Omni Productions
"RTM1 dub" is a term used by Transformers fans to refer to the hilariously bad English-language dubs of the Japanese Generation 1 animated series, The Headmasters, Super-God Masterforce, and Victory. The dubs originated on the Malaysian channel RTM 1, but were later shown on the Singaporean channel StarTV, where they gained greater notoriety, hence their popular (but somewhat misleading) fandom name, "the Singapore dub" or "the Star TV dub".
The dub is best remembered for not only its truly awful voice over cast, but for the completely inaccurate, bizarre and hilarious translation, which typically resulted in characters receiving entirely new and horribly inappropriate names.
Some examples include:
- Blaster as "Billy"
- Metroplex as "Phillip"
- Blurr as "Wally"
- Spike Witwicky as "Sparkle"
- Jean Minakaze as "Meekan"
- Dashtacker as "Batchtaster"
- Soundblaster as "New Soundwave"
- Raiden as "Grimlock"
We could go on like this.
Despite a cast of noticeably untalented voice actors, the actors were none-the-less professionals and have dubbed such other high-profile pieces of foreign media as the Heisei era Godzilla movies and Dragonball: the Magic Begins.
The RTM 1 dubbed episodes of Headmasters have been officially released on DVD in the UK by Madman Entertainment on multiple ocassions, though the dubs of Masterforce and Victory have yet to see an official DVD release of any kind. However, footage from the Masterforce dub (mainly the episode recaps) were used as special features for Rhino's Transformers season 1 DVD set.
