Awesome Voices

The Muppets all have distinct voices to go with their characters, but what would they sound like if they were played by famous celebrities instead? Vocal impressionist Cameron Logsdon imagines just that, casting Owen Wilson as Kermit, Jennifer Coolidge as Miss Piggy, and Jeff Goldblum as Beaker, among others.

Like that guy from the Police Academy movies, beatboxer J-COP has the amazing ability to imitate just about any sound. But that’s not the best part of his videos – it’s his hype team – a group of friends and breakdancers who celebrate each achievement with more enthusiam than the guys in a How Ridiculous video after they hit a perfect target. More here.

There have been lots of complaints about Chris Pratt using his own voice in The Super Mario Bros. Movie. But what if another actor or character had gotten the part and stuck with their own voice? Impressionist Brock Baker imagines just that, with everyone from Nick Offerman to Patrick Warburton to Gilbert Gottfried.

Al Pacino has a very distinctive vocal and acting style, but it’s actually changed a bit over the years. In this interview from The Rich Eisen Show, actor Titus Welliver explains the differences through a series of spot-on vocal impressions of Pacino from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’90s.

It’s pretty easy to meow like a cat or bark like a dog, but Finnish entertainer and voice artist Rudi Rok is a verifiable show-off. Watch and listen as he impersonates the sounds of 40 different animals, including tricky ones like a screeching eagle, a chirping cricket, and a woodpecker pecking on a tree.

Star Wars fans know that Yoda has a particular way of speaking English – puts verbs at the end of sentences he does. Chewie’s Meme Town wondered what it might be like if Yoda spoke like the rest of us, and the resulting dialogue does not compute in our brains.

Folks from the US, UK, and Australia all speak the same language, but there are clear differences in conversational speech. Language of Earth asked three English speakers to demonstrate the variations in accents, pronunciation, and terminology for some common words. Also, we feel like we just watched The Electric Company.

We all know that inhaling helium can make your voice higher, and many of you know that sulfur hexafluoride can make it sound deeper. But Cody’s Lab is here to demonstrate what happens when you breathe in perfluorobutane, a non-toxic gas that’s almost twice as dense as the sulfur hexafluoride.

Lucy Griffiths‘ boyfriend Greg Jones is a professional voiceover artist, and sometimes she asks him to do rapid-fire vocal impressions. We’re especially impressed with his on-the-fly Star Wars voices, which include spot-on copies of franchise faves like Kylo Ren, Darth Vader, C-3PO, R2-D2, and even a convincing Jabba the Hutt.

There’s a certain kind of fake sincerity and strained emotion that comes through in most commercial voiceovers, and voice actor Shelby Young totally nailed it in this TikTok duet she did for the Commercial Voiceover Challenge, posted by Noble Son. Also, who comes up with the awful names for prescription drugs?

Having voiced cartoon characters including Ren and Stimpy, Fry, Zoidberg, Professor Farnsworth, Doug Funnie, and Bugs Bunny, Billy West is one of the most respected and prolific actors in animation. In this interview with Vanity Fair, he breaks down some of his characterizations and his sources of inspiration.

UK tech company Sonantic has developed an AI-driven text-to-speech system that can generate digital voices with much greater expression than others. In this clip, you’ll hear “Faith” a completely artificial voice character act out a story with tremendous emotion. Look out voice actors, the robots are coming for you!

Dee Bradley Baker has brought characters to life on everything from American Dad! to Samurai Jack. He also has the ability to imitate the sounds of all kinds of creatures, from birds to pigs to angry squirrels. Great Big Story sat down with Dee and asked him to improvise some animal noises. Those alien sounds were insane.

You might not know Pamela Adlon’s face, but she’s the talented actor behind Bobby on King of the Hill and Spinelli on Recess, among others. In the latest of Vanity Fair’s voice improv videos, they asked her to come up with eight new character voices on the spot. The scenarios she comes up with are just as imaginative as the voices.

Cartoon fans will recognize Phil LaMarr as the man behind the voices of Samurai Jack, Hermes Conrad on Futurama, and hundreds of other characters. Vanity Fair asked Phil to improvise 12 new character voices entirely based on their illustrations. If there’s one thing the clip proves is just how impressive his range is.

The 1979 Sugar Hill Gang track Rapper’s Delight put hip hop on the map for many of us. Now enjoy a cover of the seminal rap track, as performed by the trio of Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant, courtesy of YouTuber Steven Rosenthal. It seems like Siri has the best sense of rhythm.