Awesome Voices

YouTuber Arman Minasian overlaid clips of a 2013 interview video with baritone-voiced basketball player Gerald Wallace, resulting in a sound that’s somewhere between a didgeridoo and Mongolian throat singing.

Austin Hale redubbed the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, removing the existing voices, music, and sound effects, and replacing them with his own vocals. While he makes no effort to do character impressions, his silly sound effects are just right.

A great bit of footage from a 2001 documentary featuring interviews with the actors behind the voices of the Hannah-Barbera cartoon classic Scooby Doo and Dinomutt. Could you imagine Shaggy and Fred’s voices being reversed?

It turns out that musician Rob Cantor lied, and enlisted the help of 11 different impressionists for his “29 Voices: 1 Song” clip, and just lip-synched his way through it. Proof positive you should never believe anything on the Internet.

Looney Toons voice actor Bob Bergen explains how he ingeniously broke down Mel Blanc’s original Porky Pig voice so he could replicate it. Even if you know the trick, you still can’t do it. From the documentary I Know That Voice.

When asked by a fan if he’d do his cartoon Joker voice in a mock scene from The Empire Strikes Back, actor Mark Hamill was happy to oblige. Star Wars Episode VII: The Clown Prince of Crime. That’s a movie we’d pay to see.

Jim Cummings is the voice actor for beloved characters like Winnie the Pooh and Dark Wing Duck. Watch as he gives us a sample of what A New Hope might have been like had Vader given into his more animalistic tendencies.

H. Jon Benjamin is the unmistakeable voice behind Bob Belcher, Sterling Archer, Coach McGuirk and many others. The guys from the new show Worst Gig Ever asked him to voice a few new characters for our amusement.

The casting director for The Hobbit trilogy decides that Ian MacKellen isn’t quite right for the role of Gandalf, and tries out a few other possible actors for the role. Impressionist Charlie Hopkinson’s Jesse Pinkman impression is spot on.

After a concert in Wuppertal, Germany, the vocalists of Icelandic folk band Árstíðir stopped into the nearby train station after they discovered its incredible acoustic properties. We can only imagine how this sounded in person.

Hear how truly brilliant Freddie Mercury’s vocals were in this clip which extracts only the vocals from his collaboration with David Bowie on Under Pressure – not that Bowie is any slouch either. More here, here and here.

(NSFW: Language, Crude Humor) We’ve already seen his hilarious Game of Thrones voices, but here impressionist Steve Love regales us with a larger compilation of his diverse and expansive library of pop culture characters.

John of JigsawProductions007 does an admirable job pulling off randomly-selected, rapid-fire impressions of characters from South Park, Family Guy, Disney animation and pop culture figures.

Looks like the boxfan is not the original talk box. This clip from the 1940 film You’ll Find Out shows the Sonovox, what some would consider one of the first prototypes for the technology, in action.

We were just talking about Michael Winslow, and now here he is with some fresh content – a lighthearted track backed by DJ Yoda, and plenty of Winslow’s trademark wacky vocal sound effects.

(NSFW: Language) Celebrity impersonator Ross Marquand finds himself with his back against the wall when he’s paid a visit by all of the celebs he apes, who demand that he stop. (Thanks Dan!)

Hunter Davis is back with his spot-on impression of Sir Ian, this time schooling us on the finer points of the female anatomy with Sir-Mix-A-Lot’s Baby Got Back. Gandalf likes big butts and cannot lie.

Multitrack master Nick McKaig returns with another one of his vocalizations, this time combining 62 individual tracks to replicate the classic theme song from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

(NSFW: Language) Duke Nukem voice actor Jon St. John reads a short passage from the ridiculously popular erotica 50 Shades of Gray, fondling his shiny silver balls of steel for all to enjoy.

Impressionist Steve Love does a king’s job pulling off spot-on impressions of everyone from Ned Stark to Littlefinger, along with a hilarious Mormont. We want some Daenerys Targaryen now.

Japanese beatboxer Hikakin has gotten his hands on an RC-50 Loop Station, and with its help, cranks out a mad vocalization of the music from the SNES classic Donkey Kong Country.

Add YouTuber Imagineer50 to the ranks of legit voice impersonators. Watch as he mimics cartoon characters, Disney World residents plus the usual suspects, including a dead-on Heath Ledger Joker.

Vocal impressionist Jim Meskimen returns with a short holiday poem, done in the voices of dozens of famous celebrities. We’re not sure if David Letterman or Tom Waits is our favorite.

YouTuber timeyodie impersonates 34 characters from Star Wars, from an Ewok to a spot-on take on Ewan MacGregor’s Obi Wan. The exaggerated expressions help sell his act. Part Two here.

Michael Caine has come across so many products that feature an imitation of his voice, he reckons he can do a Michael Caine impersonation as well. We think these blokes do a better job though.  

In this short clip from BBC Two’s comedy The Trip, we get an amusing lesson on exactly what Cockney thespian Michael Caine really sounds like when he speaks. He’s no Ian McKellen though.