BIGGS - September 2014 Highlights

September is supposed to be the month of big changes, but this month there aren't a lot of them. Just two new shows on September 1st (Angry Birds Toons and Tenkai Knights) and a show that initially aired on Canal Panda on September 20th (The Basketeers a.k.a. Baskup with Tony Parker).

CANAL PANDA - September 2014 Highlights

There will be some new shows and seasons, as usual:

Starting from the 1st of September, Canal Panda will premiere a full-scale Lalaloopsy animated series (the shorts aired on the channel at least two years ago). It will air at 07:30, repeated at 18:30.
Race Tin: Flash and Dash premieres it's second season (technically the fourth) on September 1st as well. I'm probably talking about a sequel to this season:

The Chinese versions seem to have more episodes than the original, by my understanding. It will air at 08:30, repeated at 21:30.
There will also be new episodes of Pocoyo starting from the 16th, but I'm sure that there will be a new dub.

Your Shout: CN PT's dependency on movies

Why can't CN PT use CN HQ's movie library instead?
Why are they airing Tom and Jerry: Blast Off to Mars every week?
Why can't they launch Boomerang over here?
Please comment so that we can assert this issue.

Bébé Lilly is back (sort of)

SURELY you haven't lisetened to something like THIS!

Clarence and Teen Titans GO! are also coming to CN Portugal

Clarence will come earlier than expected and Teen Titans GO! is a surprise.
For a start, I wanted it to see on Biggs, but then again, they weren't that satisfied and put it on CN PT.
I wanted it to call "Teen Titans VAMOS!", but then I realized about a couple other dubs keeping the original name intact. The Netherlands is an example.
And I'm not sure about the voices. Will they be the same as the Biggs dub?

Numb Chucks coming in September to CN PT

That was unexpected. I wanted to see this on Biggs but it seems that they turned it down.
That's the kind of show Biggs could air.

Tiji: what to expect

LIBERTÉ EGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ
The text above means that NOS will be revolutionized with a kids channel from France. Available at the moment on Vodafone, previously available on MEO and Optimus, available in Angola and Mozambique through a French add-on on ZAP, say hello to Tiji.
For those who don't know, Tiji is more or less like a French Canal Panda. In fact, most of the shows that air on the channel have already aired on Canal Panda in our mother tongue. Who knows some French (at least) or who knows French immigrants might probably know about this hannel's existence.
Tiji broadcasts from 04:30 to 23:00 (05:30 to 00:00 if you're French).
The channel airs content from various sources. This includes stuff like the French dub of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Pound Puppies, the current versions of Franklin and Maya the Bee, Peppa Pig, Tree Fu Tom and Littlest Pet Shop.
I haven't seen the channel so far and, trust me, you will secretly try and find the words "omelette du fromage" hidden somewhere.

The Irregularities of Portuguese Dubs: Phineas and Ferb

Welcome to the first episode of a feature I like to call "The Irregularities of Portuguese Dubs".
Have you seen dubbed cartoons which end up being a waste of time? Have you seen constant name and currency changes? Well then, this is the purpose of this series.
Let's start with Phineas and Ferb. First up, the theme song, with a literal translation of how the Portuguese one sounds like:

104 days make up summer vacation
And school ends with them
But the greates problem that we all live together
Is knowing how to enjoy them
Let's go
Walking in space, fighting a mummy, you can go and climb the Eiffel Tower
Finding something that doesn't exist or let a monkey shine
Surfing tidal waces, creating nanobots, dissecate Frankenstein (It's here!)
Finding a dodo, painting a continent or make your sister scream (Phineas!)
How good to live, there's a lot to do, school is starting (Let's go, Perry)
Stay over there, because Phineas and Ferb wil try everything
Stay over there, because Phineas and Ferb wil try everything

Mom, Phineas and Ferb made the opening song!
Happy now? The references to the intro are incorrect. In "Canderemy" they say "genérico" and "dar um banho a um macaco" instead of "canção de abertura" and "por um macaco a brilhar".

Now, there are some irregularities that might be of note:
There's a lot of cultural translation involved, but do you know what's the name of the Tri-State Area? Toda Esta Área (All [of] This Area). In one of the early episodes they said "Toda Esta Zona" (All [of] This Zone).

Eventually they dropped it altogether in recent episodes and decided to call it "Área dos Três Estados" or "Zona dos Três Estados", which means that the dub's quality has deproved.

Major Monogram had an exciting middle name on the Portuguese dub: Major José Maria Monograma. The dub was starting to deprove at Where's Perry?, where his middle name changed to the original: Major Francis Monograma.

Where's the creativity? Is it deproving like the show? The evil jingle, my friends. The evil jingle.

Listen to it at 00:56. The dubbed jingle means "Doofenshmirtz Society of Evil" (Doofenshmirtz Sociedade do Mal).

Unfortunately, the new jingle (which I can't find on the internet) and was used at the start of season 3 and eventually throughout season 4 has piss-awful singers.

Speaking of cultrual translation, Meap Me in St. Louis becomes "Meap em Arcos de Valdevez". Arcos de Valdevez is depicted as St. Louis.

That's it for the first episode. If you have anything to add about this dub, please write it in the comments.

CN PT-related news

I know it's still the silly seasnon but:
-A newspaper supplement called Notícias TV dedicated a full page to the tenth anniversary of Johnny Bravo's demise, unfortunately it didn't mention Johnny Bravo Goes to Bollywood:
-CN is ranked 8th on cable television. No English channels. Why?

Breadwinners premiere confirmed

It will premiere in October.
We have to wait a loooong while to get it.

Dubbing work for the Portuguese dub of The 7D has just started

Amplaplateia, a theatre company that is currently dubbing Disney's shows, has started work on the Portuguese dub of The 7D.

According to a Facebook post with this image, André Gago voices the one on the far left.
In Portugal, it will be called Os 7A. I did not invent it, Mariana from the Toonzone forums and ANMTV invented it.

Why not to buy the Simpsons Comics magazine

a) it's being advertised on Nickelodeon (so far);
b) it's an adult show, it was initially meant to people over the age of 16;
c) Shin-Chan is better in terms of "adult concepts aimed at young children".

Coming soon to RTP 2: Peg + Cat and Cloudbabies

This week, Sérgio Calvinho (to which I'm the only one to cringe at his awful voice) has started work for the EU-PT dub of PBS educational cartoon Peg + Cat. It teaches basic maths and will probably arrive next month.
The show wile be titled "Peg e o Gato", in order to "avoid" the mathematical elements of the show in the first place.
Cloudbabies will also premiere, to which the same VA also did work for it, and it finished last month.

Your Shout: Is a CN block viable on RTP 1?

RTP 1, a channel that hasn't aired any cartoons for thirteen months needs a CN block (it has been a mirror of RTP 2's for years).

Is a CN block viable? Will RTP 1 air it longer than the failed "Hora Warner" experiment?

Breadwinners coming soon to Nickelodeon Portugal

The heavily-criticized cartoon which was greenlighted from a short on Youtube that hasn't achieved a million views is coming soon to Nickelodeon Portugal.
And the title is...
...still Breadwinners.

CN PT dub VAs

Look at what I found today.

We still don't know any info about which studios dubbed which shows, but here's an overview:

Starting tonight... with Ben 10, whose titular character, the depressing 12-year old whose voice hasn't underwent any changes in six years (in age, that is) is voiced by João Pedro Jesus, while Grandpa Max is voiced by the Portuguese Mermando. On Omniverse, some aliens are dubbed by Guilherme Macedo and Gwen is voiced by Érika Mota. Rui de Sá is in it as well.

On Steven Universe, we only know that the girly Steven is Sissi Martins.

We already know that Gumball is being voiced by Teresa Arcanjo, however Darwin is a girl as well, he is voiced by Sissi Martins.

Richard is voiced by Edgard Fernandes, which, ironically enough, used to work for Disney to dub Aladdin. Mário Santos voices Miss Simian and Principal Brown, Nicole and Penny are voiced by Joana Carvalho and Anais is voiced by Isabel Carvalho, which may be Joana's daughter.

Instead of being voiced a 17-year old bloke, Finn is voiced by...
...a 30-year old woman.
Finn is voiced over here by Isabel Nunes, who also did voices for more recent Pokémon seasons, Jake is voiced by Pedro Mendonça, who also did Pokémon dubs, the Ice King and LSP are both voiced by Ivo Bastos, which did a more manlier job at voicing LSP compared to the man who voices her in the original, Tree Trunks is voiced by Zélia Santos, while Princess Bubblegum and BMO are both voiced by Isabel Queirós, who did a much more girlier and less Asian/Korean job at BMO.
All I see is just Pokémon VAs. All of this leads me to just one question: Is Adventure Time dubbed at Cinemágica?

GAOBAM is dubbed almost entirely by professionals. Billy is voiced by Carlos Macedo, one of our top VAs, who already voiced the Red Guy on Cow and Chicken. Grim is voiced by Rui de Sá and Mandy is voiced by... Carla Garcia?!


All I know is that the vomitive titular character is voiced by Raúl Constante Pereira.

As for the JT dub, it's so bad you may already know the voices. That includes Ferb and Dr. Doofenshmirtz.
Unfortunately, there's no info on the piss-awful RS dub.

Blogging Excavations: Cartoon Network Was Not The Only One

This one didn't finish off due to a lack of time.
PART 1
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In the late 1980s, satellite television grew like mushrooms. The first TV channel aimed at kids to air in Portugal was TCC.

The Children's Channel (last logo pictured here) led to an eventual breakup to Portugal when the SKY Multichannels package arrived, offering no choices for children over the next two-and-a-half-weeks,
Cable TV arrived to the Madeira Islands in 1992, using some SKY channels but that was just the beginning. The first cable network to operate in Portugal was Bragatel (now defunct), in early 1994. And then, TV Cabo began operations (by "then", I mean later that year). And the only channel that was aimed at Portuguese children was, believe me, a channel that accompanied us in our growth. Say hello to Cartoon Network!

Cartoon Network was one of the most original channels when cable TV had become mainstream over here, in the mid 90s. There was a bunch of foreign channels, but, for reasons unknown, it was one of the most watched. We learned English until the channel's fate in 2013, which I'll cover later.
Initially, it was just HB shows with some random third-party shows in the middle. We shared the signal with the UK, and they did so until 1999, and we could watch British ads during the breaks.
Then they aired those "What-A-Cartoon" shorts and the first Cartoon Cartoons aired.
Shamefully, it was timeshared with TNT after 21:00...
On April 1st, 1996, Canal Panda was born. However, it was owned by ABC and they used their schedule. I couldn't find a high quality version of the channel's first logo. I know that it's on the internet, but it consisted of a panda's head on a red circle with the channel's name. Unfortunately, I don't have any schedules.
Within a year, it adopted the current name and logo.

The channel aired mostly obscure stuff which no one remembers. I can do an addendum in part 2. But the most successful show on the channel was Doraemon.

Canal Panda aired Doraemon in European Spanish (I like their accents) with European Portuguese subtitles until as late as 2010, and we learned Spanish from it. Oh well... Now they're airing an AWFUL dub, with the voices lacking half the fun factor as the Spanish version.
A third channel, broadcast on TV Cabo's satellite service at the time, called Locomotion, existed and it offered more unfamiliar shows...

I suggest a view of filipeflower's "documentary" about Locomotion and the channel's history. It's in my language. Search for "filipeflower locomotion" and watch all four parts in order.
Next time, I will cover what aired on these channels between 1998 (my birth year) and 2001. See you then!
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For those who wanted to see how Panda Club's logo looked like, it looks like this:

PART 2
---
Welcome to part 2, focused on children's channels in Portugal between 1998 and 2001. Why 2001? Because some channel launched that year.
That channel will be revealed in part 3, focusing between 2001 and 2005.

Anyway, Cartoon Network launched a new look on October 15th, 1999. On that date, CN HQ's British signal was scrambled and CN HQ got some independence from CN UK. The British commercials were still present for at least the next eighteen months. I vaguely remember that look from when I was four and, with help of my mother, helped some guest to say "how can you say NEXT in Portuguese?". The channel added more and more original programming, and with that, TCM was replaced with TNT. I remember that my CN fandom started with this era. Oh well...
Canal Panda was still airing unfamiliar shows and Doraemon, but they started to include more and more shows dubbed in Portuguese. Canal Panda's "bilingualism" was about to end on December 31st, 2000, when the channel finished broadcasting to Spain and had already focused more on Portugal.
And Locomotion?

Locomotion was rebranded in 2000 with a new logo and schedule. The channel had just become more mature at an infant age of 4. We shared the channel with Latin America, hence the Brazilian Portuguese dubs that aired on the channel. However, we got an Iberian version of it, despite the dubs that aired on Locomotion over here.
Locomotion was an irreverent channel that combined Adult Swim-esque craziness with experimentalism, through the Locotomia and Fracto blocks.
Locotomia aired experimentalist animation, thanks to it some new animators could have their 15 minutes of fame and Fracto combined techno music with experimentalist animation and some live-action footage as well. Later they devoted the block to weird music videos, such as Argentina's "Miranda", which according to some Brazilian forum, was the worst thing ever. Many people hated Locotomia but liked another characteristic: animes.
Part 3 will focus more on 2001-2005. See you then!
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PART 3
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2001 already?

A channel is born. On November 27th, 2001, Disney Channel launched in Portugal, offering only Disney shows and it was a pay channel. I didn't get it until 2008, but didn't watch it regularly until the following year. A year and a half into the channel's existence, they got a new logo, in line with the rest of the world.

Cartoon Network got a new look in 2002:

It's also the first look I remember clearly. It was very original and clever. The channel was improving as the days went on, and was already one of the 10 most watched channels. I was shocked when they dropped all classics in May 2005, but Boomerang had become a guilty pleasure when I got it three years later (like the Eastern European/Asian channels).
Canal Panda was still the same, but the channel was now being overtaken by animes. Digimon was SO popular... but they still aired my Doraemon cartoons.
And Locomotion?

In 2002, Locomotion was rebranded with a new look, which involved a cartoon city (I'm drawing this... Because I really love you. Ah! It's Cartoon City) and tended to be aimed more at younger viewers, when the channel was acquired by Corus. I like it, it's so beautiful...
One particular thing with Locomotion: over here, we had an anime that the Latin American Locomotion didn't air. It was Ranma 1/2, which was dubbed by some Miami studio, just like South Park. Such a dub was about to premiere in Brazil, it was even announced on Locomotion, but they didn't premiere it.
Locotomia was still alive and so was Fracto. Here's one of Miranda's music videos for Fracto.
After a while, Fracto was renamed "LOVE VISION - TELEVISION 100% HAPPY!", which had a similar function to Fracto, and two anime-related blocks: Animafilms, dedicated to anime movies, and Japanimotion, dedicated to anime.
All of a sudden, in 2003, the channel stopped broadcasting to Portugal and Spain. BUT I'LL TELL YOU ABOUT THE CHANNEL'S "DIRE FATE"!!!
Locomotion was acquired by Pramer (Argentina) in 2004, acquired a lot of animes and renamed itself as "Locomotion Animestation", before the new management got tired of it and sold the channel to Sony. They replaced it with Animax, and by 2008, Sony decided that they could launch Sony Entertainment Television and Animax for Portugal and Spain. It took me A FULL YEAR to get both channels. I initially didn't watch a lot of Animax, but then I watched Shin-Chan on the channel... Animax had a fate in 2010, and that fate was replacing half of the channel's schedule with American shows that had no interest with Otakus. Then in March, they announced the plans to close the channel down: in Latin America, they replaced it with Sony Spin, and in Portugal, they replaced it with AXN Black. Spain kept the channel until the end of last year, airing fewer and fewer animes.

Bragatel (and later Pluricanal) were the only Portuguese providers to carry CBeebies, alond with BBC Four after 7pm. You can't watch it no more in Portugal, unless you watch them on FilmOn. They later added BBC One, around 2006 (they already had BBC World).
Next time: 2005-2008. See you then!
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Here's filipeflower's documentary on Locomotion:

The identity of the worst Portuguese dubber has been discovered!

And it's no other than...
(drum roll)
...Sérgio Calvinho!

(the face looks less cringeworthy)

Blogging Excavations: PnF magazine

Disney Portugal's Facebook page has a blurry picture of the "magazine":

For those who can't understand the Portuguese language, this means that it will release in two days.
I was jealous for some time because Brazil had a PnF magazine and we didn't. This happened during the "Disney Magazine Exodus" of 2007-2012.
Finally, Portugal will get such magazine, even though a dozen of European countries already had this.
---
...aaaaand it's finally here:

There's only one problem: YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO BUY in order to read it (happens with a lot of magazines for kids over here). WHY do they did that?

Blogging Excavations: Gravity Falls review

Good afternoon and welcome to Blog Excavations. For the next couple of days, I will "extract" my blog posts from Toonzone. I can't extract from my old CN blog because I cringe more than what was written on my blog at Toonzone. Anyway, let's start with a review of Gravity Falls I wrote fourteen months ago.
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FINALLY! The long awaited, very well anticipated premiere to Gravity Falls has reached Portugal! Originally scheduled for October 31st, it sadly got delayed to... well... today. But! What am I talking about? Here's my review:
FUN: The show is half fun. Well, at least for me.
ANIMATION WISE: The design's well made, the character designs as well, but the show's logo looks vaguely like those postcard pictures.
ORIGINALITY: The show's very original, minus the "Summer Vacation" part, idealized by Phineas and Ferb.
PLOT: Yes. It begins with the two main characters (sorry, because I don't want to write down the names, they are perfunctory to me) going to visit Stan in Oregon. Later, they are actually STUCK. And everything becomes a mysterious world of mystery.
PERFUNCTORITY: Lame. They don't go back home in time for school, they don't return to their old home, and we can't see their parents until episode 38439 (which will be the last episode if it becomes oversucessful). And WHY TO THEY NEED FREAKISH SYMBOLS AND SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES? Damn...
OVERALL: Overall, I give it a 5/10, because of it's perfunctority, as well as those subliminal messages of sorts. Please stop making this until the show gets a more urban feel to it.
LOST IN TRANSLATION: In the European Portuguese dub, "Sascrotch" becomes "Sasquatch". Also, why the subtitles? The show is dubbed! Tiny subtitles are useless to tell the viewer what the sign says.
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How weird I looked like last year...

Changes at Disney Kids

Last week, Toy Story Toons replaced Cars Toons, which as of late has been airing before the block.
Also, Quack Pack replaced Tarzan.