Fireman Sam (U.S. dub)

The 1987 Fireman Sam series received an American English dub in 1992 as part of the RKO Network's Paul Taylor's Parade block.

History of the dub
In 1991, BBC producer approached It's the Paul Taylor Program! creator Sjoerd Broekhuizen to see if he was interested in helping to get some BBC children's programming on television in the United States. Sjoerd was particularly interested in Fireman Sam and felt the series could do well on American television, citing the success of shows like Rescue 911. By this point, 25 episodes of Fireman Sam had been produced and were available for Broekhuizen to adapt for American audiences. The RKO Network was looking to split their children's programming block into two distinct segments - the RKO Cartoon Zone and a Paul Taylor-centric block. Thus, Paul Taylor's Parade was born.

The BBC, S4C, and Bumper Films teamed up with S.B. Studios and RKO Entertainment and implemented Fireman Sam as a show in Paul Taylor's Parade. However, network executives believed that the Welsh/British accents in Fireman Sam would confuse American viewers, so the series was dubbed over by -based actors.

It was decided that the original narrator would be retained as the voice of Station Officer Steele (who retained his Welsh accent) and Bella Lasagne - due to technical complications, however, all of his dialogue had to be rerecorded. Minor adjustments were made to the scripts by voice director Martin Berger to remove British terminology and slang. Jacek Fiedorowicz, who performed Ray Taylor in the Paul Taylor media, voiced Elvis Cridlington. Another Paul Taylor cast member, Noël Qumaq, performed the U.S. version of the theme song.

Paul Taylor's Parade became a success, and in 1994 RKO and S.B. Studios commissioned an additional 8 episodes of Fireman Sam for the second season of Paul Taylor's Parade. These episodes were also shown the same year in the United Kingdom, re-dubbed by John Alderton (in English) and Gareth Lewis (in Welsh) and marketed as the fourth series of the program. Daniel DeSanto, who had provided the American voice of Norman Price, was replaced by Alderton, and several episodes of the first season of Paul Taylor's Parade were also revised with John Alderton as Norman Price. Shortly after the U.S. broadcast of these episodes in 1995, It's the Paul Taylor Program! finished it's original run and thus Paul Taylor's Parade was taken off the air, and the American localization hasn't seen the light of day since. It is believed that most of the master tapes of the US version are still with Mattel or RKO.

Voice Cast

 * Ron Rubin as Sam Peyton
 * Jacek Fiedorowicz as Elvis Cridlington
 * as Station Officer Steele and Bella Lasagne
 * as Penny Morris
 * as Trevor Evans
 * as Dilys Price
 * (seasons 1-3) and (season 4) as Norman Price
 * as Sarah Jones
 * Jeff Berger as James Jones

Credits

 * Dialogue Director/Script Re-versioning - Martin Berger
 * U.S. Version Re-Recording - McClear Pathé