Michael Haigney's Podcast - 'Original Pokéman'

[ii kanji]

Michael Haigney, the original voice director and script adapter for the anime's English dub (who you might know better as the original English voice actor of Ash's Charmander, Misty's Psyduck and more), has recently started a podcast where he shares a ton of obscure (and not-so-obscure) trivia regarding said dub, episode by episode.

Thank you @PaperSplash for pointing out Michael Haigney's new Pokemon anime themed podcast above. I've had a listen to the 5 episodes that have been released thus far and felt it deserved its own thread, since the guy shares so many hitherto unknown insights into the production of the original series episodes of the English dub.

So far he is going though each episode one by one and sharing recollections on the making of them, including memories about script adaptation, censoring and voice casting. It's a cool behind-the-scenes look into how the 4Kids English dub came to be in the way it did. Especially since I disagree with many of his choices p) I quite appreciate his openness to admitting retrospective errors and also changes where fans' mileage may vary compared with his. (Of course my take home is a comment of his from episode 4 in which he describes how Team Rocket 'ruined [his] life', to which my response is did you have to ruin theirs in return?! Lol.)

Anyway, has anyone else managed to have a listen yet and what are your thoughts?

 

[BigDocFan]

Currently listening to the first episode, it is fascinating to hear his recollections

 

[Dogasu]

I listened to one episode (Episode 5) and while it seems like it could be pretty fascinating the fact that it's only one dude talking into a mic kind of throws the whole thing off. Like, most podcasts have two people (at minimum!) to give each host someone to talk to but "Original Pokéman" one is just one guy talking into the void.

Also, the fact that someone who used to work on the actual English dub of Pokémon has to rely on fansubs for any and all information on the Japanese version is both hilarious and also incredibly sad.

 

[Vengeful Ghost]

The fansub thing bothers me by a lot. I appreciate the labor of love for the franchise. I tilt my head when we don’t have subs for a series this well known

 

[Handy Man]

The fansub thing bothers me by a lot. I appreciate the labor of love for the franchise. I tilt my head when we don’t have subs for a series this well known

If The Pokémon Company released an official boxset of the Japanese Pokémon anime with English subs, I would buy it in a heartbeat. Almost all anime today is released with subtitles nowadays, it’s a crime that officially subbed Pokémon isn’t a thing at all.

 

[snowmint]

So there are changes where they did it for the hell of it. Haha. I really want his insights about Kirby and Sonic dubs though.

 

[snowmint]

Also keep an eye out for this book in the future. More dub production inquires will be talked in it.

https://twitter.com/dandock/status/1512082882310787081?t=HzNOGY1kG96vZKjFTUhqww&s=19

 

[PaperSplash]

It was... much better than I expected. With all due respect to Mr. Haigney, he comes off as a lot more humble and understanding nowadays than in interviews from back when he worked at 4Kids. I was also pleasantly surprised with how comparatively well-researched these podcasts were. But you can definitely tell this is the same guy who worked on the dub scripts back in the day with all the corny dad jokes he makes.

My main criticism of the podcast is that I feel like he focuses too much on minor errors and oversights (which likely weren't entirely his fault) and the untranslatable puns. I'd rather hear more about the whole bits of dialogue that were completely changed... because reasons. Though given his explanations for the ramen -> pizza change in EP002 and killing off Brock's mom in EP005, it probably comes down to "I liked it better this way".

Also, the fact that someone who used to work on the actual English dub of Pokémon has to rely on fansubs for any and all information on the Japanese version is both hilarious and also incredibly sad.

Yeah, the irony definitely wasn't lost on me either.

 

[kantoskies]

I've just started listening to episode one, I am beyond excited to listen to this! I think it just being one guy talking is an interesting choice, I hope he is able to get some others to come in as guests (original actors, other scriptwriters, etc). However, one thing has stuck out to me:

Not only were the dubbers given low-quality VHS rips of the episodes to work off of, but they weren't even sure how to pronounce the damn name of the franchise.

I think that perfectly sums up the 4Kids dub.

 

[snowmint]

Doesn't detective Pikachu a movie use a different pronunciation of the title pokemon? I wish the podcast would release episodes quicker haha.

 

[PaperSplash]

I've just started listening to episode one, I am beyond excited to listen to this! I think it just being one guy talking is an interesting choice, I hope he is able to get some others to come in as guests (original actors, other scriptwriters, etc). However, one thing has stuck out to me:

Not only were the dubbers given low-quality VHS rips of the episodes to work off of, but they weren't even sure how to pronounce the damn name of the franchise.

I think that perfectly sums up the 4Kids dub.

To be fair, the name Pokémon is kind of a mess etymology-wise. It's an English phrase directly transliterated into Japanese and then abbreviated, then transliterated back into English, then given an acute accent that makes the title look more like French or Spanish than English or Japanese to the initial reader. (And for legal reasons, official western media isn't even allowed to mention what it's supposed to stand for, leaving it effectively meaningless over here.) That all said, the presence of the acute accent should at least make it clear what the intended pronunciation is thanks to the prevalence of French loanwords, so I never quite understood why so many people struggled with it. Then again, English speakers in particular are notorious for struggling to pronounce even the most vaguely "foreign"-sounding words (and yes, I say this as an English speaker myself who still suffers from this occasionally).

Anyway, I've wondered for a while now how even after Nintendo and PUSA/TPCi (rightfully!) cracked down hard on their licensees mispronouncing the franchise's name, Meowth in the English dub is still allowed to say "Pokeymon" to this day. Is it considered to be a part of his accent or what?

Doesn't detective Pikachu a movie use a different pronunciation of the title pokemon?

Yeah, the Detective Pikachu movie used "Pok-uh-mon", which is probably the most widely accepted mispronunciation, but still usually considered one. That same film also used the older "soft C" pronunciation of Arceus (also widely accepted by fans) which had otherwise been abandoned from official western media since 2009. I seriously wonder if TPCi was asleep at the wheel when supervising some parts of that movie, or if they were consciously making concessions for the sake of fans and general audiences.

 

[Blob]

To be fair, the name Pokémon is kind of a mess etymology-wise. It's an English phrase directly transliterated into Japanese and then abbreviated, then transliterated back into English, then given an acute accent that makes the title look more like French or Spanish than English or Japanese to the initial reader. (And for legal reasons, official western media isn't even allowed to mention what it's supposed to stand for, leaving it effectively meaningless over here.) That all said, the presence of the acute accent should at least make it clear what the intended pronunciation is thanks to the prevalence of French loanwords, so I never quite understood why so many people struggled with it. Then again, English speakers in particular are notorious for struggling to pronounce even the most vaguely "foreign"-sounding words (and yes, I say this as an English speaker myself who still suffers from this occasionally).

Anyway, I've wondered for a while now how even after Nintendo and PUSA/TPCi (rightfully!) cracked down hard on their licensees mispronouncing the franchise's name, Meowth in the English dub is still allowed to say "Pokeymon" to this day. Is it considered to be a part of his accent or what?

Yeah, the Detective Pikachu movie used "Pok-uh-mon", which is probably the most widely accepted mispronunciation, but still usually considered one. That same film also used the older "soft C" pronunciation of Arceus (also widely accepted by fans) which had otherwise been abandoned from official western media since 2009. I seriously wonder if TPCi was asleep at the wheel when supervising some parts of that movie, or if they were consciously making concessions for the sake of fans and general audiences.

When it comes to saying Pokémon, apparently it uses the Spanish é and not the French é.

Though as for the accent, I have a theory that going from "Pocket Monsters -> Poketto Monsutaa -> Pokémon" had something to do with the "etto" in Poketto. Since "et" is pronounced as "ay" in French, the translation messed up and gave it an accent as well as combing both words. Not sure if it's the same as in Spanish, since I don't know much about it.

Pokémon could have ended up as Pokaystar or something instead, since the "sutaa" part of Monsutaa sounds like the word "star".

 

[PaperSplash]

When it comes to saying Pokémon, apparently it uses the Spanish é and not the French é.

Though as for the accent, I have a theory that going from "Pocket Monsters -> Poketto Monsutaa -> Pokémon" had something to do with the "etto" in Poketto. Since "et" is pronounced as "ay" in French, the translation messed up and gave it an accent as well as combing both words. Not sure if it's the same as in Spanish, since I don't know much about it.

Pokémon could have ended up as Pokaystar or something instead, since the "sutaa" part of Monsutaa sounds like the word "star".

The "Pokémon" abbreviation was originally made in Japanese (ポケモン) which of course lacks the kind of accents Latin-based languages have. Originally, when the series was Japan-only, whenever that abbreviation was written out in the Latin alphabet, it was "Pokemon" without the accent or, more commonly at the time, "Pockemon" (or just the full "Pocket Monsters") which had the English origins taken into account.

When it became time for localization, they decided on the more literal "Pokemon" and that's when they decided to add the accent on the E. That was most likely to approximate the Japanese E sound as "ay" (even though it's closer to an unaccented "eh"). As for why they close to omit the C, I don't think it's because they were unaware of what it stood for (after all, it was commonly spelled out as "Pocket Monsters" and "Pockemon" in Japan at the time); I think it was actually a deliberate choice to obscure what it stood for as they were (and still are) afraid of legal action from the creators of the existing franchise "Monster in My Pocket" (one of said creators ended up suing anyway, but it was unsuccessful).

If Monster in My Pocket wasn't already a thing, I feel like they would have gone with "Pockemon" or maybe "Pocksters" (the latter since that's how English portmanteau abbreviations tend to work, and they would both be pronounced like "pocket" is in English). Again, I have no doubt that everyone involved knew what "Pokemon"/ポケモン was meant to stand for; they were actually trying to hide that as best as possible because of legal issues.

 

[kantoskies]

I think regardless of how difficult or unintuitive the pronunciation of "Pokémon" may be, the fact that the people in charge of producing the official, licensed dub of the anime not knowing how to say it is ridiculous. Surely there was a phonetic spelling of how to pronounce the word somewhere in the material kit 4Kids received from Nintendo when they first started writing the scripts and recording the lines. And if not, someone at 4Kids absolutely could have called Nintendo and ask how they were supposed to pronounce it. We aren't talking about some 3rd Grade teacher or out-of-touch aunt trying to understand this weird new craze kids can't shut up about, these are the people in charge of producing the damn thing!

I'm not sure who dropped the ball there, but this is just one of many, many examples of 4Kids seemingly knowing very little about the source material.

Anyways, having listened to every episode so far, I think what bothers me most about this podcast is how little he actually seems to say about behind-the-scenes and production info about the dub. I'd say at least a good half of each episode is spent just summarizing what happens in the episode itself, and whenever it seems like he is about to share an interesting tidbit or secret, he says something like "but we'll get to that in a later episode".

I suppose there is only so much interesting info he can share, and I'm unsure of how long he plans on doing this podcast- Just the Kanto saga? All of the OS? 4Kids' entire dub???- but it seems like he is trying to stretch maybe 2-3 episodes' worth of secrets out much longer than it would otherwise last.

 

[snowmint]

I already want to hear what thinks about James being problematic with a rose and Andrew Rannels.

 

[BigDocFan]

Episode 6 is now available

Clefairy and the Moonstone

 

[PaperSplash]

Episode 6 is now available

Clefairy and the Moonstone

According to this episode, Michael Haigney supervised and did some rewrites for other dub script writers during his tenure, but he did at least the first six episodes on his own.

 

[snowmint]

I'm hoping he talks more about Maddie soon enough.

 

[BigDocFan]

I'm hoping he talks more about Maddie soon enough.

I wouldn't be surprised if he holds of on that until when they take over as Meowth, hope I am wrong

 

[snowmint]

https://twitter.com/GamingXperience/status/1539710928400285697?t=sMXkYQpXDzPb0cSKZHmyew&s=19

This is certainly a neat little mystery too.