Cartoon voices & understandability

[Jashan]

We've all seen cartoons, and heard cartoon voices. Things like Teletubbies, the Smurfs, Animaniacs, Loony Toons, Dora the Explorer, etc. Most of the time (yes, it's a generalization), cartoon characters - especially those in shows aimed towards younger kids - tend to have voices which are high-pitched. I've always assumed that this is because they're somehow "friendlier" or "easier to understand" than lower-pitched or normal-pitched voices.

However, when I listen to cartoons in other languages, I find them MUCH more difficult to understand than normal spoken language (i.e. Dutch "Dora the Explorer" vs. the nightly news). And it seems to be precisely because the voices are so unnaturally distorted from a normal speaking tone/pitch.

Am I alone with this? What are your experiences with cartoons and language, and how easy they are to understand in various languages?

[Astraios]

I've always found cartoons (and real-people things) with that type of fake voice harder to understand than the more normal voices in Disney-type cartoons, even in English.

[Skomakar'n]

I can't understand the mice singing in Cinderella even in my native language (although I can barely understand the lyrics of the songs in, for example, Oliver & Company, sung in a perfectly normal voice, either, because of the extreme Stockholm dialect :pPppPp*).

* This is actually seriously true for this movie.

[Salmoneus]

I'd suggest that:
a) high-pitched voices are chosen because cartoons are aimed at children, who have high-pitched voices. I'm guessing the idea is that children relate better to those with voices like their own, although I don't know if research has been done to support this;
b) in children's cartoons, more emphasis is placed on conveying emotion and mood than on clear diction - it doesn't matter if the children don't get every syllable. At the extreme end, the Teletubbies are pretty much entirely mood-conveyors - even their "eh-oh" is more an exaggeration of the pitch-pattern of 'hello' than an attempt to match the sounds.

[the duke of nuke]

I've had the opposite experience of cartoons from Jashan. While I was in France learning French (at the tender age of seven, mind you) I watched a lot of French dubs of American or English cartoons along with some French originals. Minikeums, Inspecteur Gadget, Superman, Batman, Jumanji, and others were my favourites. I found them a lot easier to follow than pretty much all other French media - and this continued to be true for several years, as my parents wouldn't allow me to watch English TV on Saturday mornings during that time.
I think it's more a matter of speed than pitch, and being very young at the time may have played a part, but that's what I found.

[Soap]

US sitcoms from the 1950s and early 1960s all seem to have children with very high pitched voices that dont sound much like what children talk like in real life. Sometimes I find them hard to understand.

[cromulant]

US sitcoms from the 1950s and early 1960s all seem to have children with very high pitched voices that dont sound much like what children talk like in real life. Sometimes I find them hard to understand.

Well I don't know about back then, but nowadays, kids' voices in cartoons are usually done by adults, is that not a fact?

(What bugs me about cartoon boys is the unchildlike hoarseness of their voices.)

[MadBrain]

Well, cartoons are all voiced by the same guys, so if a couple of them decide to go for high pitched, you end up with a lot of falsetto.

[Kereb]

Well, cartoons are all voiced by the same guys, so if a couple of them decide to go for high pitched, you end up with a lot of falsetto.

OLD cartoons were all voiced by the same guys. Those guys are dead now and voice acting for television is a pretty shit job and for every Billy West there are a million people whose names you'll never know.
Also most characters that are children are voiced by women, not men doing falsetto.

(And voice acting for film is completely dead. Every animated feature now uses celebrity actors chosen for their names instead of voice actors.chosen for their ability to sound like different people)

[sirdanilot]

We've all seen cartoons, and heard cartoon voices. Things like Teletubbies, the Smurfs, Animaniacs, Loony Toons, Dora the Explorer, etc. Most of the time (yes, it's a generalization), cartoon characters - especially those in shows aimed towards younger kids - tend to have voices which are high-pitched. I've always assumed that this is because they're somehow "friendlier" or "easier to understand" than lower-pitched or normal-pitched voices.

However, when I listen to cartoons in other languages, I find them MUCH more difficult to understand than normal spoken language (i.e. Dutch "Dora the Explorer" vs. the nightly news). And it seems to be precisely because the voices are so unnaturally distorted from a normal speaking tone/pitch.

Am I alone with this? What are your experiences with cartoons and language, and how easy they are to understand in various languages?

This might have to do with CDS (child directed speech) and it being more attractive for kids, so that they keep watching the show. Everyone talks to children in a different way than to other people; higher pitched voice, more emphasis on things, more dramatic intonation etc. I also believe that this is more or less universal (though the exact way CDS is realized may differ cross-culturally). Since children are more used to CDS, they will pay more attention to the TV show and keep watching. Of course, this would go only for younger children.

[Salmoneus]

Well, cartoons are all voiced by the same guys, so if a couple of them decide to go for high pitched, you end up with a lot of falsetto.

OLD cartoons were all voiced by the same guys. Those guys are dead now and voice acting for television is a pretty shit job and for every Billy West there are a million people whose names you'll never know.
Also most characters that are children are voiced by women, not men doing falsetto.

(And voice acting for film is completely dead. Every animated feature now uses celebrity actors chosen for their names instead of voice actors.chosen for their ability to sound like different people)

Yeah, I've seen the gripes by voice actors before, and I don't really understand them. It seems to boil down to:
a) most voice actors are unsuccesful - only the ones who get jobs on major shows will ever become famous, or even have a lucrative career;
b) major voice acting jobs in films are given to celebrity actors, rather than people who can convincingly pretend to be someone else

Well, some parallels seem evident here. Most TV actors are unsuccesful, only becoming famous if they get jobs on major shows. Sure, Dan Castellaneta wouldn't have become famous if not for happening to be on the Simpsons - but then Edward James Olmos and Katee Sackhoff wouldn't be famous without BSG. I don't think Bradley Whitford is famous even after the West Wing. Most famous actors either have the good luck to get a major role early, or else just bumble around in minor cameos and failed shows and theatre work until being randomly 'discovered' later on. The only difference is that there are fewer big voice acting jobs - but then if you go into a profession for which there is less demand, you can't be surprised if you're less likely to get rich. Especially since I would think that a lot of the voice acting work is in shows for children - and how many actors from live-action children's TV can you name (not including already-famous people who do it to please their kids)?

And as for the second: well, that's exactly the same as all other acting in films. The big roles are given to big names. It doesn't matter that you can turn on your TV for a few hours and see a dozen actors who are better at acting than most of the big names. Being an actor - at least, being a lead actor - isn't about being able to pretend to be somebody else. Otherwise George Clooney would have had no career. I don't see Clooney getting a voice acting job over a more 'talented' voice actor as different from him getting a (real? full? body? what's the term?) acting job over a more talented actor.

[Jashan]

Yeah, I've seen the gripes by voice actors before, and I don't really understand them. It seems to boil down to:
a) most voice actors are unsuccesful - only the ones who get jobs on major shows will ever become famous, or even have a lucrative career;
b) major voice acting jobs in films are given to celebrity actors, rather than people who can convincingly pretend to be someone else

I think the 2nd part is mostly true, but the first one I think is probably less true. The word "most" is a little bothersome -- "most" of anyone in any profession are going to be more or less unsuccessful, compared to the "best of the best" people.

But, I think that someone being "unsuccessful" shouldn't be equated with being famous. For instance, Jennifer Hale is a wildly successful voice actress, despite having never (as far as I know) appeared in a film. She does mostly video games, including all three installments of Baldur's Gate, all three installments of Mass Effect, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and a handful of others which (at least in the gaming world) are IMMENSELY successful. She's also one of the rare instances where the voice acting (Female Shepard in Mass Effect, vs. the male version) has made a significant impact in people's preference of gender for a character. It's widely known that despite the "Male" Shepard being the official default for promotions and such, that fans generally prefer to play the female version precisely because Jennifer Hale's voicing is excellent.

Melissa Disney also comes to mind. She's been in Baldur's Gate, Dora the Explorer, the Rugrats (I think), several commercials (McDonald's, Revlon, a few others) as voiceover, and narrated film trailers. She did a trailer voiceover for Gone in 60 Seconds, which at the time was extremely unusual since she was a female voiceover for a very male-oriented action movie. She also has a singing career, although I don't know how successful that is.

And Grey DeLisle (sp?) -- again, Baldur's Gate, and also a regular voice of Daphne on the Scooby Doo movies, and about a zillion other voices which you'd probably never recognize are all her.

I think the main problem with voice actors becoming 'famous' is that their entire job is to sound distinct enough that you don't recognize it's them from one film to the other. If you listen to Daphne from Scooby Doo and Viconia from Baldur's Gate and think, "Damn. Isn't that Grey DeLisle?" then they're not doing their job well to begin with. Anonymity (as far as the end-consumer of the media goes) is part of the goal.

[sirred]

I think another layer to this might be that if a live action actor changes his voice for a role, you might still recognize his face (hey, that's Gary Oldman). With a VA you don't get that connection until the credits. Therefore, it might be to some degree harder to track a voice actor from one role to another. This could be especially true if the credit is "additional voices".

[Xephyr]

Edward James Olmos... wouldn't be famous without BSG.

Eh?

She's also one of the rare instances where the voice acting (Female Shepard in Mass Effect, vs. the male version) has made a significant impact in people's preference of gender for a character. It's widely known that despite the "Male" Shepard being the official default for promotions and such, that fans generally prefer to play the female version precisely because Jennifer Hale's voicing is excellent.

Mark Meer does have a better sense of comedic timing and delivery, though.

Also, I noticed a funny trend with regards to film actors and video games. Back in the 90s in the era of FMV video games, you'd see major actors in them all the time. Then, it seems, they found out how much those games sucked, and moved off. In the meantime is when the "real" voice actors, the ones who'd been driven out of animated movies by the name-recognition celebrities, moved into VG territory... so that you then saw less of this and more professional voice acting. Then in the late 2000's, the film actors started tippy-toing their way back to video games, so that now most tentpole releases seem to have That One Guy who's voiced by a famous actor.

My favorite example of the name-recognition actors being cast in animated films is Shark Tale, where Martin Scorsese (beloved figure by children near and far, surely) was cast as a major character seemingly so that they could make his character look and act like him. Oh the hilarity!

[Kereb]

And as for the second: well, that's exactly the same as all other acting in films. The big roles are given to big names.

You miss the point of my use of the word "dead" there. Let's rephrase: voice acting for films has become dead. Live-action stars only really started to bleed over into animated films in a big way in the 90s, and now have replaced voice actors p. much entirely.


but yes a) is necessarily and inevitably true

[Kereb]

But, I think that someone being "unsuccessful" shouldn't be equated with being famous. For instance, Jennifer Hale is a wildly successful voice actress, despite having never (as far as I know) appeared in a film.

heh, I just looked her up. She was also Samus in the Metroid Prime series (where her dialogue consisted of various kinds of "unh!" and "ah!")
but not in Other M, where Samus wouldn't shut the hell up

[finlay]

I don't see Clooney getting a voice acting job over a more 'talented' voice actor as different from him getting a (real? full? body? what's the term?) acting job over a more talented actor.

Live-action.

[zompist]

But, I think that someone being "unsuccessful" shouldn't be equated with being famous. For instance, Jennifer Hale is a wildly successful voice actress, despite having never (as far as I know) appeared in a film. She does mostly video games, including all three installments of Baldur's Gate, all three installments of Mass Effect, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and a handful of others which (at least in the gaming world) are IMMENSELY successful. She's also one of the rare instances where the voice acting (Female Shepard in Mass Effect, vs. the male version) has made a significant impact in people's preference of gender for a character. It's widely known that despite the "Male" Shepard being the official default for promotions and such, that fans generally prefer to play the female version precisely because Jennifer Hale's voicing is excellent.

Discerning fans, yes. There was an article on Hale in the New Yorker which gave the actual stats on players (presumably the game sends this info back to Bioware), and less than 20% actually play FemShep.

And Grey DeLisle (sp?) -- again, Baldur's Gate, and also a regular voice of Daphne on the Scooby Doo movies, and about a zillion other voices which you'd probably never recognize are all her.

Most recently she did Catwoman in Arkham City.

[Salmoneus]

And as for the second: well, that's exactly the same as all other acting in films. The big roles are given to big names.

You miss the point of my use of the word "dead" there. Let's rephrase: voice acting for films has become dead. Live-action stars only really started to bleed over into animated films in a big way in the 90s, and now have replaced voice actors p. much entirely.


but yes a) is necessarily and inevitably true

I think you miss the point of my comparison. Why not say that acting is dead? What's the difference between 'voice' acting and 'live action' acting in this regard? In both cases, roles are allocated on the basis on fame. The only differences seem to be that a) actors who specialise in less popular work are less famous; and b) animated stuff is more popular than it used to be, so has more famous people in it than it used to have.

Cev: well, I pulled the name out of my head, but do you really think people would know his name from Bladerunner? Most people I've mentioned that to have been astounded that they're the same guy!

[Torco]

I for one have no trouble, nor remember having any trouble, understanding English cartoon voices, though for the life of me I can't understand french ones.

It is perhaps because voice actors, on anime and videogames, and live action actors in flicks, were the ones who taught me English. In fact, when I've heard actual English spoken by natives in a real life context, I've had a bunch of problems understanding, mainly lexical ones. [I remember skyping with this gringa and she would say all kinds of things, quotidian things mind you, I had no idea what they meant, like "eggplant" or "glomp" or "snuggle"].

But yeah, what Sal said about diction is true as well, in particular for cartoons aimed at toddlers, as opposed to preteens.

[Kereb]

I think you miss the point of my comparison. Why not say that acting is dead?

Because it wouldn't advance my point. It would be the kind of thing I'd say if my point were the one you pretend it is, rather than the one I'm making.
I was never talking about Big Names In General vs Small Names In General. And I'm still not. I continue to be pointing out the increase in specialists in a field losing out to people who do not specialise in that field. Which is happening. Noticeably. More recently. And has not always been the state of affairs.

What's the difference between 'voice' acting and 'live action' acting in this regard?

The difference between the fields in that regard is none. Which would be relevant if I were drawing attention to some difference between the fields in that regard. I wasn't.

Let's say skilled electricians and skilled plumbers get hired more often than less skilled ones. Then, over the course of ten years, skilled electricians start getting hired to do plumbing jobs. I point this out to you. Shit, look at all the electricians people are hiring to put in pipes. Isn't that weird.
And you answer me: "So? Skilled electricians AND skilled plumbers will do better business than less skilled ones. How are the fields any different in this regard, Kereb?"
Man, look how many delicious possible tangents there are. Oo! Oo! Let's pretend something about the nature of plumbing itself is actually relevant to what I'm trying to illustrate with this analogy! 9_9

In both cases, roles are allocated on the basis on fame.

yep.

The only differences seem to be that a) actors who specialise in less popular work are less famous; and b) animated stuff is more popular than it used to be, so has more famous people in it than it used to have.

yep.

Now, let's acknowledge that there is a difference between voice-acting and live-action acting in SOME regard, no? Surely the whole fuckin thing can't be academic*! There are after all, people on the ground DOING this shit.
And on the ground, voice actors go to different schools and take different training and form different little cliques for the purposes of nepotistic hiring, etc, etc. NOT THAT THERE ISN'T ANY CROSSOVER. Or even that there isn't any crossover! Nor could I say this means there is no crossover. (there!)
*you misused the word "academic" here, Kereb, you see in discussions where we call a question Academic we actually mean wakka wakka blah blah dee blah honk bonk ooh let's talk definitions!! What discussion about voice acting??

But there are voice specialists. You may have seen some of the faces they pull while they're doing voices.
There are live-action specialists. You may have noticed how generic their voices are, or how they only sound like themselves when they land animation voice roles.

So if I say something like "man, people who can do all kinds of different voices are increasingly being passed over for live-action stars talking like themselves", that is what I mean. And not "man, what is this new thing about big names getting all the roles??? I sure think that is a new thing, and it would be very easy to show me how ridiculous this idea is!!"

I hope now we are clear on the concepts of "voice actor"¹, "increasingly"² and "are"³. You may go ahead and tell me I am wrong! (say with citations from imdb or whatever), but there ought to be little room left for you to Be Sal about it.

¹ someone who, regardless of the level of fame they have achieved in it, specialises in doing voice work for animated movies rather than acting in live-action films
² there was a time when it was less so, and now it is more so
³ on the ground, in the movies, as determined by looking at what's happening in the movies rather than figuring out how it Would Work in principle

[Legion]

Interestingly, in France in like, the early 80s, there was a tendency to show old Disney shorts (particularly those featuring Mickey or Donald) from the 30s to 50s without dubbing nor subtittling them, as they apparently thought (rightly so in my case) that the voices of Mickey and Donald were perceived by children as funny-sounding gibberish, rather than as a foreign language (this worked because these cartoons actually had a primarily visual style of narration, with the dialogue adding little information).

This of course created weird things, like a cartoon featuring Mickey, Goofy and Donald, where Mickey and Goofy would talk in French and Donald would answer them in English.

[zompist]

The folks over at Cartoon Brew (professional animation historians) complain about the voice acting thing that Kereb is talking about too. Voice acting isn't the same as acting before the camera, and it's often felt that most Hollywood stars detract from animated features.

On the other hand, there's got to be a whole lot more voice work today than in the '50s, when it was almost all Mel Blanc, June Foray, Arthur Q. Bryan, and a few others. All these started out in radio, a medium that encouraged distinctive, indeed wacky voices.

Legion, English speakers can barely understand Donald Duck either. Mel Blanc complained about that— he prided himself on making even his most distorted voiced understandable.

[GrinningManiac]

[I remember skyping with this gringa and she would say all kinds of things, quotidian things mind you, I had no idea what they meant, like "eggplant" or "glomp" or "snuggle"].

Sounds like a fun conversation

[Salmoneus]

Wow, Kereb, insecure much?

I know that's the point you're making. You're missing MY point, which is that you're wrong. Not about what's happening in terms of details, but in terms of the processes to which you ascribe those details. You think that bad electricians are taking over from good plumbers. I'm saying that bad electricians are taking over from good electricians. In the specific field of lightbulbs, people who specialised at putting in lightbulbs are being taken over by bad electricians who don't specialise at putting in lightbulbs. You see this as some sort of extinction of the art of putting in lightbulbs, whereas I see it as a general fact about the art of electricianing. I say further that the reason why lightbulb fitters were previously able to have their own union is that nobody cared much about lightbulb-fitting before. Now that lightbulbs are becoming important, naturally people employ the "best" lightbulb-fitters - which is to say, those who have the qualities most desired from a voice actor, which is to say a big famous name to stick on the adverts - and less important attributes are accordingly less important. Most of the big names used not to be lightbulb-fitters, because it was hard to be a lightbulb-fitter and become famous, but that I think is secondary to what is really going on.

The only way animation could continue to be interested primarily in talent would be for animation to continue to be relatively unwatched.

It's also worth bearing in mind that many live action actors are actually quite good, and although the voice acting clique may be upset by their arrival, nobody else particularly cares. That doesn't mean that some actors aren't bad - or that some live action actors are bad at voice acting - but the idea that live action actors can't do voice acting is just silly. It's not a matter of paying electricians to put in pipes, it's a matter of hiring plumbers who are trained to put in pipes but who usually put in copper pipes to put in plastic pipes instead. Making yourself sound different in every role is not required for voice acting anymore than making yourself look different for every role is necessary for live action acting (which is not to say there's nothing impressive about those who can, of course). Sure, they may form different cliques, but so what? British industry for decades was full of people insisting absolutely that there was an existential distinction between people who hit things with hammers and people who hit things with mallets, and that never the twain could do the other's job - but actually, it turns out that when there's money to be made, there's considerable interchangeability. Live action acting is primarily in the voice anyway; and funny faces? Well, have you seen the funny faces that theatre actors pull - really seen, zoomed in with a camera? There's surely at least as much difference between screen acting and theatre acting as between either and voice acting, but you don't hear the same complaints about how theatre actors are taking over the screen, or vice versa.

So, in the final analysis, is there a difference, for you, between giving a voice acting role to Orlando Bloom and giving it to Peter Sellers (other than the latter being dead, obviously)? If you don't mind giving the job to Sellers, then clearly what you're really talking about is not unionist demarcation disputes but simply big names taking over from good actors. If you DO mind giving the job to Sellers, then... I don't know, you're fanatical and not swayed by reason? What, other than some demarcationalist essentialism, is the difference between Peter Sellers and Dan Castellaneta (except that one's a far more versatile actor than the other)?

[Ironically, I was going to compare Sellers to a voice actor from the Jungle Book, but then I looked at them. Phil Harris (Baloo), the TV and film actor who turned to animation later in his career? George Sanders (Shere Khan), the famous film star (Rebecca, All About Eve, etc)? Sterling Holloway (Kaa) did quite a bit of voice work, but only after thirty years in film and alongside far more live action TV work. Bruce Reitherman (Mowgli) only did voice work... but that's not saying much, since he only made three films, he was 12 at the time, and his chief qualification was being the adorable-sounding kid son of the director. J. Pat O'Malley (Hathi) is best known for his voice work, but the couple of disney films he did are a tiny fraction of his output, most of which was live action TV. Or I suppose there's Louis Prima... - of course, I'm not going to argue with you about general trends in the industry, but I wonder if the golden age of exclusive demarcated specialist voice acting may be a bit of a mirage...]

But no, you go ahead with the ad hominems, they'll boost your argument!