Even if you do want to watch it, you need to watch it on DVD, as the television version edits out anything that is even slightly adult. Masako Nozawa is great as Son Goku, and captures his personality perfectly. If you want to watch this anime, watch the DVDs with Japanese dialog with subtitles. This show was taken to America and turned into a kids show, which is not how it should be seen. But if you are a fan of action anime, I would still highly recommend this to you. There are many great fights in the anime, they just aren't as frequent as Dragon Ball Z.
People who are more used to the non-stop action of its successor Dragon Ball Z should be warned that this series focuses a lot more on humour on most parts, until later in the series. It's an excellent show because you also get to see the steady transformation of a gifted, and pure child into a martial arts genius. My personal favourite parts of the series were the Piccolo battles, and that's where the tone of the series changed to be slightly more dramatic. There are many great stories spanning across 153 episodes, including several Tenkaichi Budokai's (Known in the American version as The World Martial Arts Tournament.) An evil organisation bent on world domination (who cares if it's cliché, you can't go wrong with the classics) called the Red Ribbon Army, An ancient evil known as Piccolo Daimao, and many more.
Throughout their adventures they meet many memorable characters, such as the perverted shapeshifting pig Oolong, the not so good around girls desert bandit Yamucha, and an old martial arts master, who's technique and strength is only matched by his appetite for pretty, young girls known as Muten Roshi. The story revolves around a 12 year old monkey boy, named Son Goku, who meets up with a 16 year old girl named Bulma who is searching for seven mystical balls named Dragon Balls, which when gathered together, will summon the dragon god Shenlong, who will grant you any one wish. Dragon Ball is partly based on the old folklore tale of "Journey to the West," although I don't know much about the story, except that some of the characters in Dragon Ball were based on ones from the story. This anime is based on the popular manga, written by one of my favourite manga writers, Akira Toriyama, author of the hilarious Dr Slump manga. Anime is very good in mixing stuff the right way.