Dragon Ball is one of the world's biggest and most popular franchises. Since it began in 1984, the series has had countless spin-offs and sequels and has moved into other media such as anime and video games. Of course, big franchises tend to have forgotten or overlooked pieces of media and two Dragon Ball OVAs, Goku's Fire Brigade and Goku's Traffic Safety, are soundly forgotten but oddly fun footnotes in the franchise's history.
Both Goku's Fire Brigade and Goku's Traffic Safety are not your standard Dragon Ball episodes or OVAs. In fact, both of them are actually PSA shorts that were made to teach children about fire and traffic safety. They were completed in the June of 1988, but rather than being broadcast as actual episodes, they were shown between other shows during children's programming blocks. They were also sent to schools to be shown during safety demonstration sessions.
Goku's Traffic Safety is set on Bulma's birthday. All of Bulma's friends are heading to West City to attend her birthday party. However, on the way, Master Roshi and Krillin see a distracted little boy nearly get run down by a bear in a truck and meet a traffic agent who looks a lot like Launch (and shares her voice actress). This traffic agent tells the boy to be more careful before scolding the bear for driving distracted.
Elsewhere in the city, Goku is also making his way to the party. On the way, he meets Suno, who chastises Goku for crossing the street without paying attention but agrees to come with him. In West City, the traffic agent spots Goku crossing the road incorrectly and gives him a lecture about pedestrian crossings and how to use them. A few minutes later, Suno's cousin Shinseki runs across the street only to nearly get hit by a car. Thankfully, Goku uses his power pole to grab the kid at the last moment. The traffic officer thanks Goku and then helps him get to the party.
Goku's Fire Brigade also features children narrowly avoiding horrible injury. When two children start playing with fireworks, they end up setting a trash can on fire. Thankfully, Goku sees this and intervenes, putting out the fire with a bucket of water. Goku tells the kids to not play with fireworks without an adult and reveals that he is actually a volunteer firefighter along with Krillin, Master Roshi and Yamcha. Master Roshi then steps in to teach the kids about things that can start housefires, including smoking in bed and unattended burners.
Later we see Bulma and Scratch in their apartment. Bulma leaves a bottle of cooking oil near a lit stove. Just as she does, an earthquake hits the town, causing the bottle to tip over and the building to burst into flames. Thankfully, the two children from earlier see the smoke and call the fire brigade, allowing Goku and his friends to come in and put the building out while also saving Bulma from the burning apartment. The short ends with a fire-safety version of "Makafushigi Adventure!" Interestingly, this OVA stands out as it isn't set in the world of Dragon Ball. The animators decided to make the setting more closely resemble 1980's Japan, rather than the more fantastical cityscapes of the main series.
Watching these shorts now is a fascinating experience. While they are obviously not canon, they are made by the same animators and use the same voice actors as the original anime, making them feel like strange filler episodes. And it is definitely entertaining to see Master Roshi try to educate kids on fire safety or hear Goku talking about traffic signals, which was the point. But these shorts also show just how popular Dragon Ball was, even in 1988. Choosing to use these characters for a PSA means that the creators believed that they were popular enough that children would listen to them and absorb what they had to say.
Goku's Fire Brigade and Goku's Traffic Safety are interesting curiosities that all Dragon Ball fans should watch at least once as they are a fascinating look into the franchise's growing popularity during the late '80s. If you want to see these shorts, they are available on the rare Dragon Box DVD collection as special features.
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