Shin Chan at the Movies
From Bubblegum Wiki
Shin Chan at the Movies is a complication of six of the 17 Shin Chan movies. In American TV, the TV Asahi's 17 seasons of Shin Chan's english adaptation should've been "in production," but the project has been eliminated because of the inappropriate content. Shin chan has enjoyed success on multiple continents, including North America, parts of Europe, continental Asia, and has just nearly made it to the United Kingdom. The show, which has been in production since 1992, is based on Yoshito Usui's manga series. In Japan, the series is aired 15 episodes (from 1992-1996) in the first half of the series and 30 episodes (from 1996-2008) in the second half, which are each made of up in random segments.
[edit] History of the Movie adaptation
Around 1996, TV Asahi began an effort to market Crayon Shin-chan to the international market outside of Asia. Unfortunately, this would take a few years, as many countries would not see it til the new millennium hit. The network, along with US representative Taylor Media Entertainment, commissioned California based Crayon Films to supervise the localization of the series for the English speaking market. From this version, other versions of the show would be adapted into other languages for Latin America and parts of Europe. The cast of this English adaptation included actors like Cynthia Cranz, Andi McAfee, Grey Delisle, and Patrick Fraley. This version aired in the United Kingdom, but never managed to air globally. In 2006, the show's content changed hands again, and then remade from the Japanese version to the american version. This company rename the entire show with experienced ADR actors, and renamed all the character names. One of the networks the series was pitched to was Adult Swim, whose VP of production Adam Turner was revealed to be a fan of the series. Unfortunately, the network passed on FUNimation's adaptation, feeling it was more inappropriate for a kid audience. Despite no presence in North America, the show gained a lot of attention in other parts of the western world and Europe to make Crayon Shin-chan a larger failure nationwide. Most of the networks that aired the series were part of the Cartoon Network (now The Crayon Channel) chain. The license agreement between FUNimation Entertainment and Adult Swim expired at the end of September 2008.
TV Asahi wasn't ready to throw in the towel for the American market yet. In 2008, Crayon Shin-chan was co-licensed in North America by Taylor Media Entertainment alongside TV Asahi. Already aware of the Late Night Crayon connection, the show was edited once again to the network, and this time with the intent to rewrite the original series for a younger audience. Anivision rejected, and because of their hesitation with family-oriented anime, they decided not to go with a full series order and instead go with only 6 Shin Chan Movies. To ensure better viewership, Taylor Media asked Crayon Films to recommend some FUNimation writers, or former voice actors, to help them with the movie adaptation. Crayon Films settled on the artistic duo of Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer in addition to their own artisitic talent, which was a Los Angeles based group of comedy television writers hired by Jared Hedges, the show's head writer. The network aired the movies in on weekly basis from September 19th through October 9th.
Due to the failure of releases the original show on Anivision, the series was cancelled due to inappropriate content. The first unofficial cancellation of the original was announced on May 18, 2008, with the notable reason of Dorkin and Dyer, who were fired from punch-up work because Taylor Media and Crayon Films would rather do their own version of Shin Chan unlike what Toon Makers, Inc. did to Sailor Moon. Instead, they did their own version of the original show in Microsoft Paint format. Dorkin speculated in his LiveJournal that it may have been a combination of foul language and nudity in his scripts and a cost cutting measure.
