When Dragon Ball Z (which can be streamed on Crunchyroll and with a Hulu subscription) started airing in the United States in 1996, Funimation (now known as Crunchyroll LLC) hired Ocean Studios to handle the English dub of the anime that’s now considered one of the best animated TV shows of all time. This dub was eventually cancelled and replaced by the more well-known version handled by Cartoon Network and Funimation directly, but back in the Ocean days, lead protagonist and high-ranking Z fighter Goku was voiced by Ian James Corlett, and the show’s narration duties were handled by Doc Harris, Gilbert Auchinleck. Sadly, Harris passed away this weekend at the age of 76, and Corlett took to social media to pay tribute to him.
As reported by Broadcast Dialogue, Doc Harris died at the Vancouver General Hospital on Saturday following a reported minor surgery last month. Ian James Corlett, whose other credits include Mega Man and Beast Wars: Transformers, divided his tribute to Harris into two posts. In the first Instagram post, Corlett described how he met Harris, whom he called “one of the greats”:
Doc was a HUGE force in my early career. More than just a DH, he lived and breathed music. He also had a keen eye for movies. I first met him when I was working at the music store and sold him some audio/recording gear. Seizing upon ANY slim opportunity to get my foot in the door, I struck up a relationship with him. In short order he graciously included me in his world. I would do comedy call-in bits with him, and ultimately song parodies and topical music bits. I remember being struck by the stark difference between his on-air language his REALLY salty off-air linguistic style.
In addition to their collaboration on Dragon Ball Z, Corlett and James also both worked on fellow Vancouver productions Barbie, Camp Candy and Captain N: The Game Master, and the former also described the latter as the “king of the malapropism.” Sadly, Corlett wasn’t able to meet up with Harris for lunch when he was in Vancouver this past summer, so he capped off this post with, “Sorry Doc. I owe you one. Actually I owe you a hundred lunches” and “RIP DOC 💔🤘🏽.” Harris’ passing follows seven months after Dragon Ball franchise creator Akira Toriyama died at 68.
In his second Instagram post, Ian James Corlett started off by saying how Doc Harris was “gracious of spirit to help out a young gun like me. A guy with essentially little to no experience.” He then recalled the time when Harris compared him to Ghostbusters and Spaceball actor Rick Moranis:
One day he paid me one of the highest compliments I ever received. We were working on something and I was doing my crackly ‘young nerdy guy’ voice, he said. ‘You remind me of #RickMoranis …’ which I embarrassedly accepted. But when he continued to say ‘ya, he used to be my engineer (not on-air talent) at a station in Toronto when I started using him for comedy bits…’ I was floored. With that history in mind, his compliment was even more massive.
Later on in his career, along with his extensive radio work, Doc Harris lent his voice to projects like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Monster Rancher, Hulk (the video game) and Aegis Defender. We here at CinemaBlend join Ian James Corlett in paying our condolences to Harris and extended our sympathies to his family and friends.