4Kids Entertainment

4Kids Entertainment is an United States film and television production company specializing in the acquisition, production and licensing of children's entertainment around the world. They are most known for their acquired television programs.

4Kids Productions
4Kids Productions is a wholly owned subsidiary of 4Kids Entertainment, and is responsible for the production of original or licensed properties owned by the company.

History
On 2004-06-08, 4Kids announced they had aquired the liecence to domestic distribution over One Piece.

After this 4Kids set to work on an English version of the series. On 2004-08-14, the first promotional trailers were released for viewing alongside Mew Mew Power and F-Zero: GP Legend. Their English dub of One Piece debuted on the 4Kids TV block (formally FoxBox) on September 18, 2004. Toonami on 2004-11-18 announced it was allow the broadcasting rights to air the show in the UK, the series began airing on Saturday, April 23rd 2005. The next channel to announce production was Cartoon Network on 16th of Feb 2005.

Later it was reveal on Apr 24th 2005 that One Piece, along with many other shows, would recieve an uncut DVD release. However, on 2005-06-09 the DVDs for the series were released with the words "English TV Version" on the box, however Al Kahn had previously stated that things would come in two formats. Later however, uncuts DVDs were announced by Viz media as a no-go as they were not involved with the series.

On 2005-11-14 One Piece along with another show dubbed by 4Kids, Mew Mew Power, were reported missing from the 4Kids line-up. However, the show was announcement as "not cancelled" on 2005-11-23 and was expected to return later on, but 4Kids did not announce when. On 2005-12-22, 4Kids announced the show would return after the holiday season and on 2006-02-01 the series was announced to be continuing on February 11. The dub's naming conventions were used in One Piece-related media in North America, such as the English version of the fighting game One Piece Grand Battle for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Gamecube.

Changes
On 2004-09-02 4Kids answered the problems of Sanji smoking in the show. This was one of the few announced changes made to the series and the first alteration 4Kids spoke of in reguard to the dub.

On of the more noted changes that was spotted was in episode 5 when 4Kids changed the skin of a character from black to white. This was common practice made by 4Kids to avoid a certain stereotype and was seen in other animes at the time.

The most note worthy problem with the 4Kids dub is that many arcs were cut from the orginal storyline. These included:


 * Warship Island arc
 * Laboon arc
 * Little Garden arc

In all cases, the storyline had to be altered resulting in problematic results. At the time, there was no way of knowing which way the mangaka Oda was taking the storyline. many plot holes were later caused by this version. These changes were never given reason for and remains the subject of much speculation amongst fans.


 * Because the Little Garden arc was removed, there was no explaination behind much of Mr.3's later appearance in Alabasta. Mr.3 was said to have been chasing the Straw Hat Pirates since Logue Town yet Baroque Works did know about the crew in the actaul storyline until Misty Peak. Mr.3 and his partner Ms. April Fools Day were also spoken about during the explaination about Baroque Works given on the organisation as if the  crew had met them.
 * Laboon was removed, had 4Kids continued the series this would have left Brook without reason to join the crew later on.
 * Information left out in the Warship Island arc on entry into the Grand Line created problems in explaining why one cannot just sail into the Grand Line.
 * Crocus was removed resulting in the storyline being reworked to fit around his absence. The rework initally included just his log pose explaination that he gave the Straw Hats. At the time other storylines that mention his importance to the One Piece world had not been reached in the orginal Japanese dub.

While there are also many other complaints on the company in reguard to alterations, such as visible alterations, poor translations and low-quality dubbing, this remains the only non-opinion based problem caused by the dub.

Cancellation
Following an announcement on 2006-03-16 by 4kidsthe company stated they will concentrate only on producing its own shows. A fall of profit was blamed on the shortfall of several of their dubbed licences such as Pokémon and Yu-gi-oh, although One Piece and several other licences they held were said to offset the results. The company as a result later dropped a few shows including one of one of their biggest earners Pokémon. The dubbing of new anime lessened and 4Kids announced on 2006-12-06 that they had canceled production of their dub. As of September 2007, 104 English-dubbed episodes have been produced from the first 143 Japanese episodes. 4Kids dropped the license afterwards.

Leadership Team

 * Alfred R. Kahn Chairman and CEO of 4Kids Entertainment, Inc.
 * Norman J. Grossfield has been President of 4Kids Productions, Inc., 4Kids’ television, film and home video production subsidiary, since February 1994. For two years prior to such time, he was President of Gold Coast Television Entertainment, a television production company. Prior to such time, Mr. Grossfeld served as Coordinating Director for NBC Sports from 1991 through 1992, and as Producer/Director for Television Programming Enterprises from 1988 to 1991.
 * Thomas J. Kenney is 4Kids's Vice President.
 * Bruce Raymond Foster has been Chief Financial Officer since December 1, 2005. From August 2002 to December 2005, Mr. Foster was 4Kids’ Senior Vice President of Finance. For more than four years prior to such time, Mr. Foster was with Deloitte & Touche LLP, most recently as an Audit Director.
 * Samuel R. Newborn has been the General Counsel since January 2000. Prior to joining 4Kids, Mr. Newborn was a partner in the law firm of Janklow, Newborn & Ashley for more than five years.
 * Brian G. Lacey has been Executive Vice President of International for 4Kids since July 2003. Prior to joining 4Kids, Mr. Lacey was the President and founder of Lacey Entertainment, a New York-based worldwide television marketing, production, and distribution company, specializing in innovative and creative approaches in the packaging, production and launching of television series in the U.S. and around the world.
 * Lee Ravdin was named President of The Summit Media Group on February 13, 2006. He has over 30 years of experience as a planner and buyer of kids’ media. Previously, he was President of Lake End Consulting, a full service media company specializing in the design and execution of media campaigns. He started his own media buying agency, Lee Media, in 1981 and sold it to Toy Biz/Tangible Industries in 1988. He continued to run Lee Media until 1999, when he started Lake End.