Voltron

Voltron: Defender of the Universe is an American animated television series that features a team of astronauts who pilot a giant Super Robot known as "Voltron". Initially produced as a joint venture between World Events Productions and Toei Animation, the original television series aired in syndication from September 10, 1984 to November 18, 1985.

Dubbing History
Voltron was created by Peter Keefe and John Teichmann, founding partners of World Events Productions, in 1984 using material that they had licensed from the Japanese animated series Beast King GoLion and Armored Fleet Dairugger XV. But since they had no means of translating the Japanese series into English, Keefe and Teichman surmised the plots, commissioned writer Jameson Brewer to write all-new dialogue, edited out the more violent scenes, and remixed the audio into stereo format. The series was an immediate hit in the United States, topping the syndication market for children's programs in the mid-1980s.

The Japanese Future Robot Daltanious series from 1979-1980 was originally planned to be adapted by World Events Productions as part of Voltron. When requesting master tapes from Toei Animation for translation purposes, the World Events Productions producers requested "[the] ones with the lion." Mistakenly, Toei then proceeded to ship World Events copies of Beast King GoLion, another "combining-robot" cartoon which featured lion-shaped fighting robot starships. Because the World Events producers greatly preferred GoLion to Daltanious, the GoLion episodes were adapted instead, going on to become the most popular portion of the original Voltron run. A third version/series of Voltron based on yet another Japanese series, Lightspeed Electroid Albegas (1983-1984), was also in progress, but dropped when World Events Productions joined with Toei to make new GoLion-based shows, due to that show's popularity over the Dairugger run.

Lion Force Voltron (Season 1)
Lion Force Voltron is an edited adaptation of Beast King GoLion (機甲艦隊百獣王ゴライオン Hyaku Jūō Goraion) from 1981-1982, as the first generation of the Voltron series.

Vehicle Team Voltron (Season 2)
Vehicle Team Voltron is an edited adaptation of Armored Fleet Dairugger XV (機甲艦隊ダイラガーXV Kikō Kantai Dairagā Fifutīn) from 1982-1983, as the second generation of the Voltron series.

Overall Notes

 * Voltron was one of the first television programs to be produced and broadcast in stereophonic sound. Around the time of the show's production, the Federal Communications Commission was in the process of approving stereo broadcasting, yet most programs and cartoons back then were still being broadcast in monaural sound. World Events Productions took notice of this and decided to make the stereo sound of the series a big selling point: almost every store selling stereo television sets in the mid 80's used Voltron as a highlight of what stereo sound could deliver versus mono.