Rachel say?

Basically, what's adding up to me on the September 2006 controversial recasting decision is this:

- TPCi decided to take the dub in house from 4Kids not in the way FUNimation did with One Piece, but in the way they did with Dragonball Z, to cut costs on the production as the popularity of the Series was not as high as it was at its peak (the ratings only fall with each Series and popularity, much in Japan). As a result, their old buddies at TAJ with whom 4Kids had cut ties with in late Johto beginning with "Address Unown" in the dub when they took all the Movies/Pikachu Shorts/Anime in house dubbed for the rest of 4Kids' tenure with Pokemon, were selected as they could produce the dub cheaper and at a lower cost-effective rate. However, arguably the scummiest decision of them all even compared to FUNi w/Z as Barry Watson legitimately couldn't afford to make flights over to Canada then, as the 4Kids' VAs worked in New York just like TAJ's. What Armen & Larry decided to do w/PUSA's blessings in Season 9 permanently changed the dub's main VA cast (after Tom Wayland, I think those 2 are who I have the lowest opinion of who worked on this franchise, personally), period.

- Then, they aired MoMP as a trial run on Kids' WB, and most people hated it, even those that weren't fond of the old VA cast admitted this was largely worse.

- Then, Kids' WB dropped Pokemon from the line up as they had a good working relationship with 4Kids' in keeping Pokemon's dub the highest rated Series on the bloc for all 8 years it was on local TV in the United States, and wanted to shift away from Anime in general there (their biggest mistake, much like 4Kids, was not fighting hard to keep things going the way they were IMHO).

- Then we got "he said, she said" from both VA casts, but basically, Lawrence Neves was damage controlling on pokemon.com at the backlash with garbage that MoMP was well received. Stuart Zagnit confirmed that yes, there were non compete clauses in the contracts, but what Taylor/Stuart/Lillis said was also true that they were breakable and that no one had even afforded them the opportunity- even asked or gave a chance to the main cast members or the writing staff BUT JCC- whether they wanted to break contract and move to the TAJ studios to dub the Series. They were very breakable, and TAJ decided to only give the chance to Kayzie Rogers & James Cathcart via nepotism basically then, which they took and also still tried to work with 4Kids' dubs after the fact for a bit- but 4Kids found out, then blacklisted them for trying to have their cake & eat it both ways basically (David Lapkin managed to sneak over and do this successfully in S10 but wasn't caught, he was the DP Magikarp Salesman not Bill Rogers as was revealed recently). To add more to this, it seems the TPCi VAs thought the 4Kids VAs left voluntarily at the time of those auditions as PUSA/TPCi had not told them this was to reduce costs with lower budget/cheaper VA & writer talent, Bill Rogers confirmed that he didn't know what was going on then exactly but was told that Eric Stuart had voluntarily left the show (which wasn't the case).

That's basically the truth on that dark period in the dub's history. Re: Loeffler, PokePress should be able to explain what happened in 2013, as he's Interviewed Loeffler before back in Rival Destinies- hope he does, would love to know how we got Goldfarb instead of him in charge from XY onward so far.