Carl Macek started Streamline Pictures, an American film company best known for their excellent dubbing and distribution of the Studio Ghibli films: The Castle of Cagliostro, My Neighbor Totoro, and Kiki's Delivery Service. This was at a time when dubbing was not very common and for the most part, not very good. As a fan of Studio Ghibli's films, Carl did not think Laputa - The Castle in the Sky (of which Streamline was the distributor) had received the quality of dubbing that a Ghibli film deserved. He thought that it could have been done better, so Studio Ghibli gave him the opportunity to prove his words. For his first project, he asked to dub My Neighbor Totoro, one of his favorite Studio Ghibli works.

Studio Ghibli was very happy with the quality of the work and they immediately hired Streamline Pictures to produce the English language version of Kiki's Delivery Service. Soon after its release, the film was bought by Japan Airlines who showed it during their flights between Japan from the U.S. It also had a strong showing nationally in art house theaters.