Everyone knows Dragonball and it's sequels far too well but what if I was to tell you that long before the series ever became a household name in the west, an attempt was made to dub the original series as early as 1989.
This is the story of Harmony Gold's Dragonball.

First some background on the company; Harmony Gold is an 80s tv production & distribution company; it didn't produce much in the way of decent programming but did a fine job with the Robotech series, largely known as their only success story. It's other anime were mostly unknowns but did manage to release Leiji Matsumoto's Captain Harlock & Queen Millennia, along with the Minky Momo film, the first episode of Dr Slump and the subject of this urban legend, the Original Dragonball.
Now for die hard fans of this series, I warn you now that the information I'm about to type is more painful than the live action Dragonball film, so read with caution.
The story goes that Harmony Gold dubbed five episodes and two of the three films during their attempt to release the series, but sadly it failed to find an audience and the show was immediately cancelled before seeing the light of day with only the movies surviving in VHS form and are on the list of rarest anime finds along with the Nuku Nuku British Dub.
Now the painful bit; while the series wasn't edited that much the names were changed. Yes I said it, the names were changed. It's not unusual for it to happen but take a look at these changes.
Goku called Zero/Bulma called Lena/Oolong called Mao Mao/Yamcha called Zedaki/Puar called Squeaker/Krillin called Bongo/Launch called Marilyn/Tien called Shinto/Shenron called Dragon God/Korin called Whiskers the Wonder Cat.
I wish I was joking, that's what all the cast were called; Roshi, Tao & Chaotzu escaped the name change which is a relief, I dread to think what name Chaotzu would've got.
Well that's the story, Dragonball had a worst dub but I can't honestly say I was that impressed with Ocean's dub of Dragonballz, Goku on his own went through three voice actors before Funimation took over. Some elements were good like Vegeta's infamous over 9000 line, but others like the tv releases of the first three films were horrific. Let that be a lesson to all western companies, never buy a license on hindsight that the dub would actually work.