A funny thing happened in dubbing, part 361: I was wondering how they'd do the German in the German version of Season Three. Of course, they couldn't have given him a German accent (fake or otherwise). What I'd never have expected was that they'd make him "The Hun".

I can practically see someone in the dubbing department sitting their with the fingers crossed (or, as we do in Germany, with their thumbs pressed) that the German's nationality will never become important. And since he was seen in that photo of Barbara, I wouldn't bet on it.

Remains to be said that they came up with a nice replacement for Usutu's "No service here - I should have gone with Sprint", which wouldn't have been understood here. They made it, "No service here. You could try a drum."

Ha I like that! Dubbing's always a bit strange... the thing I always find weird is even if a a character is already speaking the language of the dubber, they're still dubbed...

I watched RTLs version this week and realized why I vowed never to watch a German dubbed version again.
I forgot they dub Hiro and Ando. It's like drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa - no respect for art.

It's German viewing habits. On American TV, you're used to having original languages - on German TV, we don't. IT would alienate people. It makes sense too - in the original, English version of Heroes, we hear everybody talking in the language they are supposed to talk in. The Americans, Indians, Brits, and whatnot speak English, the Haitians speak French, the Japanese speak Japanese. On German TV, once the dub something, they might as well dub everything, since the amount of German on Heroes is negligible.

What I find much weirder is that you run into the same voice actors again and again. There seems to be a rather limited set. It's fun to close your eyes while watching an episode and to imagine that you have Frodo Baggins arguing with the Janitor from Scrubs, when it's Peter and Nathan Petrelli.

All part of the fun. ^^

That is the most amazing thing I have heard in..a long while. Thank you.

That's true, numerous times I've looked up searching for Jean-Luc Picard or Fox Mulder but they aren't there, just someone else with the same voice

But one thing I could never understand in Germany is why so many films are retitled with a subtitle that attempts to explain the film in six words. It sounds so awful.

"Heroes: Sie wissen nicht was Sie tun sollen"

Always happy to serve.



I *suppose* it's for the benefit of people who, in the times of the internet, have already heard of the English title, AND for the benefit of those who haven't and still don't speak any English. But you're right, it's hilarious.

On the other hand, I wouldn't have known what "Scrubs" was without the German subtitle. I'd have thought it was something indecent.

Even weirder are those peculiar English titles they sometimes give to films. As in, they take an English film and change the title - which is another English title, and totally unconnected to the original title.

Example: I had always wanted to watch the film "Rabbit-proof fence" (about aborigine girls in Australia who are separated from their mothers and walk all the way through the outback to get home), and nearly missed it when it was advertised as "Long Way Home" in our TV magazine. It was by sheer luck that I looked at the cast and realised it was the same.

Gold Seven - we should start a wiki for funny/strange German-English film titles.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail >> Knights of the Coconut
Bridget Jones' Diary >> Chocolate for Breakfast

...and my favorite painful translation
The Satanic Rites of Dracula >> Dracula needs Fresh Blood

My eternal favourite has to be the French film with Gérard Depardieu and Pierre Richard, Les Fugitives - "Two crazy guys on the run". Possibly only topped by "A Hard Ride", which became "Vor den Latz geknallt" - a tentative translation attempt would be "A slap with a wet towel", which conveys nothing of the utter inaneness of the German...

It might actually be fun to continue this thread for German/English translation oddities pertaining to Heroes. I think I've scattered a few here and there in the forums already...