Cowboy Bebop/Trivia


 * Most of the episode titles are the names of notable albums or songs.

Trivia tropes:

 * Anime First
 * Cross-Dressing Voices: In the Hungarian dub, Ed is voiced by a boy after the translator mistook her name as male.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!:
 * Steve Blum, the voice of Spike, is in lots and lots of anime dubs, as well as American cartoons such as Megas XLR and Wolverine and the X-Men. Blum actually used the same voice for an American insurance commercial; which is actually a rather humorous choice when you take into account what Spike's opinions would have been on such a company.
 * Faye in the dub is voiced by Wendee Lee, who is in damn well everything dubbed. In the original Japanese she is voiced by Megumi Hayashibara, so this show has a lot of this.
 * Jet and Ed's voice actors, Beau Billingslea and Melissa Fahn respectively, are also recognizable from the Digimon series. Ogremon and Rika Nonaka anyone?
 * Don't forget Gaz, everyone! Yep, Edward is Dib's sister!
 * And if you watched FLCL before you watched Bebop like I did, you'll find that Eri Ninamori sounds like a very sensible version of Ed.
 * Electra Ovilo in the English dub of The Movie was voiced by Jennifer Hale, which is interesting since it's the only time that she's dubbed anime. She normally does voices for Western animation and video games.
 * Cowboy Andy Von de Oniyate is voiced by Cosmo.
 * No Export for You:
 * It's taken a LONG time for the USA – where Bebop is most popular – to get the Blu-Ray set. Even the UK got it long before North America. This is probably because the show is so revered in the States; no one could afford it until years after the set had come out in Japan. Fortunately, Funimation has assured American fans that the long-awaited Blu-Ray set is finally coming. Until then, though, those who want it have to import from Japan or the UK.
 * There was a PlayStation 2 game all sent to be released in Japan and the States...then for some reason Bandai Namco canceled the English version and it never saw the light of day in the U.S. Fans are still scratching their heads wondering what happened to prevent its release. The game itself is the source of Cowboy Bebop at His Computer. There was another game for PS 1 as well, which played a lot like Star FOX and was also only released in Japan.
 * Star-Making Role: The show that pretty much cements Steve Blum, Wendee Lee and Beau Billingslea as legendary voice actors in the West.
 * Too Soon: "Sympathy For The Devil", "Waltz For Venus", and "Cowboy Funk" were removed from TV showings after 9/11, and "Wild Horses" was removed after the Space Shuttle Columbia broke up in re-entry in 2003.
 * "Sympathy for the Devil" had the misfortune of being slated to air on September 15, 2001. America was still in official mourning, and television networks freaked out about a backlash from airing anything even remotely objectionable. This episode being skipped was part of the fallout. During the second run-through of the series, it did air, albeit with the climax censored somewhat.
 * "Waltz for Venus" (originally-planned airdate September 22, 2001, the very next episode – wow, 9/11 really screwed this show) appeared during the third run-through.
 * It took until the third or fourth airing of the series for "Cowboy Funk" to make it in, but it did – the major censoring there was painting out the cannabis leaf on Jet's shirt.
 * Trope Namer:
 * Cowboy Bebop at His Computer: ...thanks to a really off-kilter print article about the series; see the page pic for more details.
 * Mushroom Samba: One whole episode is dedicated to this (and Blaxploitation).
 * What Could Have Been:
 * Edward was originally going to be a boy, but they decided the character's mannerisms were more suited to a girl.
 * It's also said that Edward might be based on Yoko Kanno herself. Edward's original character design appears in the series, as one of the boys that Annie catches shoplifting a nude mag.
 * "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" was originally conceived as elaborating on Spike's backstory as part of the Red Dragon Syndicate. But they determined that one of the defining characteristics of the show was the lack of exposition on backstory, in addition to all of the fan theories surrounding it, and thus they decided on an interquel.
 * Crispin Freeman was originally cast as Vincent Volaju in The Movie, but was replaced after the director realized he didn't sound low enough compared to Steve Blum.
 * Word of God: Shinichiro Watanabe himself has stated that he enjoys the English dub of the series more than the original. To be precise, he thinks the Japanese cast does a good job in their own right, but the English actors really add a lot of emotion and depth to the characters that just can't be matched.
 * Yoko Kanno herself was much more blunt. An extra on one of the DVD's quoted her thus: "Our Spike, good. Your Spike, sexy!"