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 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. Outside of these songs, nothing of this dub has surfaced online. Some international dubs of the show have also used this dub as a base.

An American distributor, LBS Communications, who had earlier brought the Dutch cartoon Doctor Snuggles to the United States , would import an American English dub of the series 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 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, although it's likely that the dub may have been recorded at Frontier Enterprises as the voice cast sounds akin to their actors. 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 necessary. 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. On July 25, 2018, the Korean streaming service Laftel started to host the Centauro dubs to both series.

U.K. Dub 🇬🇧 [[united kingdom|United Kingdom]]
Like the original, Flanders accordingly did the voices for all of the characters.
 * Michael Flanders - 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 in that season while the narrator retained his primary role.

Almost all of 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

It is also known that Kais Kappler helped to sing some of the songs in this dub, namely "Colors" and "Thinking".

Songs
Barbapapa has a range of many musical melodies that were used throughout episodes. The British dub had originally covered all of them, and the Centauro dub had redubbed them while using mostly the same lyrics from that dub's songs. The Magno dub opted for its own original soundtrack, most notably the intro, which uses roughly the same lyrics as the British dub but with a different instrumental and no role-call; for the rest of the songs, they were left instrumental. In the Canadian dub, they used the British songs, and in the Aniplex dub, they were left instrumental (but unlike the Magno dub, it uses the same instrumental track as the original).

U.K. Dub
The vocals were provided by Ed Stewart, Cathy MacDonald, and the London Boy Singers. These songs were released on a CD at around the time of the dub's premiere.
 * Introducing the Barbapapa Family (Theme song)
 * Little Shadow
 * Be a Thinker
 * Barbalib
 * The Greatest Animal Lover
 * Barbabeau's Paint Box
 * Barbapapa Rock
 * Everything Is Singing For Barbalala's Song
 * Send for Barbabravo
 * Barbabelle
 * The Barbapapa Family (Extended theme song)

Centauro Dub
At least two songs were known to be sung by Kais Kappler ("Colors" and "Thinking"), and 30-40 second snippets of them were uploaded to Vimeo in 2017. Various other songs were uploaded by the official Barbapapa YouTube channel in 2016, for a 30-second duration each.
 * The Barbapapa Family (shortened version)
 * Barbapapa Rock
 * Barbabelle
 * Everything Is Singing for Barbalala
 * Be a Thinker / Thinking
 * The Greatest Animal Lover
 * Send for Barbabravo
 * Barbalib
 * Colors

Credits
These are the end credits of the Magno dub.

Videos

 * Magno Dub

Transmission
Note: The actual UK airing dates of the British dubbing of Barbapapa were sourced from Radio Times and BBC Genome.