Princess Snake's Hospitality

"Princess Snake's Hospitality" is the ninth episode of the Vegeta Saga and the ninth episode in the original Saban dub of the Dragon Ball Z series. It aired in first-run syndication on November 8, 1996.
==Summary==
Goku continues to run along Snake Way, and ends up passing the street cleaner again. Meanwhile, on The Lookout the Dragon Team (at this time, only referred to as "Earth's Special Forces", consisting of Yamcha, Chiaotzu, Tien Shinhan, Krillin, and Yajirobe) have arrived in order to begin training in preparation for the arrival of the Saiyans.
Back on Snake Way, Goku comes to a house and assumes it is King Kai's house. The house changes into the face of a serpent and sucks Goku in. Once inside, a servant woman alerts Princess Snake that they have a visitor. Goku is shocked to see that "King Kai" is a woman. Princess Snake asks Goku to dance, and he willingly accepts. Goku assumes that this is her method of teaching one to catch the opponent off guard, so he throws her on the ground. The servant tells him that this is Princess Snake, the Underworld Beauty Champion. Princess Snake has a gigantic feast prepared for Goku, but it is loaded with a sleep-inducing weed. Back on Earth, Gohan is in his cave doing algebra in the sand. After seeing Gohan fall asleep, Piccolo makes a copy of himself and has a sparring match with his copy. Goku eats all of his food, and then all of the Princess Snake's food. The sleep-induced weeds had no effect, so he is offered a hot bath. He declines at first, but accepts when he learns that King Kai supposedly hates dirty pupils. Meanwhile, Piccolo, remembering his earlier battle with Raditz, ups his training by splitting his body in two, creating an identical twin that he can fight against.
Goku is relaxing in the hot spring when the sky all of a sudden turn dark due to one of the Princess' astrological devices. Princess Snake talks to Goku from behind a rock slab but doesn't get a response. She goes to see what the matter is. She sees Goku's rear end poking out of the water and covers her eyes in embarrassment. Goku gets out of the hot spring and puts on his clothes. The servants try to stop him from leaving, as a last resort, they ask him to watch a ritualistic dance. He accepts it and sits down. They bring him a glass of sleep-educed weed juice, which causes him to fall asleep almost immediately, with a little help from the dizzy ritual dance. They bring out the Mirror of Dreams to read Goku's mind, and they see Gohan and Chi-Chi. Princess Snake nearly eats Goku before he wakes up after having a dream about the Saiyans attacking Gohan and Chi-Chi.
Goku insists on leaving, so Princess Snake transforms into her serpent form, and Goku is trapped inside her body. Goku flies out of her body and tries to kill her with a Kamehameha. He stops gathering energy for the wave because he feels bad about doing it since she gave him food. He ends up tricking her into tangling herself up by flying in circles around her. He leaves her there in a tangled mass and continues on his journey. Meanwhile, as the warriors of earth train with Kami, the approaching Saiyans enter the Milky Way Galaxy. The final battle is drawing near.
==Changes==
*In the uncut version of Dragon Ball Z, Tien and Chiaotzu first appear in episode 12 (equivalent to episode 8 in this edited dub). Their scene was cut from that episode since it featured Launch, a character removed entirely from this particular version of Dragon Ball Z. In this dub, Tien and Chiaotzu now first appear in this episode, with no explanation for their sudden presence.
*A scene where one of Princess Snake's servants plays Russian Roulette (and loses) is removed in most major dubs.
==Quotes==
==Trivia==
*For many years it was believed Lisa Ann Beley voiced Princess Snake in this episode, although it has recently been revealed that the character was in fact voiced by Ellen Kennedy.
*Because the next episode "Escape from Piccolo" was banned from the original syndication run, the episode that comes after, "Showdown in the Past", is used for the next episode preview instead.
**The same feature is present in the Rock the Dragon Edition DVD set.
*The music used for the title card of this episode would later be used for every episode starting with "A Fight Against Gravity... Catch Bubbles!" and continue until "Goku... Super Saiyan?"
==Gallery==
==External links==
*IMDb page for "Princess Snake's Hospitality (1996)"
*Review of the episode's censorship
==Site Navigation==
Category:Episodes
Category:Dragon Ball Z episodes
Category:Edited Dragon Ball Z episodes
Category:Vegeta Saga