Blind Idiot Translation/Western Animation: Difference between revisions

** A particularly hilarious/stupid example occurs in one episode, where Matt Groening made a short appearance. The original dialogue was something along the lines of "Look, it's Matt Groening, Creator of ''Futurama''! Could you sign my Bender doll?" It came out of mr. Translator as something along the lines of "Look, it's Matt Greening, creator of Futurama! Could you sign my transvestite doll?" Slightly understandable, as "bender" is a slang term for a transvestite, but still...

** Some references in the French dub aren't translated at all, we get horrors such as calling Ecuador (the country) Ecuador and not Équateur, its proper French name, or calling [[Where's Waldo|Waldo]] Waldo, and not Charlie (which is the name everyone knows in France). These instances are pretty annoying, given the fact that the French dub of ''[[The Simpsons]]'' is overall awesome.

** The Finnish subtitles for one episode of [[The Simpsons]] translated Kang and Kodos as "Kag" and "Cordos" respectively.

* Then we have the Mexican Spanish translator for [[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]], who translated Tails as a [[She's a Man In Japan|FEMALE CHARACTER]]. To this day, most non-gamers that grew up during the 90's in Spanish-speaking American countries still believe Tails (or Colitas) to be female. Additionally, Tails's real name (which he claimed he disliked in the cartoon) is [[Punny Name|Miles Prower]]. In the Spanish translation? Bibi Gavilán (Bibi Sparrowhawk).

** While mistaking Tails for a girl is a bit unforgivable, changing the English names of fictional characters to more Hispanic-sounding names is actually a common practice in some parts of Spanish-speaking America. (In Mexico it was required by law for a while.) For example, Bruce Wayne's name was changed to Bruno Díaz.

* In an episode of [[Phineas and Ferb]], Doofenshmirtz talks about how he likes to give people nicknames and mentions that his nickname for Perry the Platypus is Mr. Duckbillface. In the Norwegian version of that episode, this is translated as "Ande-regnings-tryne". Apparently the translator somehow failed to realize that "bill" in this context referred to... Well, a duck's bill, and so the bill part got translated as the kind of bill you have to pay.

* The Brazilian dubbing of an episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]'' translated "I miss America" as "I am Miss America".

* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' in Hungarian is comperable to the dubs described above. Name translations tend to change within the same episode, sometimes within mere ''seconds''.

* The ''[[Bionicle]]'' movies, also in Hungarian. Tenses are constantly varied no matter what the original dialog said (or what's on screen), the translator made the words "duty", "destiny", "responsibility" and "task" interchangeable, and shoehorned the word "destroy" into the dialog as many times as possible (in place of "defeat", "strike down" or "fail"). Some examples:

'''Matau Hordika, original:''' You're our leader, Vakama. [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|You're my leader]].<br />

'''Dub:''' You're our leader, Vakama. [[Department of Redundancy Department|Our leader]].<br />

'''Dub''' ''(to Krekka)'': What does it matter? }}

*** The fourth movie, ''The Legend Reborn'' got a new translator, for better or worse. Glatorian simply became gladiators, while the giant Skopio beast was called scorpion. As for the dialog:

'''Dub:''' I told you, Raanu, pitting Vastus against Tarix is a big mistake! }}

* For the longest time the Norwegian translators of '[[Family Guy]]' couldn't decide how to translate the opening theme leaving the line "Lucky there's a Family Guy" translated differently every time, frequent errors include "Walter is a Family Guy", "Peter is a Family Guy" and even "Lucky is a family guy", leaving the word Lucky untranslated as if it was the name of a character.

* One Swedish translator tasked with subtitling [[The Simpsons]] episodes managed to confuse "fry" with "freeze", thus translating "I got this deep fryer on loan from the US Army. It can flash fry a buffalo in 40 seconds" into "I got this deep freezer on loan from the US Army. It can freeze a buffalo in 40 seconds."

* Same with the Hungarian ''[[World of Quest]]''. "Carnies" (as in, carnival people) became "Carnivores", Dear God. Often, the lines failed to make even grammatical sense.

** The Swedish dub, while not completely terrible, seems to have had little to no effort put into the translation. The worst examples include translating "the Wonderbolts" into "Underskruvarna" ("the Wonderscrews") in the pilot episode and translating the episode title "Applebuck Season" into "Äppelpengssäsong" ("Apple Money Season"). There are various other things to complain about, but most of them are due to lack of effort rather than misunderstandings.

*** Perhaps even more disastrous is how they translated the line "You don't wanna get a tummy ache" into "Du vill väl inte ha ont i tummen?", believing that "tummy" meant "thumb". As the context is about eating too fast, this is basically inexcusable. Humorously enough, the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF-X0kGhhWs reaction shot] that follows can easily be interpreted as targeted at the translation itself. Another case of plain idiocy is how "pet alligator" was translated into "leksakskrokodil" ("toy crocodile"). Ignoring the change in species, how can anyone believe that something that's obviously alive - and in fact attempts to attack one of the characters mere seconds later - is a toy? And further more, in the Winter Wrap-Up song, Twilight wonders how she's gonna be able to help without using her wand.