Following the short-lived dub of Dragon Ball in 1995, Funimation Entertainment began production on an English-language release of Dragon Ball Z in North America. They teamed with Saban Entertainment to help finance and distribute the series to television, and once again hired Ocean Productions to dub the anime into English. They also sub-licensed home video distribution to Geneon Universal Entertainment. This dub of Dragon Ball Z was heavily edited for content, as well as length, reducing the first 67 episodes into 53.[25] The series premiered in the United States on September 13, 1996 in first-run syndication, but also struggled to find a substantial audience during its run, and was eventually cancelled after two seasons. On August 31, 1998, however, the Ocean dubbed episodes began airing on Cartoon Network as part of the channel's new action-oriented programming block, Toonami, where the series received much more popularity. With new success, Funimation continued production on the series by themselves, only now using their own in-house voice cast, as well as less editing due to fewer restrictions on cable programming.[26] Dragon Ball Z was now in full production in the United States and the new dub of the series aired on Toonami from September 13, 1999 to April 7, 2003.
The Funimation dubbed episodes also aired in Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand. Beginning with episode 108, however, an alternate dub, produced by Westwood Media, was broadcast in the United