As I told many times before, "Dallas" wasn´t only dubbed into Spanish in my country (Spain, obviously). It was bought by the federated local stations because the public network didn´t want to pay the high prices Lorimar demanded after the Who Shot J.R. phenomenon. So when these "other" stations were born (in Catalonia, Galicia and Euzkadi, just for the information of those who know my country), in 1983/early 1984, the first show was "Dallas", specifically the episode "No More Mr. Nice Guy", aka "the one after the shooting".
It was dubbed into Catalan, Gallego and Basque, so we had to get used to another language of those, besides the voices the Ewings had in Spanish, in the first original 2 seasons. It became something educational, as Karin has remarked too, because it taught us languages that had been forbidden during the 40 years of the Franco dictatorship. Besides, we had the dual system, so any person could choose between the original (in the "Dallas" case, American English) and the dubbed version (in my case, Catalan, since I am from Barcelona).
I couldn´t hear the voices of the actors until later because Dual system had a very slow installation in my city. Few areas could "get" both versions...I could hear Victoria´s voice because I did rent "Earthquake" and a very dumb TVM called "Pleasure Palace". And yes, I was terribly disappointed by her voice. She had a very sexy, heartfelt voice in Spanish, the actress who dubbed her had also dubbed Meryl Streep´s first successful roles in "Holocaust" and "Kramer".
Pam´s voice almost sounded husky, as those of you who came to Spain in 1980/82 may remember. Linda Gray's voice also sounded very deep and "masculine", I used to say that it just had a "drunk"´s voice, which I though was a mistake. They did the same thing with Katherine and Rebecca...but Jenna´s voice was sweeter and her dubber was a real actress, not a ******** like PP. Spanish translators eventually went wacko: they were in such a hurry to dub the episodes when the Spanish speaking stations were born (late 80´s) that they made a lot of mistakes in the names´ spelling and even whole sentences (which I realize now, of course). Jenna became "Gina" (yes, like THAT Gina...), Kimberly Cryder became "Kimberlie Creeder", and many other disasters...
No need to say what I though about BBG or Howard Keel dubbed. No matter how good their dubbers were: originals were so much better. Only Lucy was improved by her Spanish voices...Any surprise here?
A last thing: I got a copy of the French airing of "Swan Song" before we knew it was all a dream...and since we have different color systems, I watched it in black & white in Spain...and it looked great. It looked like a 40´s melodrama, which probably was Esther Shapiro´s obsession all the way. Besides, the French voices for all the lead ladies were beautiful, and French is a sweet language by nature so...I´ll never forget that cry: "Bobbieeee, Bobbiiiieeeee, c´est Katherine la putain qui t´a tué!" (I made up the last sentence...)
