4Kids! Entertainment/Trivia

• Contractual Purity: Averted. Andrew Rannells currently stars in The New Normal and previously The Book of Mormon, some of their VAs have done hentai (Dan Green, for example), and Jason Griffith did a condom commercial.
  • People more savvy of the industry may realize that most of the company's current VA's have worked at Central Park Media before (and this includes Dan Green as well); CPM distributed uncut productions mostly for pre-teen to older audiences, such as Revolutionary Girl Utena among others.
• Creator Killer: Almost subverted by Yu-Gi-Oh!. TV Tokyo and NAS tried to yank the license, and 4Kids ultimately prevailed within the year, but the damage had been done, and they still ended up selling the rights to Konami for all Yu-Gi-Oh!-related merchandise. While the production unit was reformed by Konami as 4K Media, the main company was reformed as 4Licensing Corporation and plenty of their assets were sold to Saban, many of their units were shut down and the company is now a shell of its former self.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: The relatively small amount of New York-based VA's and the company's tendency to cast the same people for several projects leads to a lot of this, particularly in shows with lots of characters. Especially prominent are Dan Green, Jason Griffith, Michael Sinterniklaas, Sean Schemmel, Marc Thompson, Wayne Grayson, and Veronica Taylor.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Without any of their notable assets, some of the 4Kids dubs of anime have not seen a re-release in some form. While some of their old properties have avoided this by being aired on Vortexx, that block met its end in September 2014, killing even that method. Heck, One Piece was redubbed by Funimation, which renders the 4Kids episodes that weren't released on DVD harder to find, even though the first 52 episodes can be found cheap.
  • After their contract with Funimation was terminated for reasons still unclear, 4Kids shows stopped showing up on the home video market. The one exception was Pokémon, whose home video rights remained with Viz. Dinosaur King did turn up on DVD through Shout! Factory, but it didn't sell well enough to justify the company working with them again. After 4Kids sold off their assets, Yu-Gi-Oh! did get a revival on DVD through Cinedigm (formerly NEW VIDEO Group), but it's unknown if any other 4Kids shows will be released to home video through the company. Until then, we have TV rips and foreign DVDs to rely on.
  • According to Maddie Blaustein, 4Kids apparently DID dub the notorious episode of Pokémon with the seizure-inducing flashing lights. However, despite the lights being slowed down to "safe levels," the episode was banned internationally, and the dub has never been discovered.
  • 4Kids went back and dubbed the previously skipped "Beauty and the Beach" episode of Pokémon (the one featuring James cross-dressing with inflatable boobs) with the Orange Islands episodes (with the aforementioned scene cut). However, it only aired once, and is not on DVD. TV rips can be found fairly easily online though.
  • As of 2015, Discotek Media has got the rights to the 4Kids dub of Sonic X, and will start making DVD and Blu-ray re-releases!
• Missing Episode: They did this to some of their dubbed anime. The various Yu-Gi-Oh! Sequel Series had a few, and their dub of One Piece is infamous for throwing out entire story arcs. This, combined with 4Kids' refusal to release uncut versions of their shows (for the most part), not only created Plot Holes, but made it so that these episodes would only stop being missing once Funimation got the rights.
• Money, Dear Boy: 4Kids was known for paying its actors very well (at least in relation to other dubbing studios, even higher than the typical union-rates for doing anime voice work). This is why you'll never hear any NYC voice actor express regret for working on a 4Kids series. The scripts may be crap, and the editing jobs may be a joke, but at least you're well-compensated for it.
• No Export for You: Due to their practice of making Youtube block certain videos from being played outside the U.S & Puerto Rico.
• Old Shame: Some of the employees are 4Kids weren't happy with what they did to One Piece since they were forced into dubbing it against their will.
• Production Posse: Voice actors aside, they've used Dong Woo Animation and Bardel Entertainment for their non-dubbed work.
• Star-Derailing Role: While the legal mess with Yu-Gi-Oh! may have proved a Creator Killer, their dub of One Piece was what brought down their reputation. That reputation wasn't spotless before, but it would never fully recover after that. The aforementioned legal mess was simply the final nail in the coffin. Though to be fair, 4Kids wanted nothing to do with One Piece, as they were well aware of how un-family friendly it was, but they were forced into dubbing the show by Toei, as they would only license other shows to 4Kids as part of a packaged deal.