IIRC:
- Original Dragon Ball English dub began around 1995, was quickly canceled.
- Funimation skipped straight to DBZ the following year or so, did two seasons (spanning everything up to the point where Goku lands on Namek), still didn't do so hot ratings wise, got canceled again.
- Existing DBZ eps get rerun on Cartoon Network repeatedly, gradually gaining a larger fanbase and prompting production of new episodes in 1999 or so, when the show finally explodes in popularity in the US.
The first two seasons were on network television and were edited pretty heavily to avoid trouble with the FCC. Nobody dies, they just get zapped to "an alternate dimension." It's not HELL, it's HFIL (Home For Infinite Losers :lol). Nappa annihilates an air force fleet? "It's okay, I can see their parachutes!" Fanservice and alcohol scrubbed out entirely, etc and so forth. Cue thousands of teenagers whining that the integrity of the show is being entirely compromised.
There's a handful of references to this sort of stuff in Abridged, like "Now it's beer!" and "The cargo was people!"