Banned in China: The series has officially been rejected from broadcast by a government-owned television channel in Spain's Valencia region named À Punt, with a representative for the channel explaining that the decision had been made in consideration of local gender legislation that prohibits the airing of "content that encourages gender discrimination through stereotypes and sexist roles". Even before that, Canal Nou has once aired the series in The '90s.
Blooper: It's not uncommon for whoever is in charge of the dialogue (whether it be Funimation, Toei Animation, or Akira Toriyama himself) to slip-up and have Vegeta use "Goku" instead of "Kakarot". This usually ends up being corrected in later revisions of whatever it happens in.
Toriyama has admitted that Mr. Satan is one of his favorite characters and he gets a lot of focus in the Buu Saga. Piccolo is also among Toriyama's favorites, as he stated that, despite finding his Heel–Face Turn too cliché, he still managed to remain a cool character nonetheless.
Toriyama's third editor, Fuyuto Takeda, also stated that Mr. Satan is his favorite character.
Naotoshi Shida, one of the animators of Toei, states his favorite character to draw is Android 16.
Goku himself name-wise is a reference of another character who used the name "Goku" (albeit in Chinese via the same characters: 孫悟空) way beforehand via Chinese mythology. However, as time went on, he seemed to pay his name-source material less and less direct homages.
Vegeta helped define the concept of the Stock Shōnen Rival archtype. You could most likely list some of the expies as much as you could the Rei.
Within the franchise itself, no character has more expies than King Piccolo. Lord Slug is the most obvious of all since he's an old Namekian who uses the dragon balls to get young again, but others also have elements from him even if more subtle, such as Cell sending a message of terror to the entire planet, and creating minions that are stronger than everyone else, only for another character to easily defeat them before ultimately killing them. Other villains like Garlick Juniot, Bojack, Buu, Hildegarn, and Moro also use his element of being ancient evils sealed, and in Bojack's case, Goku even compares him with King Piccolo in the Japanese dub, and Moro much like King Piccolo used the dragon balls to restore his power (King Piccolo asked for eternal youth, but Moro could just absorb the powers from planets and their populations restore his'). In Dragon Ball Heroes, Mechikabura is yet another old villain who used the dragon balls to make himself young.
God Never Said That: The claims that the series was originally intended to end with the Frieza or Cell Sagas. These are fandom inventions as Toriyama never stated he would end at those points. What he did say was he didn't intend for the series to last as long as it did or to explode in popularity the way it did. He originally planned for it to end in its first arc, which he envisioned as going on for longer than it did. The Frieza and Cell Sagas are just very obvious points where fans can say "well, it could have stopped here and it'd be a fairly clean finish".
Recast as a Regular: Several voice actors have voiced minor or unimportant characters before going on to voice major or important characters in the Dragon Ball franchise.
Takeshi Aono voiced Ninja Murasaki in the Red Ribbon Army arc and later returned as King Piccolo and Kami.
Toshio Furukawa played minor villain General Blue during the Red Ribbon Army arc. He later returned to the franchise two years later as Goku's enemy turned eventual ally Piccolo.
Ryō Horikawa appears in one episode reprising his role as Charmy from Doctor Slump. He showed up again one series later in Dragon Ball Z as franchise mainstay Vegeta.
Masaharu Sato voiced many one-episode characters throughout the original Dragon Ball series, including the Bear Thief in Episode 3 and a Rabbit Gang member in Episode 12, before he was cast as Staff Officer Black. He also voiced Master Roshi in Wrath of the Dragon following Kouhei Miyauchi's death, but he wouldn't take over for Roshi fulltime until Kai.
Ryūsei Nakao played Tamborine in the King Piccolo arc and returned a few years later to play the even-more iconic Big Bad Freeza.
Kōzō Shioya provided the voice of Guldo from the Ginyu Force during the Freeza Saga in Dragon Ball Z. He would return over 100 episodes later to portray the anime's final major antagonist, Majin Buu.
Kyle Hebert played several minor characters, in addition to a minor recurring role as the Ox-King, before being cast as the voice of the older Gohan and The Narrator starting in the Majin Buu Saga.
Banned in China: The anime series has officially been rejected from broadcast by a government-owned television channel in Spain’s Valencia region named À Punt, with a representative for the channel explaining that the decision had been made been in consideration of local gender legislation that prohibits the airing of “content that encourages gender discrimination through stereotypes and sexist roles”. Even before that, Canal Nou has once aired the series in The '90s.
Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Oolong never wished for Bulma's panties. He wishes for panties from a hot babe.note In the English dub, he wishes for the world's most comfortable underwear. This is no indication that they belonged to Bulma.
Fan Edit: Dragon Ball Recut, which removes as much filler from the anime adaptation as possible, similarly to what Dragon Ball Z Kai was to Dragon Ball Z. Information about Dragon Ball Recut can be found on thisKanzenshuu thread.
Invisible Advertising: A theory about why the Harmony Gold dub never caught on. YouTuberGeekdom101 mentions in a video that no time slots, commercials or advertising were found for that version when airing in a handful of American television markets. This lack of promotion may have been what led to the end of Harmony Gold's version.
The original broadcast audio for Dragon Ball and DBZ taken from VCR recordings of each episode's initial broadcast in the Kanto region of Japan. This audio is highly sought-out as it offers the closest quality to the series' master tapes, which Toei wiped both for economic reasons and because executives at the timewere still skeptical of home media. Also applies to Dragon Ball GT to a certain extent, as despite Toei still possessing the original audio masters, they've never put this audio on any official releases, although TV airings in Japan still use it.
The first two English dubs of Dragon Ball, the 1987 Frontier Enterprises dub and the 1989 Harmony Gold dub, are notoriously difficult to find. In the case of the latter, VCR recordings have existed of a telefilm that combines the first and third theatrical films into a single product, but the episodes themselves weren't available at all until March 1, 2020, when a superfan obtained VHS copies from someone who had a stash of anime VHS tapes from the early '90s in his basement. The Frontier dub meanwhile, has no surviving audio or footage whatsoever. It was most likely screened exclusively on Japan Airlines flights, with no plans to bring them to English-speaking airwaves. As a result, it's generally agreed upon that the Frontier dub is likely lost media.
The Animax Asia dub, which possibly aired in Hong Kong, India, and/or the Philippines, has no surviving footage whatsoever, although its existence has been confirmed by a couple of the voice actors, with it being confirmed to cover the entire series.
The 90s English dub from the Philippines is also lost outside the theme songs (which were released to CD).
The Nth Doctor: Piccolo was sort of treated this way in the Japanese anime. Takeshi Aono voiced the original Demon King Piccolo as well as Kami-sama due to their shared lifeforce, but his reincarnation/son Junior (the Piccolo most are familiar with) is voiced by Toshio Furukawa and would become the definitive face of the character going forward.
In the BLT and Harmony Gold dubs, Oolong's transformations would be voiced by different actors from his true form. In the former, his ogre and bull forms are done by Doug Parker while his gentlemanly human form is performed by Ian James Corlett instead of his main actor Alec Willows. The latter dub has Barry Stigler voice his ogre form in the place of Dave Mallow, his normal voice.
As a great ape, Goku's roars were handled by Yasuhiko Kawazu instead of Masako Nozawa. It was the same in English where Justin Cook handles great ape Goku instead of Stephanie Nadolny.
The Pete Best: Funimation's first in-house dub of the second Dragon Ball film, Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle, featured Broadway actress Leslie Alexander as Bulma, which was the only time she voiced the character. This is also her only anime role to date. Tiffany Vollmer and Monica Rial are much better associated with the character, the former providing her voice up until the end of the 2000s, while the latter took over from 2010 onward. For a long time, Alexander wasn't even listed among Bulma's English voice actresses on The Other Wiki.
There's a very oft-repeated one floating around in Hungary, which claims the series got canceled because a kid jumped off a building/out a window, thinking the Nimbus would save him. There is nothing to confirm this, yet many, many fans consider it a fact. In reality, the show was canceled because the TV station that had carried it got into trouble due to the series' timeslot and rating — they handled it as a children's cartoon but the media authorities saw it as strictly meant for adults. It is also true that a 14-year-old named Karcsi threatened the broadcasting company with suicide upon hearing about the cancellation, but the one about a kid jumping to his death is, most likely, a legend.
A decades-old urban legend in Spain claims that the Spanish version of the anime's first opening was performed by legendary rock band Barón Rojo, which is completely wrong: the theme was performed by Jordi Vila, who did both the Castillian and Catalonian versions, and Barón Rojo had absolutely nothing to do with the songs or Dragon Ball in general. This urban legend is so entrenched in Spanish pop culture that it doesn't matter how many times the band or anyone denies it, there are always people who believe on it as gospel, and it is likely there will always be until the end of times. Reportedly, the thing has even become a minor Berserk Button for the members of the band, who are sick and tired of being asked about it over and over.
Playing Against Type: Kenji Utsumi had it half and half when he voiced Commander Red (no pun intended). Although Commander Red is nonetheless a military dictator, which fit one aspect of the roles Utsumi played, he's also extraordinarily short, something that Utsumi wasn't known to play as. He usually voiced giant characters.
Recycled Script: The Dragon Ball movies are all very loose adaptations of story arcs from the original manga and TV series:
Curse of the Blood Rubies adapts the first Dragon Ball hunt, with the original character King Gurumes substituting Emperor Pilaf as the ultimate antagonist. In another variation of this, the 1989 Harmony Gold English dub, the 1995 Funimation/BLT Productions English dub, and the 2010 Funimation English dub all use the same ADR script adaptation, with some small variations in dialogue and name changes.
Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle starts off with a sub-plot involving Goku and Krillin being sent to find the titular Princess (eventually revealed to be a precious diamond) for Master Roshi, just like when they were sent to find a cute girl for Roshi in the manga.
Mystical Adventure combines the Red Ribbon Army and 22nd Tenkaichi Budōkai arcs and puts them in an entirely different setting.
The Lord Slug movie matches the plot of the Piccolo Daimaoh Saga. An evil Namekian wishes for his youth and power. This one is painfully obvious.
And the tenth-anniversary movie The Path to Power retells the first arc of the first search of the Dragon Balls, but with the Red Ribbon Army as the main antagonists.
Role Reprise: In the English Dub, Copy-Vegeta is voiced by Brian Drummond, the voice of Vegeta in the Ocean Group Dub.
This most famously happened with Goku; several instances of women voicing adult men in anime are inspired by him. In Japan, Goku's voice was so iconic that his voice actress, Masako Nozawa, kept on voicing him even when he became an adult. She wasn't changed so that Goku's childish mindset could be expressed through his voice. Subverted in most dubs, where he's voiced by a man in Dragon Ball Z and all "adult Goku" material. They instead portray Goku's boyishness through acting.
Also in Dragon Ball Z, probably because it runs In the Blood, Son Goku's sons, Son Gohan and Son Goten, also retain their child voices during adulthood in the Japanese dub, especially seen in Gohan and also in Goten during Dragon Ball GT.
Vegeta kept his male actor in Japan even when shown as a kid. Most dubs used voice actresses, with the Funimation English dub being the exception.
In the AB Groupe dub of Dragon Ball Z: Bardock - The Father of Goku, Vegeta has the same young boy's voice in Bardock's visions of him as an adult as he does during the events of the movie. What makes this an especially odd example is that adult Vegeta has a grown man's voice in AB Groupe's other Dragon Ball Z dubs.
So My Kids Can Watch: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Mario Castañeda at first refused to voice adult Goku in 1997 because he was not sure if the fans were going to accept a change of voice to the main character (knowing that in Japan, despite the character growing up, Goku continued to be voiced by Masako Nozawa); but it was due to the fact that his son Arturo Castañeda, who was 8 years old at the time, insisted that he voiced Goku that he decided to accept the role. Arturo himself would go on to play Whis in Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' and Dragon Ball Super.
The Funimation English dub almost featured Ceyli Delgadillo as Kid Goku, who had previously recorded the role in Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle, Mystical Adventure, and a couple brief flashbacks in Dragon Ball Z, but an official poll on Funimation's DB website pitted her against Nadolny, the then voice of Gohan in DBZ, and the latter won out.
Sonny Strait was interested in voicing the younger Krillin, but Funimation instead kept Laurie Steele, who had already voiced the character in the previously-dubbed movies and flashbacks.
Meredith McCoy also auditioned for Kid Chi-Chi, who instead went to Laura Bailey.note McCoy had previously beaten Bailey to voice Android 18 in Dragon Ball Z.
Stephanie Nadolny had originally recorded a version of the ending theme, "I'll Give You Romance," but it was decided that it was innappropriate for the voice of Goku to sing it, so it was re-recorded by Daphne Gere.
Miscellaneous Trivia:
Fat Buu, Uranai Baba, Mr. Satan/Hercule, Universe 7's Kaiōshin, Pan, Bra, and Uub are the only characters in the entire franchise who have never died during the original series. They would all be indirectly killed in Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' and Dragon Ball Super by Frieza's destroying the planet (and being quickly undone), with the exception of Bra (who wasn't born yet), Buu (who wouldn't by harmed by such a thing because he can survive in space), and Kaiōshin (his future counterpart, however, did die at the hands of Dabra or Goku Black).
Adjustments in the Kanzenban edition: two title pages were redrawn (one featured Bulma smoking a cigarette originally; this was removed in the redraw), one of the members of the Pilaf gang, Shu, had his name fixed (in the manga, he was originally called Soba, but was renamed Shu in one chapter), a sign in chapter 205 saying "WELL COME" was changed to say "WELCOME", Vegeta's power level against Recoome was changed from 30,000 to 20,000, an instance of Goku saying "Ore" instead of "Ora" in Japanese was fixed, the date of the Cell Games was changed from "M 17" to "May 26th", and most critically, two chapters towards the end had some different and additional pages; Kid Boo's death was expanded slightly, with a little aftermath added (after Goku defeats Boo, Vegeta thinks to himself "Phew, took you long enough", then Goku gives him a thumbs up, and he thinks "What's with that goofy look on his face? I seriously can't stand you!..." then he loosens up and cracks a smile). Most significantly, however, the final chapter included a new, adjusted ending written and drawn by Toriyama, drawing parallels between Goku and Oob as well as highlighting Vegeta's rivalry with him, though Toriyama's original farewell message to the fans from the chapter was removed.
In Episode 12 of Funimation's dub of Dragon Ball, after Oolong thwarts Pilaf's wish, the villain demands them being captured and killed. Or as his Angrish puts it, EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!
he didn't intend for the series to last as long as it did or to explode in popularity the way it did. He originally planned for it to end in its first arc, which he envisioned as going on for longer than it did. The Frieza and Cell Sagas are just very obvious points where fans can say "well, it could have stopped here and it'd be a fairly clean finish".