In January 2002, 4Kids Entertainment, the US distributors of the Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! anime series acquired the 4-hour Saturday Morning Time Slot from the FOX Broadcasting Company. Fox, who had recently sold off its Family entertainment division to Disney, would give 4Kids full creative and financial freedom with the timeslot. 4Kids would proceed to fill the hours granted from Fox with tons of licensed Japanese anime titles, many of which have become rather infamous in the anime community for the extensive censorship and editing 4Kids would give them such as One Piece and Sonic X.
But even before 4Kids came into the picture, Fox was no stranger to airing anime on their networks. In 2000, Fox Kids Network, Fox's former children's broadcast service, launched a 2 hour Friday Afternoon block called "Anime Invasion" airing nonstop anime. Seeing the Success Kids' WB! and Cartoon Network were having with the medium, Fox Kids wanted in on the action.
Most of the anime featured on the lineup were licensed and dubbed by Saban Entertainment, the production company behind Power Rangers, and by that point a Subsidiary of Fox Family Worldwide, Inc. The entity of Fox jointly owned by Hiam Saban, that also owned Fox Kids. Escaflowne, was the sole exception, with it being licensed by Bandai. In fact, Fox Kids' short lived airing of Escaflowne was a very interesting case. While it was still the Ocean-Produced, Bandai dub, the network chopped, altered, and re-wrote the series so much that it may as well have been a different show. Fox Kids dropped the show after just 10 episodes because of that. Besides that, there was DinoZaurs, Flint the Time Detective, and the network's biggest hit at the time, Digimon: Digital Monsters.
Fox Kids wasn't alone either. Fox Family Channel, Fox's ill-faded cable-based answer to Nickelodeon, also ran a similar block called "Made In Japan" which aired many of the same shows, but also added Monster Rancher, and the 90s Mega Man series... For some reason. What's interesting about Fox's approach was that while most networks at the time would attempt to disguise the country of origin for these shows like with 4Kids, Fox Kids and Fox Family instead embraced the Japanese roots. Saban's Digimon dub kept most of the names and Japanese cultural elements, and various tidbits of Japanese culture would be sprinkled in throughout each block.
Fox Family itself was a fascinating piece of television, and things like Made in Japan showed that it had a ton of potential as a network, if only the powers that be at Fox and Saban knew how to use it.
But even before 4Kids came into the picture, Fox was no stranger to airing anime on their networks. In 2000, Fox Kids Network, Fox's former children's broadcast service, launched a 2 hour Friday Afternoon block called "Anime Invasion" airing nonstop anime. Seeing the Success Kids' WB! and Cartoon Network were having with the medium, Fox Kids wanted in on the action.
Most of the anime featured on the lineup were licensed and dubbed by Saban Entertainment, the production company behind Power Rangers, and by that point a Subsidiary of Fox Family Worldwide, Inc. The entity of Fox jointly owned by Hiam Saban, that also owned Fox Kids. Escaflowne, was the sole exception, with it being licensed by Bandai. In fact, Fox Kids' short lived airing of Escaflowne was a very interesting case. While it was still the Ocean-Produced, Bandai dub, the network chopped, altered, and re-wrote the series so much that it may as well have been a different show. Fox Kids dropped the show after just 10 episodes because of that. Besides that, there was DinoZaurs, Flint the Time Detective, and the network's biggest hit at the time, Digimon: Digital Monsters.
Fox Kids wasn't alone either. Fox Family Channel, Fox's ill-faded cable-based answer to Nickelodeon, also ran a similar block called "Made In Japan" which aired many of the same shows, but also added Monster Rancher, and the 90s Mega Man series... For some reason. What's interesting about Fox's approach was that while most networks at the time would attempt to disguise the country of origin for these shows like with 4Kids, Fox Kids and Fox Family instead embraced the Japanese roots. Saban's Digimon dub kept most of the names and Japanese cultural elements, and various tidbits of Japanese culture would be sprinkled in throughout each block.
Fox Family itself was a fascinating piece of television, and things like Made in Japan showed that it had a ton of potential as a network, if only the powers that be at Fox and Saban knew how to use it.
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