Barbapapa

Barbapapa is a Japanese-Dutch animated children's television series that was created by the French-American couple, Annette Tison and Talus Taylor, in 1974. The series was adapted from the 1970 book series of the same name. It was co-produced by the Japanese animation studios KSS and Topcraft, and the Dutch studio, PolyScope BV.

Dubbing History
Barbapapa has had a total of five English dubs. The first of which formerly aired on BBC One in the United Kingdom from January 17, 1975 to 1979. It was narrated by Michael Flanders in London, England. Its theme song was performed by Ed Stewart, Cathy MacDonald, and The London Boy Singers, and was released along with some other songs featured in the series in 1975. Many international dubs of the show used this dub as a base.

An American distributor, LBS Communications would import an American English dub of the series in the United States for a syndicated run from September 4, 1977 to December 3, 1983. It was produced by Magno Sound and Video, and recorded in New York with a small cast of three people; Allen Swift as the narrator, Barbapapa, and most of the male characters, Ann Costello as the female characters, and Alexander Marshall as Barbazoo. Episodes were cut to around two minutes each in order to fit syndication.

Unlike the other dubs, this one has more witty dialogue, and all of the accents of the characters were adapted into common ones; Barbabeau and Barbabravo explicitly have New York accents, Barbabright has a British accent, and Barbabelle speaks like a southern belle. This dub also uses its own background music, and the theme song is a remix of the original and shares almost the same lyrics with the British English dub, except that there is no role-call. Outside of that however, the other musical melodies that play throughout episodes of the show were not dubbed, and were instead left instrumental.

In the same month, a Canadian English dub of Barbapapa formerly aired on TVOntario from September 17, 1977 to September 10, 1985, and later on Knowledge Network from 1985 to 1987. The Barbapapas all have individual voices in this dub, as opposed to being voiced all by one narrator. The dub also used the same songs from the British English dub, including the theme song. None of the cast of this dub is known. This dub was released on DVDs in the United Kingdom, distributed by Spectrum in 1981, and advertised as the "Americanised version".

In 2001 and again in 2005, Aniplex/Sony Music Entertainment distributed DVDs and VHSes of Barbapapa episodes in Japan that contained an English dub alongside a French and Japanese audio track. Not much is known about this specific dub, as its dubbing studio and voice actors are currently unknown. The actors in question also often exchange which characters they play at random episodes, and it appears to have used a limited cast of around 3-4 people. All of the songs were not dubbed and were left instrumental.

In a similar matter, DVDs of Barbapapa would be released in South Korea in 2006, only containing an English audio track (with English and Korean subtitles available) in order to teach Korean people English. These DVDs featured another American English dub by Centauro Comunicaciones that was recorded in Miami, Florida. Like the original, the first season would have the narrator voicing all of the characters, while in the second season they were all given individual voices. However, nearly none of the cast of this dub is known either. This was the only dub to cover the entire series, unlike the others which all appear to have stopped at season one.

This dub used a lot of the 2001 Aniplex dub's script as a base, but it also has been known to take dialogue from the Canadian English dub, such as in the episode "Barbapapa's Cake". All of the songs were dubbed with lyrics taken from the British English songs and changed when available. These songs were uploaded (albeit shortened to 30 seconds) to the official Barbapapa YouTube channel. This was the last English dub of Barbapapa to be produced, however Centauro would also dub the 1999 anime spin-off Barbapapa Around the World at the same time, and it was released on the same Korean DVDs.

U.K. Dub 🇬🇧 [[united kingdom|United Kingdom]]
Like the original, Flanders accordingly did the voices for all of the characters.
 * Michael Flanders as the narrator

Centauro Dub 🇺🇸 [[united states|United States]]
Just like the original, a narrator did the voices of all of the characters in the first season, while the characters were all given their own individual voices by various actors in season two. The voice of Barbapapa himself was replaced while the narrator retained his primary role. Nearly the same actors also reprised their roles for Barbapapa Around the World, with the exception of the narrator, who was replaced by a female narrator in that series. It is not known who nearly all of these actors are.

Additional voices

 * Kian B. Fan

Credits
These are the end credits of the Magno dub.

Videos

 * U.K. Dub