I have been told that the voice actors for this show didn't five a shit about the original script but it looks like everyone involved in the English dub decided that actually translating things is overrated and they could save a lot of money by making the show about sex jokes, racism and born again Christian preacher girl.
My brother has this DVD. According to him, the original show was a blandly paint-by-numbers bog standard production, so the dubbers decided it needed a lot of punching up to make it worth doing.
I can still imagine some weeaboo somewhere who considered the original his very favorite show ever and is filled with nerdrage to this day that the dubbers didn't treat it like serious fucking business.
Going by the intro alone, it had a very strong, and very boring, "power of friendship" vibe. The dub immediately and unceremoniously destroyed that, much to the show's benefit.
However, if it were remade and maybe given a touch-up on the animation and more variation, it could actually work very well for what it was. Oh, and change that thrice damned intro, because it causes a massive amount of mood whiplash. The monsters of the week are seriously fucking disturbing, and throwing kids into the mix could actually make for some good dramatic tension. Basically, if the writing had been better, the show might have actually succeeded. Then again, we wouldn't get the comedic gem that we got with the dub, sooooooo...maybe its a good thing it died.