Saban Entertainment

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Saban Entertainment

Fate	Acquired by Disney
Predecessor	Saban International Fox Children's Productions
Successor	BVS Entertainment
Founded	1988
Defunct	2002
Headquarters	Los Angeles California United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Haim Saban Shuki Levy
Industry	Animation, Production
Products	Children's television shows

Saban Entertainment (along with Saban International, which operated outside the US), was an Worldwide-served independent American television production company formed in 1988 by music and television producers Haim Saban^[1] and Shuki Levy as "Saban Productions", a U.S. subsidiary of "Saban International Paris". (now SIP Animation)

This company was 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 and the first three Digimon series to North America and international markets for syndication, including both animation and live action shows.

Saban was involved in the co-production of French/American anime shows created by Jean Chalopin for DIC Entertainment. 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).

Saban is also notable for their various toku adapts, which include Power Rangers (based on the Super Sentai series), Beetleborgs (based on Juukou B-Fighter), VR Troopers (featuring elements of Metal Hero Series Uchuu Keiji Shaider, Jikuu Senshi Spielban and Choujinki Metalder), and Masked Rider (an original interpretation using scenes from the Japanese Kamen Rider BLACK RX).

History

Early operation

Saban Entertainment was formed in 1988 as "Saban Productions". Several years later, the company also established "Saban International" (now Disney-ABC 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"

Through a merger with Fox Children's Productions in 1995, Fox Kids was born (with "Fox Kids Worldwide" as the holding company),^[2] 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"

Renaming

On July 23, 2001, it was announced that the group would be sold to Disney as part of the sale of Fox Family Worldwide (now ABC Family Worldwide Inc.) by Haim Saban and News Corporation,^[3] and on October 24, 2001, the sale was completed^[1] and the group was 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. Saban Entertainment's last program to produce was: Power Rangers: Wild Force, which was aired on Fox Kids in the USA on February 9, 2002.

List of television shows and films

(With the exception of Pinocchio, produced by "Saban International Paris" feature "Saban's" in their title.)

1960s

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

• The Marvel Superheroes Show (featuring "The Sub-Mariner," "Mighty Thor," "Iron Man," "Hulk," and "Captain America" segments)
• Spider-Man (1967 TV series)

1970s

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

• The New Fantastic Four
• Spider Woman

1980s

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

• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• Bumpety Boo
• Diplodos
• Dungeons and Dragons (distributed rebroadcast version which features an edited version of the original opening with original music)
• Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics
• I'm Telling!
• Kidd Video
• Kissyfur
• Lazer Tag Academy (produced by Ruby-Spears)
• Little Women
• Macron 1 (adaptation of GoShogun and Srungle)
• Maple Town
• My Favorite Fairy Tales
• Noozles
• Ox Tales
• Rescue Me
• Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea ("Les Mondes Engloutis")
• Spider-Man (1981 TV series)
• Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends
• Treasure Mall
• Wowser

1990s

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

• Addams Family Reunion
• Saban's Adventures of Oliver Twist
• The Adventures of Hutch the Honeybee
• Adventures of Pinocchio (originally made in 1972)
• All New Captain Kangaroo
• Saban's Around the World in 80 Dreams
• The Avengers: United They Stand
• Bad Dog
• Battletech
• Beetleborgs
• Blind Vision
• Bureau of Alien Detectors
• The Bots Master (provided music; produced by "Creativite et Developpement", later absorbed by SIP)
• Casper: A Spirited Beginning
• Casper Meets Wendy
• Christmas Reunion
• Creepy Crawlers
• Croentin
• Diabolik
• Digimon (distributor of English dub and dubbed it for English-speaking territories from 1999-2002.)
• Dragon Ball Z (distributor of English dub produced by Funimation and dubbed by Ocean Studios)
• Dragon Warrior
• Eagle Riders (adaptation of second Gatchaman series)
• Fantastic Four
• Flint the Time Detective (Jikuu Tantei Genshi-kun)
• Funky Fables
• Saban's Gulliver's Travels
• Goosebumps (Internationally distributed it outside the United States and Canada.)
• Guns of Honor
• The Hallo Spencer Show
• Heidi
• The Incredible Hulk
• Iron Man
• The Littl' Bits (originally made in 1980)
• Little Shop
• Mad Jack the Pirate
• Masked Rider (Kamen Rider Black RX, ZO, and J)
• Maya the Bee (originally made in 1975)
• Men of Means
• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (co-production with and distributed by 20th Century Fox)
• Monster Rancher (provided music; dubbed by Ocean Studios for BKN)
• The Mouse and the Monster
• The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog
• Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation
• Power Rangers in Space
• Power Rangers: Lost Galaxy
• Power Rangers: Turbo
• Power Rangers: Zeo
• Prey of the Chameleon
• Saban's Princess Sissi
• Revenge on the Highway
• Round Trip to Heaven
• Rusty: A Dog's Tale
• Saban's Adventures of the Little Mermaid
• Samurai Cowboy
• Samurai Pizza Cats
• Scorch
• Silver Surfer
• The Secret Files of the Spy Dogs
• Space Strikers
• Spider-Man Unlimited
• Sugar and Spice
• The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! (Internationally distributed outside the United States and Canada.)
• Super Pig
• Sweet Valley High
• Teknoman (adaptation of Tekkaman Blade)
• Tenko and the Guardians of the Magic
• Till Death Us Do Part
• Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (distributed by 20th Century Fox)
• Under Investigation
• VR Troopers
• Walter Melon
• The Why Why Family
• Wild C.A.T.S.
• X-Men
• Xyber 9: New Dawn

2000s

• Cybersix
• Dinozaurs
• Escaflowne (edited TV broadcast version with altered music; originally distributed by Bandai Entertainment)
• Los Luchadores
• Mon Colle Knights (final new series from Saban to be broadcast on Fox Kids)
• Pigs Next Door
• Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue
• Power Rangers: Time Force
• Power Rangers: Wild Force (Pilot Episode Only)
• NASCAR Racers
• Shinzo
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise
• Wunschpunsch (based on the book Der satanarchäolügenialkohöllische Wunschpunsch by Michael Ende and co-produced with ARD and CineGroupe)

Media releases

Most Saban owned media from the early 1990s made its way to VHS in most regions. However, from the late nineties on, almost all Saban owned entities were only released as Region 4 (Australia). According to current rights holders in the US, Buena Vista Entertainment, which acquired it through their buyout of the Fox Family Channel, they have no plans to release these films on to DVD, instead, some of it is seen on their daughter network, Disney XD, and originally was seen on Toon Disney and ABC Family before the decease of Jetix in the US.

References

External links

• Saban Entertainment at the Internet Movie Database