Doc Harris, the first English Dragon Ball Z narrator, dies at 76

Canadian industry magazine Broadcast Dialogue has broken the news that Doc Harris, known to anime fans as the English dub's first narrator, has died in Vancouver, Canada on October 5. He was 76. Born Gilbert Auchinleck and adopting the Doc Harris air name in the 70s, Harris got his start as a radio broadcaster working for various stations across Canada in cities including Victoria, Saskatoon, Toronto and Vancouver.

Vancouver is also the home of production studio Ocean, where Harris provided voices, often as a narrator, in anime and Western cartoon series from the 80s through to the end of 2010s. Harris was best-known and most recognizable to anime fans as the narrator of Dragon Ball Z — replaced by Dale Kelly and then Kyle Hebert when Funimation produced a new dub of the series. Harris's other roles include the Monster Rancher anime series that ran from 1999-2001, various Dragon Ball Z movies, Nintendo's tie-in series Captain N: The Game Master, the immensely popular My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and an appearance on a episode of The X-Files.

Vancouver was a major anime hub in the 90s and 2000s

Thanks to its production studio in the city — where Doc Harris did most of his voice over work — Ocean Productions made Vancouver a major hub for anime dubbing throughout the 90s and 2000s. Many iconic anime series were dubbed into English for the first time by Ocean. In addition to Dragon Ball Z, some of the anime series with English dubs produced by Ocean include Cardcaptor Sakura (in a heavily abridged and modified form marketed as Cardcaptors), Inuyasha, several series from the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise, Ranma 1/2 and The Vision of Escaflowne. While not dubbed by Ocean, Sailor Moon was also originally dubbed in Canada.

As a result of these anime dubs being produced in Canada, they technically qualified as Canadian Content under the government guidelines, meaning that Canadian networks were actually able to air anime series to meet the government-mandated quotas for Canadian Content.

Although many of these series have since been redubbed by larger American studios, with these dubs generally regarded as better and more faithful to the original Japanese scripts, they introduced anime to many fans born in the 90s for the first time. Canadian studios played a major role in the global spread of anime's popularity. Ocean Productions continues its work on both anime series and Western cartoons.

Doc Harris leaves behind an iconic legacy in anime

Although his role as the series's narrator was fairly minor compared to the main characters of Dragon Ball Z, Doc Harris's iconic voice promising more to come on the next episode has no doubt been engraved on the minds of an entire generation of anime fans. Thanks to the instantly recognizable, iconic performances of Harris and the rest of the cast, Dragon Ball Z became onto the most beloved anime series to reach English-speaking audiences in the 90s.

This is a particularly poignant moment for Canadian anime fans. Thanks to the efforts of Harris and other Canadian voice actors and production companies, the Canadian industry played a key role in introducing and popularizing anime in North America. Without Canadian voice actors like Harris, anime probably wouldn't have exploded in popularity across North America the way it did.

We here at Anime Away wish to extend our condolences to the family, friends and fans of Doc Harris.