Wednesday, August 13, 2014

A review of the Portuguese RS dub, right after the first episode finished airing

Originally posted on the Toonzone forums ca. 15 minutes after the premiere. Features a little backstory.
So my Regular Show "symptoms" are actually trying to recover themself. Back in November, when it was announced that TCM and Boomerang would leave ZON's offer, I was worried about CN HQ. I thought that I was about to get it 24/7, but by the end of the month, the channel was replaced with CN PT. The last thing I watched from it was the RS episode "A Bunch of Baby Ducks", until that morning, I thought that CN HQ would cease broadcasting to Portugal the night before that at 20:00.
When I was coming home from school, my mind was thinking about CN PT: was it supposed to be an emulation of CN HQ? I was expecting to see those annoying "The Amazing World of Elmore" shorts that I had already seen in the two months before that and lose control on my relationship with Cartoon Network. Minutes later, things were all about to change...
Shortly after 16:00, I came home and turned on the TV on my bedroom... before he goes to Cartoon Network Portugal, he needs to try and go watch another channel for a change. I went to channel 42 (Canal Panda), but they were airing My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Considering that I am not a brony, I (quickly) move to channel 47 (where CN HQ used to be) and the shock followed as soon as Cartoon Network Portugal invaded my screen.
An episode of the Powerpuff Girls (I remember perfectly what the episode was: it was "Members Only") appeared on my screen for the first time in YEARS, and with the so-called "vertical black bars"! (it was airing in letterbox) The channel was FINALLY airing in widescreen, the bug was now solid and everything changed. Finn and Gumball both sound more girly, LSP sounds more manly, Jake sounds more older, like if he was someone's grandfather who just got healthier, Dexter lost his accent, his father sounds like Renato Alexandre, at least seven years before the character was invented, Richard sounds more stupider, Ben sounds more depressed and other stuff followed afterwards.
I thought that my childhood ended that day... forever... until the middle of January, I didn't get the English audio track, and we lost access to the latest episodes of everyone's favorite CN shows and Regular Show. For four months, Portugal lost the access to it. And after reading YouTube comments on the launch promo, I finally had that thing in mind that shows like Regular Show and all the non-Ben 10 action shows were considered "too complex" for a six-year old, and with the new feed, I have the idea that the visuals on Adventure Time are now more childish than the same thing applied to CN HQ. Regular Show will probably become too childish on the new feed, or for me, is it just the backgrounds for it?
When I discovered that CN PT is just CN ES in disguise (only without some third-party shows, especially the Shin-Ei animes), the NEXT bumpers ALL have the SAME audio track! And when you thought that the CHECK it. look provided many audio tracks for the NEXT bumpers, think again... Even some bumpers have the wrong soundtrack...
As the months passed, the channel grew and grew and added more shows to the schedule. I discovered that the channel was airing ALMOST the same episodes, and found out that their favorite AT episodes were "Her Parents", "Party Animal" and "Memory of a Memory". The fact that S3 of AT premiered in the wrong order is actually a fact that the channel has inferior quality and seems to be run by only one person.
At 11:32:53*, Regular Show FINALLY premiered on the channel, thus ending four months of staying without it. The voice acting:
Mordecai sounds like he's thirty or so, which looks like what happens when the Portuguese voice actor for Garfield from The Garfield Show drops acid (not literally);
Rigby sounds like he's a fifteen year old (probably a sixteen year old) working for the dubbing industry;
Benson sounds like the Portuguese Mordecai, only more depressing;
Pops sounds like Richard Watterson, only sillier, and they didn't change the name;
Skips sounds like a man with coughing problems rather than a yeti who is a few centuries old (in other words: more nervous), and they didn't change the bloody name;
and Muscle Man sounds like he's older and depressed and like one of those awful character voices, plus they changed his name to Musculoso, seriously, all his "A MINHA MÃE" jokes makes the original Muscle Man's "MY MOM" jokes look like the ones of a depressing Sunday afternoon show.
At this point I feel like I'm missing CN HQ and BM HQ more than any other channel that disappeared... But not more than any other thing that has disappeared.
Plus we get the European version... Turkey gets the American version (they are more rebel than CN PT).
The Portuguese version is so sub-par... seems like my life and my relationship with RS was destroyed thanks to this horrible dub...
It seems that the Portuguese dubs of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Regular Show and The Amazing Woruld of Gumball are all set in Portugal... Assuming that there are references to the Euro as their currency and Portuguese popular culture, it seems that my relationship with RS changed drastically.
And I wish that Portuguese people had a perfect English accent...
*according to my computer clock

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