Saban Entertainment

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Saban)
Jump to: navigation, search

Saban Entertainment was an independent television production company formed in 1983 by music and television producers Haim Saban and Shuki Levy (who also reached the bottom line with the edition of "Nippon Animation Grimm's Fairy Tales") as "Saban Records", a U.S. subsidiary of "Saban International Paris" (now SIP Animation) who provided music soundtracks to shows made by other companies (most notably DiC). In 1984, the company expanded in television production of its own, and was renamed "Saban Productions". Several years later, the company also established "Saban International" (now Buena Vista International Television), for international distribution of its shows (note: though used interchangeably with "Saban International Paris", they were technically two different entities). Finally, in the early 1990s the company renamed itself "Saban Entertainment".

This company is known for importing, dubbing, and adapting several Japanese series such as, Maple Town (...Stories), Noozles (Fushigi na Koala Blinky and Printy), Samurai Pizza Cats (Kyatto Ninden Teyande), Dragon Ball Z to North America and international markets for syndication, including both animation and live action shows.

Before moving to the United States, Haim Saban lived a decade in France, where he founded the aforementioned Saban International Paris, and participated in the importation of the first Japanese anime and sentai series which started in 1978, by producing the adaptations' score and opening theme. The successful importation of Japanese licenses in France gave him a solid experience and the idea to apply the same principles in a bigger market, the United States, where he moved in 1983.

Saban was involved in the co-production of French/American anime shows created by Jean Chalopin for DIC. Some of these early 1980s co-productions were Ulysses 31, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, and The Mysterious Cities of Gold (the third of which actually was a Japanese anime).

Other famous franchises include Digimon, Mushrambo (localized as "Shinzo"), and various toku adapts, which include Power Rangers (based on the Super Sentai series), Beetleborgs (based on Juukou B-Fighters), VR Troopers (featuring elements of Metal Heroes series Shaider, Spielban and Metalder), and Masked Rider (an original interpretation using scenes from the Japanese Kamen Rider Black RX).

Contents

Early operation

Several original animated series were produced for Marvel Comics, and the company's dubbed products began to rapidly increase as the anime boom began. Through a merger with US Fox Children's Entertainment in 1996, Fox Kids was born (with "Fox Kids Worldwide" as the holding company), although the Fox Kids block had actually been promoting itself officially as "Fox Kids" since 1993; prior to that, they were just simply the "Fox Kids Network", and all shows at that time had been promoted as airing "on Fox"

Tokusatsu Adaptations

During the anime boom of the 1980s/early-1990s, Saban decided to take a risk and introduce the Henshin Hero genre to America. In Japan, the Henshin Hero genre gained a lot of popularity led by manga writer Shotaro Ishinomori (creator of Kamen Rider, and co-producer of Toei) who is considered to be the "Father of Henshin Heroes." Meanwhile, in America, the only forms of tokusatsu that Americans were familiar with were mainly Godzilla, Gamera, and Ultraman.

Shuki Levy decided to adapt a show from the Super Sentai genre, his first choices being Sun Vulcan, Bioman and Jetman which became Saban's first choice for the first season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Finally, 1992's Zyuranger was accepted and used for footage in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers' first season in 1993, in conjunction to the release of Jurassic Park.

There were many doubts about how the series would turn out; surprisingly, the series became a hit. After the success of Power Rangers, Saban would go on to introduce other genres in Tokusatsu. The Metal Hero adaptations, VR Troopers, and Beetleborgs became hits as well, but ended prematurely due to lack of footage. Ishinomori's Kamen Rider character was introduced as a Power Rangers spin-off series, but compared to the other adaptations, it did not fare well in ratings.

Renaming

In October 2001, the group was sold to Disney as part of the sale of Fox Family Worldwide (now ABC Family) by Haim Saban and the News Corporation, and renamed BVS Entertainment. Concurrently, Fox Kids was replaced with the Fox Box (now known as 4Kids TV), featuring a line of shows from 4Kids Entertainment. Disney gained ownership of all Saban's products, and began to air many of them on ABC Family, and later on Toon Disney in a programming block called Jetix. The European Fox Kids channel continued to run under that name until the beginning of 2005, when it was also rebranded as "Jetix", as is the former Fox Kids channel in Latin America.

List of television shows and films

(This list also includes shows made by DIC Entertainment, which Saban provided the music for. Also, with the exception of Pinocchio, shows produced by "Saban International Paris" feature "Saban's" in their title. This list also includes live-action movies they provided music for.)

1960s

Acquired from New World Communications. Originally produced by Grantray-Lawrence Animation.

1970s

Acquired from New World Communications. Originally produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises (later became Marvel Productions).

1980s

The Marvel Comics-based series were acquired from New World Communications. They were originally produced by Marvel Productions.

1990s

The Marvel Comics-based series were acquired from New World Communications. They were originally produced by Marvel Productions.

2000s

External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saban_Entertainment"
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.