The "I'm amazed at how terrible this is" thread

[Drtooth]

I find that more interesting than terrible.

When it comes to dubbing, especially songs, things can either be top grade quality, and given the right script can even be better (at least on a cultural level) than the original. Or they can be downright careless and clumsy and make something...well... like that Little Lulu clip. Like how I always hated and feared the Shalom Sesame butchering of Pinball Number Count. It doesn't fit, they forced it on, and it fit even worse. Look it up, because I never want to see that thing again.

 

[mr3urious]

That Spanish dubbing sure was hideous! Must be where the voice actor(s) from Dingo Pictures got their inspiration!

 

[Drtooth]

Song dubbing is difficult. New lyrics to fit the same space that have to mean somewhat of the same thing. Some song translations fix that by singing parts that weren't sung before. However, you CAN'T change those lyrics when it's just a list of numbers. And when those numbers have multiple syllables in different languages, well... perfect storm.

But going back to Mo Frackle's suggestion, I checked out some Oddity Archive videos about 1970's cheapo cash in cover albums and they're terrible. I suggest checking those out. However, they reminded me of this YT page I posted a while back. Cheapo cash in covers of 1970's and 80's anime openings. And they're...brutal. And to add a bit of humor, they're laced with bootlegged toys featuring the characters.

Now, like the examples I'm going to post are obviously not well known here, so I'll have to post the originals for balance.

Here's Tensai Bakabon's second opening.

Here's the cover...

Instead of a chorus of little kids, how about a chorus of loud, tone deaf adults recording in a subway tunnel. The aging on the tape only accentuates the off tone.

Here's a more popular option, Lupin III

How can you screw up an instrumental with limited vocals? They found a way.

The instrumentation isn't terrible, but it's pretty off. What REALLY makes this is them trying to get fancy and say the in show Japanese name for the character "Rupan San Sei." And it's awkward.

Here's Doraemon's original Japanese theme, a beloved classic.

Here's what happens when Doraemon smokes 12 packs a day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvWGDTzCLy4

Yatterman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK5Ap_BC1f8

Fake Yatterman with wrong synthisizer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY3wOqNywqw

Bonus: The guy couldn't find any bootlegged Yatterman merch, so it's just a cheapo Ramen with sort of looking font.

 

[Mo Frackle]

More from the Oddity Archive, AmVest Video. Geez, was Al Lewis really that desperate for cash?

Commentary on the episode:

 

[Drtooth]

Oddly enough I just saw that exact episode seconds before coming here.Okay, maybe minutes because I was distracted by the Mixels website (those series 6-ers are coming soon after all). But the fact still stands that's highly coincidental.

Anyway, it really seems that with the Happy Hamsters Ghostbustin' record they tried to be funny about the lawsuit. The line where they said that they were classified as hamsters and actually mentioned the suit was actually kinda funny. And this is the same record that polluted a certain awesome movie theme with the poorest attempt of comedy I've seen, "and we ain't talking Casper the Friendly Ghost" in the worst John Wayne accent possible.

Anyway, it's sad that Al Lewis was stuck with those awful tapes, but he's a real trooper through them. Doesn't look like he's painfully trying to power through the whole thing, he's enjoying his every moment of hamming it up. I actually found the bookends of one of the horror videos.

It's not devoid of humor (I admittedly laughed at a couple clear improvs at the video listing and the line about Tom Selleck), and this really seems like it could have been a potential horror movie host like series. Too bad it was on something so cheapo. This could have been a fun late night horror host show. Not quite Svengoulie, though.

 

[Drtooth]

Okay. First off, DARNIT for getting me hooked on the Oddity Archive, Mo.

Anyway, I just watched the Laservision Karaoke "lost" episode about the Laservision Karaoke disks. It's...well, I'm not going to link to it for a certain reason (you'll see) so I'll just link to the page that has it https://www.youtube.com/user/OALostEpisodes/videos

Now, don't watch the video until I warn you.

Anyway...yeah... terrible attempts at trying to not sound like they're not American and English is sooo not their first language...blah blah blah. However, what's truly horrible comes when the probably Vietnamese disk comes up. He goes on about how there's a huge crack in it, and says something to the extent of "they probably pulled it out of the machine and stomped on it after seeing this clip."

Now...uh... watch the video and skip to that point. I STRONGLY suggest you have a strong enough constitution for this and weren't scared by Jim Henson's Nobody as a kid, this is a milliondy twelve times worse.

Okay, what you need to know about me is that I find weird things funny. But I also get spooked by equally weird things (at least on the tangible level). I'm far more afraid of fake spiders than I am of real ones (long story...Sanjay and Craig fans will get the reference when I say "my fatherrrrr"). But lemme tell you this. This grown man basically jumped the freak out of his chair and clicked the heck out of that tab for the rest of the video when those horrible Cheshire Monstrosities came up. Darn straight the guy stomped on the disk. I'd call an exorcist. I've always complained about buttbackwards attempts to be cool, but that... that was horrifying. Good thing it's daytime. I'm losing sleep tonight.

 

[Mo Frackle]

Okay. First off, DARNIT for getting me hooked on the Oddity Archive, Mo.

You're welcome.

A look at cheap Christmas albums, featuring the Nutty Squirrels and Snoopy... er "Sloopy," among others.

Speaking of the Nutty Squirrels, they even had their own cartoon at one point - although it merely consisted of the squirrels in wrap-around segments for foreign cartoons dubbed into English.

 

[Drtooth]

While not terribly terrible, I stumbled onto this "gem" today. A Book and tape of a Real Ghostbusters episode. The book isn't in the video, unfortunately, but the audio still speaks for itself.

SPOILER: Only the actress playing Janine bothers to sound like the character.

Now, I get it. Most of these things didn't have a budget like Disney to get the original actors or Corey Burton. But...really?! The voice actors (if there's even more than one) probably haven't been in the same universe as the cartoon series or movie of which these were based and this is based directly off an episode of the cartoon. Which begs the question, is this any cheaper than just taking the direct audio from the episode to begin with?

Anyway. Thrill to Peter Venkman's extremely New York, not very Bill Murrayish or Lorenzo Musicish at all accent. Listen to Egon being apparently 80 years old and sounding almost like they voice actor has heard of Christopher Lloyd, yet not Harold Raimis. And everyone else (sans Janine) just sounding terribly generic.

Now, for comparison, he's one of the rarest book and tape sets there is.

Now, the audio of a decades old degraded tape is horrible quality, but it seems like they actually managed to get the DIC cartoon voices even though there's no need to tie it into the cartoon series. And even if they aren't (I swear I can hear Len Calson and whoever played Link), they did an excellent job sounding like them when even the book artists have no idea who anyone looks like (though Ganon's strangely his cartoon series design). Weird how that works out. There's also supposedly a Mario one, but it's in Norwegian, so I wouldn't be able to tell if that's still the case.

 

[Drtooth]

I was going to wait to see if someone found something else, but this was just prime awful and I had to add to the "bad covers of anime theme songs from cheapo cassette tapes" entry I put in there. And to be completely fair this time, I found something that even I don't know about.

For comparison purposes, this is the best I could find of the actual opening. The theme song is thankfully just at the beginning:

Very much that sort of decade from that sort of country. I gues it's about wacky adventures with a little doggy thing.

Anyway, here's the awful cover.

First off, they couldn't get anyone that matches, even remotely, the pitch of the original singer's voice. Second, the singer is pretty darn tone deaf, but what really makes her performance awful is that horrible imitation of the backup singer echo. Clearly, this album was produced by people they brought in off the street, and they couldn't even get a bunch of them to do backups. So instead, we're treated to the same woman making that awful shrill voice that could crack glass. Better yet, seems like even attempting that throws the tempo off. Wow.

And for added fun, I translated the video description. A Japanese tourist found this thing in the US at a thrift store.

 

[mr3urious]

Wow, that is terrible! Is that blood dripping from my ears?