Vocal Dissonance: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''The first rule of thumb for all radio personalities is to look absolutely nothing like how they sound.''|'''Strong Bad''', ''[[
While it may be wrong to judge a book by its cover, [[Truth in Television|it's something that happens]]. You see a person, you expect certain things. This extends even to their voice. If you see a muscular man, you expect a deep macho voice. [[The Vamp]] will have a sexy, sultry voice. A child's voice is high pitched. And so on.
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This trope is generally played for comedy, since the idea of a squeaky voice off a big person or vice-versa is is generally seen as absurd. For better or for worse, this can sometimes come about by chance, depending on how casting in a voiced work goes.
[[Cute but Cacophonic]] is a subtrope of this, specifically referring to when "an extremely cute and/or tiny animal turns out to have a surprisingly loud cry." [[Singing Voice Dissonance]] is another subtrope of this, where is not just the difference between the appearance and the singer, but between the "singing" voice and the natural speaking voice. Not to be confused with [[Larynx Dissonance]], which involves an actor attempting to impersonate their opposite gender, or [[Lyrical Dissonance]].
{{examples
▲== [[Anime]] & [[Manga]] ==
* Common in ''[[One Piece]],'' in particular favoring high pitched voices on unlikely characters. Miss Monday is buff and muscular but has a childish, girly voice. Chopper keeps his high voice regardless of whether he's in his adorable man-beast form or his badass battle forms. Then there's Fukuro, who's voiced by [[Keroro Gunsou|Sergeant Keroro.]]
** Averted in the 4Kids dub, where Chopper in his huge humanoid form sounds rather manly indeed.
* [[Played for Laughs]] (and [[Up to Eleven]]) in ''[[Excel Saga (
* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist
** At the climax of the manga, {{spoiler|after absorbing God and the souls of Amestris, Father transforms his body into one that is identical to Ed/young Hohenheim; that is, he turns into a [[Pretty Boy]].}} When this happens in ''Brotherhood'', he [[Voices Are Mental|keeps]] [[Fan Disservice|his "old man" voice for some reason.]] Most likely they were trying to make sure that fans didn't sympathize with him {{spoiler|due to being [[Draco in Leather Pants|hot]]}}.
* Enryu from the [[Filler Arc]] in ''[[Bleach]]''. When he finally speaks, he has an insanely squeaky voice.
* In ''[[
* ''[[Soul Eater]]:'' Excalibur is small lizard-like creature with the voice of an adult man.
** And Shinigami's funny high voice fits his funny appearance ''most'' of the time. When it doesn't, running away would be a good idea. Presumably if ever his deep, old-school voice matches his appearance during the 'grim times', he will become even more [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass|badass]].
* ''[[Gaiking]]'s'' 2005 remake, ''Gaiking: Legend of Daikuu Maryuu'', featured several counts of this trope in the epilogue.
* ''[[
** Averted in any English dub of ''Dragon Ball Z'', where the grown up Goku sounds manly all right but he still acts like a child.
*** Also averted in the Latin-American dub, where child!Goku is voiced by a female and teen/adult!Goku by a male.
**** Also averted in the Brazilian dub. The same happens, with only the fact that the voice actress sucks.
* ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'' is the only dub ''[[Digimon]]'' series where all the [[Mons]] (save Beelzemon because [[Evil Is Cool]]) keep the same voice from [[Evolutionary Levels|one form to the next]], resulting in a [[Knight in Shining Armour]], a [[Humongous Mecha]], and a [[Miko]] sounding like a [[Ridiculously Cute Critter]] or the preteens [[Fusion Dance|they've merged with]]. [[Your Mileage May Vary]] on its effectiveness, though since [[Cunning Like a Fox|Renamon]] always had a rather adultish voice and [[Ax Crazy|Cyberdramon]] was already at the Ultimate level, it only affected [[Children Are Innocent|Guilmon]] and [[Deadpan Snarker|Terriermon]], and all the voices still fit their characterisation.
** Even outside Tamers, there's Silphymon. When it's [[Fusion Dance]] time, the resulting form sounds like the unchanged voices of the component 'mons talking at once. This rule was followed even with Gatomon a Rookie-sized Champion with the expected childlike voice. It sounded all kinds of wrong alongside the deep, gruff voice of Aquilamon.
** All ''Digimon'' series did this originally in the Japanese version, albeit inconsistently (not all Digimon did this) and with subtle variations for the upper forms; it's arguably inverted in the case of [[Digimon Adventure|Tailmon]], who (like Renamon, and unlike her American version Gatomon) had a very mature voice in her base Adult form (which is still a [[Ridiculously Cute Critter]]) which doesn't change at all when evolving to Angewomon.
** In ''[[Digimon Frontier]],'' we get it with Lucemon, to work against the character in one form and for him in another. Lucemon is voiced by [[Mona Marshall]] (aka Izzy, Terriermon) in her Izzy voice but with more evil. It works when he looks like a child. But then he gets a more adult form... and still sounds like a ten-year-old. Somehow even blowing up moons doesn't make it possible to take him seriously with that voice. Then he gets a monstrous form... and his voice becomes that of a [[Creepy Child]]. It was actually quite effective.
*** Partially averted in the Japanese version, where Lucemon's more adult form is voiced by [[
* In ''[[Samurai
* In ''[[
* Vasilisa, a minor character in ''[[A Certain Magical Index]]'' sounds like a little girl when she casts her spells, which are based on a folktale involving a girl with an Evil Stepmother.
* In the English dub of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'', Mad Dog, who is a muscular man, has a squeaky voice.
* Chloe from ''[[Noir]]'' has extremely sharp features and demeanour, and you'd expect her voice to be cold, with some sinister edge. Instead her voice is extremely soft, and she sounds almost like a little girl in young woman's body. This heavily underlines her personality as a ruthless assassin who is extremely sheltered in every aspect of life outside her work.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* One ''[[Gotlib]]'' strip that deconstructs the Western genre shows who provides the translated voices of the rugged cowboy, demure schoolteacher and stoic Indian: a weedy accountant-looking guy, a heavyset older woman towering above the other voice actors, and a Chinese midget with huge glasses and teeth respectively.
==
* In ''[[Finding Nemo]]'', during the montage of Marlin's story being passed along, one scene shows a small fish telling the story to a larger fish. The small fish has a deep, booming voice, while the big fish has a high, squeaky voice.
** And the squeaky big fish's phrase is: "[[Mickey Mouse|Golly, that's amazing!]]"
* When Alpha is first seen in ''[[Up (
* In the original version of [[The Princess and
* One of the gags in ''[[
* Tai Lung of ''[[Kung Fu Panda]]'' is a ripped anthro snow leopard who has just finished tearing apart an entire prison... and then speaks in a smooth
* During the [[
* The joke was in the original cut of ''[[The Thief and
* In [[Chuck Jones]]' ''[[The Phantom Tollbooth]]'' [[The Runt At the End]] of King Azaz's royal palace guards has the deepest voice.
* ''[[Yellow Submarine]]'': As the sub ventures through the Sea of Time, the Beatles regress to childhood and Old Fred to young adulthood. The Beatles' voices (Paul Angelis, Geoffrey Hughes, John Clive) as children are still the same as their adult voices, and Old Fred's (Lance Percival) didn't change either.
==
* [[Marilyn Monroe]] didn't invent the gimmick of [[The Vamp]] having a childish voice, but she certainly [[Trope Codifier|popularized it]]. Six decades later, the stock character of the blonde with a "breathy little-girl voice" has actually [[Seinfeld Is Unfunny|become a bit of a cliché]].
* ''[[Singin' in
* This was done to comedic effect in ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]].'' In the opening cartoon short, Baby Herman sounds like a real baby, but when the cartoon ends and the movie cuts to the "real" world, we find out that Herman's real voice is rough and gravelly.
* ''[[Suburban Commando]]'' has two badass bounty hunters from space (one of whom is played by [[The Undertaker|Mark Callaway]]) who [[The Voiceless|never talk.]] During their fight with Shep, it's revealed that this is because they sound like they're on helium.
** The Italian dub of that movie goes for a different gag and has the bounty hunters' voices sound [[Larynx Dissonance|goofy and screechy like those of men trying to speak like women]].
* Brief gag from ''[[Pee
** And then there's Pee Wee himself (the gag is that the studio found his regular voice too grating and decided to dub over it):
{{quote|
* [[Inverted Trope|Inverted]] with classic Hollywood actor Cesar Romero. He was a native of Cuba and looked it, but by the time he broke into movies he had moderated his Latino accent a great deal. Because, however, he gained his greatest fame playing [[Latin Lover]] characters, film directors made him affect a relatively low-pitched, "foreign" voice [[Audio Erotica|to lend his characters some necessary sex appeal]]. In some of his earliest roles, though, he has a perfectly ordinary, midrange Anglo-American accent, and his natural laugh was a high-pitched, effeminate giggle - something he [[Throw It In|famously incorporated into his role]] as [[The Joker]] in the 1960s ''[[Batman]]'' series.
* Si Sumbaji, the Indian pirate lordin ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean|Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End]]'' [[The Quiet One|is silent]] for most of the time. This becomes apparent when he finally talks: he has a high-pitched, squeaky voice.
* In a [[Deleted Scene
* [[Godzilla]]. Yeah, a [[Kaiju]] big enough to tear down all of Japan has a cry like an air raid siren on helium...??
* In ''[[
** Of course, the joke doesn't work that well today, now that Harry Shearer's [[The Simpsons (animation)|voice]] and visage have both become much more recognized.
** They also play the reverse joke: The same radio show features a soundbite of a guy screaming loudly. When they meet him, it's [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0569337/ Ted McGinley].
* In ''[[Muppet Treasure Island]]'' captain <s> Kermit</s> Smollett does a roll call of his new crew, ending with a pirate "Big Fat Ugly Bug-Faced Baby-Eating O'Brien". What he gets is a beautiful [[Of Corsets Sexy|corset-clad]] [[Fetish Fuel|lady]] who croaks a deep, manly [[Fan Disservice|"Aye"]].
* In the Adam Sandler movie ''[[Grown Ups]]'', his character's wife and the wives of his friends start flirting with a tall handsome muscular man, only when he starts talking to them he speaks in a high squeaky voice.
* A running gag in ''[[The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother
* Froggie in ''[[The Little Rascals]]'' shorts.
* In the original ''[[Doctor Dolittle]]'' movie, the heroes arrive on Sea-Star Island and are greeted by the stereotypical grass-skirt-wearing, bone-through-the-nose style "natives", led by none other than [[Live and Let Die (
* Before Lee Tamahori became a (more or less) mainstream Hollywood director, he specialized in ''cinema verité'' in his native New Zealand, particularly with the 1994 melodrama ''Once Were Warriors''. If you are completely unfamiliar with Maoris in modern-day New Zealand, watching this film will probably be quite a shock. You'll be introduced to a poor family of former Maori tribe members now living in an urban housing project, with dark brown skin and looking vaguely Mexican or Puerto Rican to American audiences - and then they start speaking, and it's the typical New Zealand accent, which sounds not unlike Cockney British to most Americans. (And yes, that ''is'' the actor who played [[Star Wars|Boba Fett's father]] as the head of the family.)
* In the obscure 1987 comedy-adventure ''[[Jane and the Lost City]]'' (based on the notorious ''Jane'' comic strip of the [[World War II]] era), the main characters are in Africa and encounter the queen of a jungle tribe who at first doesn't say anything. When she ''does'' start speaking, she turns out to have an "educated" British accent.
* The 1933 political thriller ''[[Gabriel Over the White House]]'' has as one of its minor villains a gangster named Nick Diamond, who fancies himself an Al Capone-style "tough guy." So it's pretty surprising when we hear him speak and learn that he still has some unidentifiable Southern/Eastern European accent from his native country. Another character subtly [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this, noting how far Diamond has traveled from his roots.
== [[Literature]] ==
* Nunzio, from [[Myth Adventures|M.Y.T.H. Inc.]] is known to have this issue.
* The radio soap actors in ''[[Aunt Julia and
* In the first scene of ''A Mighty Fortress'', the fourth book of the ''[[Safehold]]'' series, male [[Ridiculously Human Robot|Merlin]] speaks to Sharleyan using the voice of [[Gender Bender|Nimue Alban.]]
* Harry Potter has this reaction the first time he hears Dolores Umbridge speak in ''[[Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (
* In ''[[The Pale King]]'', Nugent's little sister can imitate [[The Exorcist
* The villain of "O Ugly Bird!", the very first of [[Manly Wade Wellman]]'s "Silver John" (or "John the Balladeer") stories, is Mr. Onselm. He's short and scrawny ... and has a voice John describes as "full of broad, low music, like an organ in a town church."
* In [[James H. Schmitz]]'s ''The Demon Breed'', a vicious speciesist alien named Koll is possibly insane even by his people's standards, and with a body shrunken by their longevity treatments. His voice, though.... One human thinks of it as "golden velvet"; another had earlier reflected that "It was a deep warm voice, rich and strong, which shouldn't be issuing from such a malevolent little entity."
== [[Live
* ''[[Seinfeld]]'' had an episode featuring this as a subplot, which resulted in Elaine accidentally smack-talking her friend's new boyfriend because his feminine voice caused a case of [[Mistaken Identity]] over the phone. She went from there to hanging up the phone anytime she thought he answered, resulting in the man thinking his girlfriend was having an affair.
** This was in fact a different boyfriend (of the same friend) who was exceptionally boring.
* A horrifying example (to those involved anyway) occurs in ''[[
* ''[[The Electric Company]]'' had a song about "Hircus of the Circus," an enormous strongman with a high-pitched voice.
* You ''definitely'' wouldn't expect [[Sesame Street|Elmo]] to be voiced by some burly-looking black man. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY_sl1R3KJQ\]
** [[The Muppets]] have been known to do this with a few of their actual characters as well. On ''[[Fraggle Rock]]'', for example, Brool the Minstrel is a furry, hulking, fanged cave monster with a jarringly sweet, soulful voice.
* In ''[[
* A frequent gag on ''[[The Benny Hill Show]]'' was to have male vocalists singing in high female registers, and vice versa.
* [[Knight Rider|KARR]] in the Hungarian dub, either due to the actual voice actor or the robotic echo effect layered over his performance, has such a high-pitched voice, he almost sounds feminine. A more accurate description would be to say he's an [[Star Wars|Ewok]] disguised as a car.
* Scorpius of ''[[
* ''[[Power Rangers]]'' and ''[[Super Sentai]]'' have a situation similar to ''[[Digimon]].'' (Makes sense, with the same sets of [[The Powers That Be]] - TOEI making the original, Saban adapting it.) In the American version, the [[Monster of the Week]] as well as major villains will sound growly or squeaky or otherwise be not-normal-human-y to better sound like they look. When watching the Japanese version, where this is often not so, it's strange when a beast of destruction or a cheesy rubber suit talks in a voice that could belong to any guy on the street - especially if it's a bad guy you ''know'' and remember sounding the part.
* In ''[[Hikonin Sentai Akibaranger]]'', [[Cosplay Otaku Girl|Yumeria]], who is introduced speaking with a high, cutesy voice, switches to a deep, gravelly one when her [[Animal
* The [[Stephen J. Cannell]] series ''Sonny Spoon'' had an episode called "Who's Got Tonsillitis?" about a missing soul singer called Tonsillitis Brown who was so called because of how his real singing voice sounded like; he mimed to the voice of another singer. A pudgy white guy.
== [[Music]] ==
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** His singing voice is so deep and it makes such a contrast with his red hair and pale skin, that he was believed to be the front man for a black singer. In fact, this happened when he sent his first tapes to music executives — he had to sing on-stage to convince them that yes, ''he'' was the one singing.
* John Hiatt (of "Have A Little Faith In Me" fame), as well. Skeletal, long-haired white guy with a voice that could easily belong to a black soul singer from the ‘60s.
* Similarly, [[Country Music]] singer [http://www.sweetslyrics.com/images/img_gal/7435_Josh-Turner.jpg Josh Turner]{{Dead link}}. You'd never guess a face that young would produce a fine bass-baritone.
* Christian musician/puppeteer Marcy Tigner is an adult woman with ''[[Uncanny Valley|creepily]]'' [[Uncanny Valley|convincing]] little girl voice. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qn5rpNhCbk\]
* And then there's [[Tay Zonday]], the guy who sings "Chocolate Rain". He looks about 12 years old in that video.
* The late Amy Winehouse was a skinny white English woman from the 00s, who sounded like a big black American woman from the 60s
* Susan Boyle. She looks like [
* Aaron Neville had a brief movie appearance as [[Scary Black Man|"Man with gun," an intimidating character]] the hero confronted in a slum area. His singing voice, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VHULFvNPPA on the high end of tenor, almost into soprano], has been described as the voice the angels '''wish''' they had.
* Sarah Stiles, age 32, who played Lucy and Kate Monster in ''[[Avenue Q]]'' for several years, has a little girl voice (both speaking and singing) similar to the aforementioned Kristin Chenoweth. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X09nqKHVgrk Listen here.]
* [
* Alison Moyet, once-singer of Yazoo. With that contralto voice, you'd mistake her for a man if you never had seen her.
* One word: [[Gackt]]. Many people have mistaken GACKT for a woman on first appearances due to his delicate and ''very'' feminine facial features. So it's quite surprising when [http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=DIh4MqvkmOI this] voice comes out of him.
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* Two words: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaPTDslm0mE&feature=fvst Bianca Ryan]. She was ''12'' when this song was recorded.
* [[Jackie Evancho]] was only 10 when she sang "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKhmFSV-XB0 O mio babbino caro]" with "the voice of angel." The judges asked her to perform another song to make sure that really was her voice.
* Ray Toro, lead guitarist of [[My Chemical Romance]], is 6'1'', has super-curly hair that ranges from an afro to long curls reminiscent of [[Guns N' Roses
* ''[[
* [[Rihanna]] has a mild version of this, in that when she sings she has no accent but when she talks she has a noticable Barbados accent.
** She sang with the accent when she first became famous, so one imagines [[Justified Trope|there was some voice training involved]].
* Jens Kastel of Funker Vogt [http://www.mylot.com/w/image/1208805.aspx looks handsome enough], but has a [[Guttural Growler|guttural]] [[Evil Sounds Deep|bass/baritone]] voice.
* Cristian Machado of Ill Nino looked like he sounded for a while, until he physically went from 25 to 40 while his voice remained unchanged.
* Alex Band of [[The Calling (
* Christian Alvestam of [[Scar Symmetry]]. He's physically a fat bald guy and has an incredibly heavy Swedish accent. But when he ''sings''.....
* Kyo from [[
* Chino Moreno of [[Deftones]], especially after his weight gain. One would probably be shocked to know that some of the smoothest, most soothing clean vocals in metal comes from [http://withfriendship.com/images/j/45412/Chino-Moreno-image.jpg this guy.]
* Ryan Richards from [[Funeral for
* Dave Grohl shows us time and time again he is the nicest guy in rock, and has a relaxed sounding power pop singing voice, yet he equally enjoys screaming his head off during songs (an example being the cover of Darling Nikki).
* Dani Filth is a tiny effeminate English guy who is very friendly when interviewed, but his vocals as frontman for Cradle Of Filth are terrifying. He also has a strong interest in the occult and keeps skeletons in his house just to scare visitors.
* [[
* Angela Gossow. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubHOHi9Bzug&list=FLWc9w5qZqfx_4x35RbgqH6Q&index=100&feature=plpp_video That is all.]
* Claudio Sanchez of ''[[Coheed and Cambria]]''. Big bear of a man, high tenor singing voice. And then there's the dichotomy between his clean vocals and [[Metal Scream|his screams]].
* Katie Stelmanis of [https://web.archive.org/web/20200408232737/http://www.spinner.com/2011/05/16/austra-feel-it-break/ Austra]. Petite [[Girl Next Door]] look, big classical opera voice.
* [[w:George Rock|George Rock]], a trumpeter and singer with [[Spike Jones|Spike Jones and his City Slickers]] who is perhaps best known for his whistling little-boy voice in the song "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" was a hefty fellow built like a linebacker. The contrast between the voice (which was not his normal singing/speaking voice) and his appearance [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGnPnWVYGE0 could be... disturbing].
== [[Radio]] ==
* Stephanie Miller of ''[[
* From his voice, one would definitely not expect John Tesh to have blonde hair and blue eyes.
* CPO Pertwee (Jon) on ''[[Navy Lark]]'' doesn't sound anything like he does in real life.
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* The turtle in ''[[
** Or the beautiful, shimmering Bonita Soleil with a gravelly "eats five packs of cigarettes a day" [[Larynx Dissonance|voice.]]
** Or for that matter, [[The Igor|Sheegor]] with her [[The Powerpuff Girls|squeaky Bubbles voice]].
* [[Prototype (
** Additionally, Alex Mercer can shapeshift; in cutscenes he can also mimic voices but in normal gameplay he doesn't. Which means you can be disguised as a young woman, but keep the [[Guttural Growler|gravelly voice]].
* In ''[[Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories|Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days]]'', there's [[No Name Given|Actress]], a female Entei who has a voice that's easily the among most feminine sounding in the entire series, despite the fact that she's a towering, musclebound, humanoid dragon.
* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'':
** Brief, entirely serious and [[Kingdom Hearts
** [[Big Bad|Xemnas]] is a less dramatic case. Despite having the Bishonen look he has a fairly deep, monotone voice, and is done by [[Norio Wakamoto]] in Japan.
* [[Super Mario Bros.|Mario]] (since he gained a voice actor in ''[[
** [[Big Bad|Bowser]] for some reason, actually spoke in a high, squeaky voice in the game ''[[
*** Fortunately, Bowser was once again given a more appropriate-sounding voice in the game ''[[
* ''[[Guilty Party]]'' has Butch. In appearance, he's basically [[Shaft]]-lite. His voice, however, is high pitched and slightly lisping. While never [[Lampshade Hanging|the subject of an actual joke]], it is suggestive of his nature as a [[Gentle Giant]] and is definitely one of the more comedic aspects of his character.
* Tony Jay voiced many characters in the ''[[Legacy of Kain]]'' series, usually powerful and intimidating beings. He also voiced the kindly, polite and unsure boy King William the Just. His delivery was fine, but his voice was too low and mature.
* [[Warrior Monk|Xavii]] in ''[[Sengoku Basara]]'' is one of the biggest characters ingame, yet his voice sounds quite odd and high.
* The adorable little [http://starfox.wikia.com/wiki/Trainer raccoon teacher] in ''[[Star Fox 64]]'''s training mode originally spoke in clicks, but in the 3DS remake, he was finally given a smooth, deep voice akin to [[Barry White]].
* Yamada Tarou<ref>Chinyuki: Taro To Yukaina Nakama Tachi</ref> looks like a naked baby, but he sounds a lot like [[Dragon Ball|Frieza]].<ref>[[Ryusei Nakao]]'s voice samples are used.</ref> Essentially, the Frieza-like voice sounds too deep to come out of Yamada Tarou.
* Darkrider Arly in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' is a female gnome Death Knight who almost looks cute, having pink hair with pigtails. Until, that is, she ''talks to you.'' [[Nightmare Fuel|Brrr...]] Oh, and [[Dark Is Not Evil|she is on your side]], by the way. This creepy NPC has likely caused many players to reconsider creating gnome Death Knights.
== [[Web Original]] ==
* ''[[
* In episode 22 of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!:
* [[
** [[
* In ''The Dr. Steel Show'', Episode 1, [[Doctor Steel]] [[Fourth Wall Mail Slot|receives email from a fan]]. While the letter says the fan is 34 years old, the voiceover sounds like he's three.
* Played with in the ''[[Shadow of Israphel]]'' machinima series, since all but one of the voices are done by one person putting on accents (even within the plot, and without the actual characters ''knowing'' they're being voiced), leaving several characters with either incredibly out of place voices or voices that change with every appearance.
* In [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR6TwEDFyDI#t=9m38s this] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sQTApFQg1c playthrough] of [[Touhou|Perfect Cherry Blossom]], one of the commentators decides to do a dramatic reading of Yuyuko's lines before actually seeing her face. And keeps the same voice after. [[Hilarity Ensues]].
* Smokefield from [[Warrior Cats RPG]] is a sadistic, possibly psychopathic Maine Coon/Ragdoll cross who's an unrepetant rapist and part of [[Complete Monster|quite possibly the worst group in the game]]. His voice is very soft. This is [[Truth in Television]], as Maine Coons are a very soft-voiced breed of cat.
* Unintentional yet remarkably common in the Space Stage of ''[[Spore]]'' since voices of aliens contacted by the player are chosen based on class, regardless of how the aliens in question actually look. This tends to result in things like attractive females with gruff masculine voices, [[Eldritch Abomination
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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** Bart gets hold of a construction supervisor's bullhorn and starts giving out destructive orders. The supervisor grabs the horn away and complains that people should have been able to tell the difference between his voice and that of a 10-year-old boy - the joke being that the supervisor sounds exactly like Bart (including using the [[Catch Phrase]] "¡Ay caramba!").
** Ned Flanders screams like a girl, and at one point Bart mistakes his singing for that of Jessica Lovejoy.
** In an early episode, Homer is put in a mental hospital. His roommate, who claims to be [[Michael Jackson]], is in fact a very large, intimidating man...with Michael Jackson's voice. Subverted when it turns out his real voice is actually deep and gravelly. (He's actually a white, Polish-American from New Jersey, but Homer [[What an Idiot!|fails to pick up on this important clue]], not having ever seen Michael Jackson before.)
*** In an interesting twist, the character actually ''was'' voiced by Michael Jackson (who was surprisingly gifted as a vocal mimic). However, due to a contract dispute, he was billed as "John Jay Smith" in the credits.
* Shannon from ''[[Home Movies]]'' is a school bully who happens to have the voice of [[Emo Phillips]].
* Lumpy Space Princess from ''[[
* ''[[Family Guy]]'',
**
** Also, Chris is a big lummox, but has a really grating, high-pitched voice. To add to the irony, his voice actor, [[Seth Green]], is a tiny man, with a deep, gravelly voice (especially when he does his documentary narrator voice on ''[[Robot Chicken]]'').
** The voice actor for [[Token Black]] Cleveland is actually as white as a guy can get.
** When the [[Return of the Jedi|Rancor monster]] appears briefly [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3ZJfxb-R7g in one scene] (implying he and Peter somehow know each other), he talks like a normal guy.
* A smaller example: In an episode of ''[[Sabrina the Animated Series]]'', an adult man walking down the street had a high-pitched little girl voice. ''Done'' by a girl.
* The title character of ''[[Dave the Barbarian]]'' is a tall muscular man but he has a high pitched, scratchy voice. This is justified in the series as he's a coward.
* Happens to Fluttershy in the ''[[My Little Pony
** That's nothing compared to Spitfire from the Polish dub. She's voiced by a guy and sounds like a transvestite!
** [[Ascended Meme|Derpy Hooves]], as voiced in "The Last Roundup", has a husky, almost boyish voice in contrast [[Ascended Fanon|to her airheaded appearance and personality.]] [[Word of God|Word of Voice Actress]] is that she didn't realize Derpy was female and did the voice with a neighbor's son in mind.
* Henry from ''[[Thomas the Tank Engine]]'', despite being portrayed as a large tender locomotive like Gordon, actually speaks in a high pitched, whiny voice.
* In ''[[Superman:
* In Disney's ''[[Adventures in Music Duology|Adventures in Music]]'', [[The Runt At the End]] is a bass, whereas the rest of the characters are sopranos and tenors.
* In ''[[Batman:
* Disney's ''[[Kim Possible]]'' once featured a "sumo-ninja," and though he remained silent for his first appearance, he spoke during his second, the voice he used was so high it prompted Ron Stoppable to tell him ''"Dude, don't talk. Seriously, it ruins your mystique."''
* In the episode ''Hero of the Hourglass'' of ''[[American Dragon: Jake Long]]'' we discover that, when young, the future Huntsman had a very pitched and childish voice (getting him mocked by EVERYONE, from his fellow Huntsclan apprentices to his teachers AND a time-travelling Jake) while still being a formidable foe. Then, after Jake threw him in a pit to get mauled by a giant crab-thing, his voice change to the [[Evil Sounds Deep]] we know, scaring the other apprentices with his oath to slay all dragons. And causing another vocal dissonance: while his deep voice is scary and appropriate for his modern self, when young he was slim and almost wiry.
* The [[Blinky Bill|Adventures Of Blinky Bill]] gives us Slick Possum, an adorable possum with a foxlike face and [[Puppy Dog Eyes]] who sounds like [[Eddie Murphy]] when he talks.
* On [[Looney Tunes]], whenever [[Wile E Coyote]] talks in a [[Bugs Bunny]] cartoon, he sounds like a refined gentleman.
== [[Real Life]] ==
* [[Older Than Radio]]. In chapter VII of his autobiographical ''[
** Rousseau's conclusion shows that he just learned another trope, that is [[True Beauty Is
* Many classic Hollywood film directors were foreign-born, but the all-American iconography of their movies makes it quite jarring to hear them speak ([[Billy Wilder]], for example).
* Reinhard Heydrich, Nazi Governor of Bohemia-Moravia, likely schizophrenic and all-around nutter had a high-pitched, squeaky voice. This was the man who headed the Wannsee Conference.
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* Comedienne Felicia Michaels - though you wouldn't expect ANYONE to have that kind of helium-fueled voice outside of Anime.
* According to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwnnSSs0kFA the VH1 pop-up video], a number of critics thought [[Rick Astley]] was a front for a black singer.
** You realize this still counts as [[
* [[Seth
* [[Liv Tyler]], contrary to her [[Statuesque Stunner]] appearance, has a very soft voice.
* Kate Hudson, on the flipside, who has a more conventional [[Girl Next Door]] look going for her, has a surprisingly deep voice.
* [[Sarah Palin]]. She's a (relatively) young and reasonably attractive woman, and she's from Alaska, where people aren't imagined to have stereotypically Midwestern-sounding voices. But she often sounds just like that dowdy secretary in ''[[Ferris
* Ever hear a smooth collie bark? They've got a surprisingly high-pitched bark for such a large dog. Seriously, you'd sooner expect that bark to come out of a toy poodle. In comparison, other collie breeds, such as the rough colllie ([[Lassie]]'s breed) has a bark that matches its size.
** Likewise you wouldn't expect a basset hound to have such a deep bark considering it's a fairly small dog, you'd expect that bark to come from a larger hound.
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** Likewise true of some mammals, such as the cheetah (which chirps like a bird rather than roaring).
** They can also meow like a house cat
* An episode of [[The Oprah Winfrey Show|Oprah Winfrey Show]] (or was it Sally Jesse Raphael?) featured a number of people with cases of
** A female drill sergeant with a squeaky punk voice, but her squad thought nothing of it
** A man with the looks to kill who literally sounded like [[Mickey Mouse]]
** Two adult women with rock bottom pitched voices. One very suave and confident and somehow able to make her rather masculine voice sound so sexy, the other being extremely [[Woobie
* Mary Isabel Catherine Bernardette O'Brien aka [
** Ditto for British singer [[Joss Stone]].
** Dusty's colleague sunny-faced, redhaired Scottish pixie Lulu also qualifies. Proof: her tear-'em-up version of "Shout."
* Many voice actors have dealt with this, to the point where it has seriously affected their chances of getting screen acting gigs. Case in point: [[Crispin Freeman]], whose boyish looks have always stood in stark contrast to his baritone voice. And [[Tara Platt]] talked about being able to play the types of roles in voiceover that her looks keep her from playing onscreen [https://web.archive.org/web/20121105143244/http://magazine.rutgers.edu/departments/winter-2011/alumni-notes/voices-can-be-deceiving in this alumni article from her alma mater, Rutgers].
** Would anyone believe that [[Neon Genesis Evangelion|Shinji Ikari]] is voiced in English by a [[Spike Spencer|body builder]]?
* Current WWE wrestler Kaval is short (by WWE standards) and rather lightweight, so you would think he would carry a voice in the same range as Rey Mysterio (a higher voice you'd expect from a [[Fragile Speedster]]). He has one of the deepest voices you can imagine, its rather disorienting.
* You'd expect [[Theodore Roosevelt]], being the 20th century [[Memetic Badass|Chuck Norris]] that he is, to have a deep, resonating voice, right? '''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYn5FJnvrZk Wrong.]''' The dissonance is even more surprising, considering that most actors portraying him do use a deep resonating voice.
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** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEPf8ednP68 Other professional impersonators, such as Joe Wiegand, have begun portraying him properly.]
* For that matter, [[Abraham Lincoln]] is also said to have had a very high voice. Nasal, even.
* [[
* [[Orson Welles]], with a figure that big and the looks of a man with big deep booming vocals, had a really nasal voice that was sorta funny, yet fitting somehow. [[Maurice
* [[The House of Windsor|King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom]], who was actually a royal piece of [[Pretty Boy]] as a young man... but, as heard in audio recordings, had a ridiculously high and nasal voice.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTysXITBCmk The Golden Voiced Hobo]
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* Alpaca are fairly large animals but the sound they make sounds like a squeaky toy.
* [[Marlon Brando]], the epitome of [[Mr. Fanservice]], has such a thickly-accented and grating voice that it's jarring for those who have only seen him in pictures.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131025142806/http://www.heart.co.uk/thamesvalley/on-air/lucy-ellis/ Lucy Ellis], presenter for Global Radio. Although her voice is ''pure'' sex (unintentional [[Fetish Fuel]] as well!), she is blonde, but in real-life ''completely'' [[Averted Trope|averts]] the [[Dumb Blonde]] stereotype.
* [[
* General George ''[[Patton]]'' was played to perfection by George C Scott, and most people associate Scott's rough, raspy barritone with the general. So imagine the surprise in finding a newsreel of Patton giving a speech and hearing a high, almost squeaky tenor with an almost British-sounding accent...
* In an ''extremely'' obscure example, in the late 90s there was, briefly, a trailer shown on British television for an episode of what was then a relatively new genre, the real-life police procedural show. In the trailer, a policeman was seen cuffing an extremely large [[Scary Black Man]], and informing him he was being arrested on suspicion of murder. This drew a one-word response - "Murder?" delivered in an incredibly incongruously high pitched Scouse accent. It was sufficiently notable that one of the gags on the gag reel of the DVD of ''Spaced'' was Jessica Hynes just sitting at a bar table, staring into space and saying "Murder?" in a similarly high pitched Liverpool voice, with no other explanation.
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* [[Don Rickles]]. He's a wrinkly, toad-like guy in his eighties and looks like it, but he's possessed the voice of a guy in his 20s pretty much his entire adult life. Would you believe he was ''84'' when he voiced Mr. Potato Head in Toy Story 3?
* Some people expect Scott Stapp of [[Creed]] to talk like he sings. In other words, you'd think he sounded like an angry constipated guy. He's got a shockingly calm voice, and seems like a nicer guy than he's made out to be.
* Look at ''[[Anton Yelchin]]'''s page image. Its insane to hear him speak in his surprisngly deep, raspy voice.
* Zachary Quinto has a pretty ominous appearance and a set of very angry eyebrows. But his voice is very soft and quite calming.
* Brad Jones, aka [[
* [[Willem Dafoe]] does not look like he should have such a deep voice.
* Ironically, Harvey Fierstein ''does'' look like a man who'd have a deep voice - but because he's openly [[Camp Gay]], his voice can still take people by surprise.
* Looking at [[Tom Baker]], you wouldn't expect such a deep voice; you would think that Fourth Doctor would be zanier given his outfit.
* Sometimes, a 12-
* [[Jim Nabors]] was somewhat infamous for the profound difference between his singing voice (deep tenor, with a very "midwestern newscaster" flavor) and his speaking voice (high tenor, pronounced Dixie accent).
* Similarly, when she was in her twenties [[Amy Lee]] of [[Evanescence]] had distinct singing (rich, deep, almost smoky diva-like tones) and speaking (high-pitched and chirpy) voices. As she's gotten older, though, her speaking voice has begun growing closer to her singing voice.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]
[[Category:Truth in Television]]
[[Category:Voice Acting Tropes]]
[[Category:Vocal Dissonance]]
[[Category:
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