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 | This entry is trivia, which is cool and all, but not a trope. On a work, it goes on the Trivia tab. | |
aka: Talking To Herself
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"Don't get me wrong, I love the voice acting in this game. But occasionally we have Chris Metzen congratulating Chris Metzen for slaying Chris Metzen."
Professional voice actors pride themselves on range. So, hiring a few good VAs means you can take care of many, many characters with a small cast (especially if one or two actors are a Man of a Thousand Voices).
Oftentimes, this results in funny situations, like two characters played by the same person having intense conversations and heated arguments with each other. The talent is in making sure the audience doesn't know it. If jokes are made about this, it's Actor Allusion.
In voice acting, the process is fairly simple, with the actor just doing a different take (although some good voice actors can do it in real-time). The actor's vocal range is the only thing that might betray commonality.
This is sometimes actually invoked on purpose, as it can make you think, "Ohey, they're a clone? Why didn't I realize that before?"
In Live-Action this can be difficult, which requires split screen or otherwise splitting the image. This requires perfect synchronization between the different takes. Normally, the camera is stationary for this, but Back to the Future Part 2 pioneered a motion controlled camera that allows for complex panning shots that have the same actor in multiple roles.
Not to be confused with I Can't Use These Things Together, Sounding It Out, Thinking Out Loud or Talking To Themself. Compare Holding Both Sides of the Conversation, which is an in-universe example of this trope, where a character is pretending to hold a conversation with another non-present (or non-existent) character, in order to maintain some kind of charade.
Examples
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Anime
- 1977's Yatterman by Tatsunoko Production had the Dorombo gang consisting of Doronjo (Noriko Ohara), Boyacky (Jouji Yanami) and Tonzura (Kazuya Tatekabe). Following Yatterman is Zenderman, Rescueman, Yattodetaman, Ippatsuman, and Itadakiman, and they all featured expies of the first trio all voiced by the same trio of seiyuu. So you can imagine what happens when all of these trios would meet in the 1993 Time Bokan OVA....
- Bleach
- Being alter egos, Ichigo and Shirosaki/Hollow Ichigo, both voiced by Ichigo's seiyuu in any language, have a few conversations, though most of them are conversations with their swords.
- Due to being a Long Runner and having Loads and Loads of Characters, English dub actors are now voicing ABOUT FIVE popular to obscure roles each!
- There is frequent doubling among the actresses playing the 31 schoolgirls from Negi's class in the North American dub of Mahou Sensei Negima! It's relatively common to find two or more girls all performed by the same actress chattering among themselves:
- Alison Retzloff plays both of the twins Fumika and Fuuka Narutaki, who are always talking to each other.
- Monica Rial plays Konoka Konoe, Kazumi Asakura and Satsuki Yotsuba; in episode 16 she has to voice both sides of a "sports announcer" team when Konoka and Kazumi host a contest broadcast to the dorm TV set.
- "Love Sensation
 ", featuring Laura Bailey as Ayaka Yukihiro and Laura Bailey as Evangeline McDowell.
- Notably averted in the original, where each girl has a different VA, quite impressive.
- Shaman King's dub also had this with the main hero Yoh Asakura and the Big Bad Hao being voiced by the same actor, Sebastian Arcelus, which made the later interactions and fight scenes all the more impressive.
- Because of its Loads and Loads of Characters, some of the voice actors in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Striker S had to voice multiple characters. Luckily for the studio, it is nearly impossible to tell in many cases.
- Chiwa Saitou voiced lead Action Girl Subaru, her antagonist counterpart Nove, and The Dragon, Quattro. Particularly impressive considering that one is a Genki Girl, one is angry all the time, and one is dripping villainy.
- Shizuka Ito did Shari, Otto, Cinque, and Deed.
- Kaori Mizuhashi did Yuuno, Vivio, and Sein, though this is generously averted in the main series as Yuuno was Demoted to Extra. However in the PSP game Gears of Destiny this is played straight with Yuuno and Vivio.
- Mai Nakahara did both Teana and Laguna Granscenic, also averted.
- Natsuko Kuwatani did both Arf and Lutecia, though like in Kaori Mizuhashi 's case, averted.
- Marina Inoue did both Wendi and Erio, so this is played straight.
- While StrikerS hasn't been dubbed yet, the first season of Nanoha had a similar moment when both Momoko and Falin (both voiced by Michelle Ann Dunphy) had a scene together.
- The titular characters of Ranma 1/2 and InuYasha get a moment of this.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Most voice actors who dub Yugi Muto also voice Yami Yugi in the second anime series. Also, Megumi Ogata in the first.
- Both the Japanese and English versions of Dragon Ball Z.
- Christopher Sabat is most notable in the dub, playing Vegeta, Piccolo, and Yamcha, among numerous bit characters. This led to a hilarious slip-up when Vegeta's line of "Now what?" in internal monologue came out in Jeice's voice instead.
- The Japanese version, meanwhile, has Hiromi Tsuru (mother/daughter Bulma/Bra), Daisuke Gori (Mr. Satan/Gyuumaou, Gohan and Goku's fathers-in-law), Yuuko Minaguchi (mother/daugher Videl/Pan) and Masako Nozawa (Goku/Gohan/Goten/Bardock/Goku Jr., father/son/son/grandfather/great-great-grandson! In other words, Every male member of his family except Raditz)
- Also, Josh Martin plays both Fat Buu and Kid Buu in the dub, who spend about four episodes fighting each other.
- Same with Kozo Shioya in the Japanese version, who voices all of Boo's forms—so in addition to the above, there's also Fat Boo and Skinny Evil Boo's brief fight.
- In the Mexican dub of Dragon Ball JesĂşs Barrero does the voices for both Yamcha and Puar, who are always together. He only voiced them in the first episodes, though.
- Let's not forget how Laura Torres voices Goku, Gohan AND Goten as children. They got different male VA's for their adult selves, though. Though this may not count, since kid Goku, kid Goten and kid Gohan do not interact with one another. (Except in the video games.)
- This is actually a plot point in Excel Saga: The Great Will of the Macrocosm is, in reality, just another facet of Pedro's Wife simply on the grounds that they share the same voice actress. Lampshaded with a quick title card mentioning: "Tough; she still only gets one paycheck."
- Mashiro Kazahana and Fumi Himeno share a voice actress in the original Japanese version of Mai-HiME, which partially underlines the otherworldliness of both characters.
- Gundam SEED
- Rie Tanaka (see above) must have had deja vu when she voiced Chi and Freya in Chobits.
- Even as a guest star, Tanaka-san doesn't seem to avoid this. Consider Hell Girl ep. 12, where she voiced a shy girl and the online voice of her Internet pen-pal. (The actual person is a male.)
- Out of 8 characters played by Rina Satou in Hayate the Combat Butler, the Mad Scientist Shiori and Robot Eight play out this trope.
- Yukino Satsuki as well as her dub counterpart Megan Hollingshed, as Mion and Shion Sonozaki in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. Justified — they are identical twins.
- This trope appears in an episode of Zettai Karen Children. With Rie Kugimiya playing the teleporter Mio and the psychic squirrel Momotaro, she gets a few chances to talk to herself and once, Momotaro becomes Mio's Head Pet.
- Naruto
- Averted by the dub. In Shino Aburame's first appearance, he was voiced by Sam Riegel, who also voiced Zaku. Later on, they fight each other in the chunin exam, but by that point, Derek Stephen Prince had replaced Sam Riegel as the voice of Shino.
- Something similar happened with Itachi, who was voiced by Might Guy's VA Skip Stellrecht in his brief first appearance, but Crispin Freeman had taken the role by the time that they ended up talking to each other about fifty episodes later.
- They also invert is: Zetsu has a Split Personality, with two different halves of his body sounding different. In the original is was just one voice, but the ViZ dub gave each side a different voice one, so instead of one voice actor pretending to be two different characters at once, you have two voice actors pretending to be one character (though this was only in his first appearance).
- There's also Gamakichi and Gamatatsu in the English version, who talk to each other in several scenes. They're voiced by Kakashi's VA, Dave Wittenberg, but don't ever talk to him.
- The English dub of Code Geass used Michelle Ruff for several voices, including Euphemia li Britannia and the stray cat that would come to be known as Arthur, who had a conversation of sorts in episode five, when they both had their first speaking roles.
- Michelle Ruff also does a large portion of the incidental female characters in Zatch Bell!.
- Barely averted in Lucky Star, where she does Tsukasa and Minami... Minami's in Yutaka's group though, and she's also The Quiet One.
- Pokémon
- In the 4Kids dub, there were a few examples of this, and all of them were main characters. Veronica Taylor — Ash, May, and Delia Ketchum ("The Right Place At The Right Mime" had May and Delia sounding very similar). Rachel Lillis — Misty and Jesse. Eric Stuart — Brock and James. Oh yeah, Ted Lewis did James for the first several episodes, didn't he? Well, he went on to do Giovanni and Tracey, though that's not an example.
- PUSA isn't innocent of this either. Jimmy Zoppi/Billy Beach, as well as still doing Gary, took over as James and Meowth, while Michelle Knotz voiced Jessie, May and Misty.
- And in both dubs, it's incredibly common for members of the main cast to also voice many of the Pokémon on the show, and in the case of Pokémon on their own teams, it essentially mean they are commanding themselves. Just look up who voices who; you'll find plenty of trainer/Pokémon crossovers.
- This happens in the original Japanese, too. Megumi Hayashibara, for example, not only voices Musashi (Jessie) but also Fushigidane (Bulbasaur), Pidgeon (Pidgeotto), and Hikozaru (Chimchar).
- Quite a bit less known than her main role in the series, but Ikue Ohtani voices Manene (Mime Jr.).
- Emily Jenness voiced both Cynthia and Dawn.
- Ritchie in the Indigo League ended up battling a trainer with the same voice actor.
- In one of the more bizarre incidents of Talking to Themself in the English dub, Professor Ivy and all three of her triplet research assistants were voiced by Kayzie Rogers.
- In the current dub, Bill Rogers is the voice of Brock, Brock's Sudowoodo and Brock's Croagunk. (His Happiny is voiced by Emily Jenness.)
- The American dub of Seven of Seven avoids this (it prefers Hey, It's That Voice! instead), if you consider the various Nanas to be one character; if not, you have Veronica Taylor doing seven different characters (and two of them use her "Ash" and "May" voices!). The original Japanese version used seven different actresses for the seven Nanas. We later find out that it's actually EIGHT different characters
- Happens quite a bit in Slayers.
- In episode 15, mother and daughter characters Cally and Paula are both voiced by Rachael Lillis (and just to make it funny, it's in her Jessie and Misty voices)
- In episodes 10 and 11 of NEXT, Rachael does it again playing both Martina and Kira.
- Later in NEXT, we have Veronica Taylor voicing both Amelia and Auntie Aqua.
- In TRY, Scottie Ray plays both Valgaav and Erulogos. They just barely invoke this trope.
- Digimon
- In Digimon Tamers, Renamon (and evolutions), Ruki's mother, and Ruki's grandmother are all voiced by Imai Yuka. She probably had a lot of fun when said characters had lunch together in one scene.
- Digimon Adventure 02 also had Iori and Armadimon, who were partners and both voiced by Megumi Urawa in the Japanese version, and the dub had Veemon and Ken both voiced by Derek Stephen Prince.
- In the Latin-American dub, Roberto Mendiola voiced Yukio Oikawa, Mummymon... and Malo Myotismon. And made the three sound very different. Crowning Moment of Awesome for Mr. Mendiola, indeed.
- Funny enough, that's exactly the case in the original Japanese as well, where Oikawa, Mummymon and BelialVamdemon are all voiced by Toshiyuki Morikawa. You really have to listen carefully to hear any resemblance between the three characters' voices.
- Speaking of the Latin-American dub, Digimon Adventure's main voice cast was the same size as the group of Digidestined, which meant each main character shared a voice with a Digimon partner: Tai with Gomamon, Matt with Agumon, Sora with Gabumon, T.K. with Biyomon, Mimi with Patamon, Izzy with Palmon, and Joe with Tentomon. When Kari joined, she and Gatomon would share their voice actor with almost no differentiation, making their case the most blatant one (not to mention that, being partners, they played this trope much more frequently than the others). 02, however, recast Kari, Gatomon, and all human males besides Joe, drastically decreasing their use of this trope.
- In Digimon Adventure, Jou and his older brother, Shin, are both voiced by Masami Kikuchi. In Digimon Adventure 02, Kikuchi also voiced their middle brother, Shuu, and in the CD dramas, he also voiced both their parents. In one family dinner with Gomamon, a six-person conversation is voiced by two actors. It's interesting because the characters (Jou and Shuu especially) have similar inflections, but distinct voices.
- Steve Blum barely avoided it in Adventure 02 (neither Flamedramon or Raidramon got to chat up BlackWarGreymon, though Poromon gets awfully close in episode 33), but in Tamers he voices three main characters that sound completely different: Guilmon, Kenta, and Yamaki!
- In the Latin American dub of Digimon Savers Rolando de la Fuente voices both Thomas and Agumon, funny because they have completely different voices.
- Digimon Xros Wars has Daisuke Kishio voicing both Zenjirou, Beelzebumon, Blastmon and, in the sequel series, Dracmon. Then there's Bin Shimada, who voices Tactimon, Omegamon and Starmon.
- Then there's the fact that Miki and Megumi are both voiced by Karina Altamirano.
- Both the title character of Afro Samurai and his annoying sidekick/hanger-on Ninja-Ninja are voiced by Samuel L. Jackson. Turns out it's like this in series to some degree, as Ninja is a figment of Afro's imagination.
- Blood+
- Saya's adopted little brother, Riku, and the Big Bad, her twin sister, Diva, are both voiced by Akiko Yajima in the original. So she not only talks to herself, she rapes and kills herself. Of course, poor little Riku doesn't actually do much talking during that particular interaction as opposed to whimpers of absolute terror. It also makes Diva's later transformation into Riku's appearance and using his voice all the more flawless and disturbing.
- In the English dub, Kari Wahlgren voices both Saya and Diva. Crispin Freeman voices Hagi, Van Argeno, Joel Goldscmidt, and several other characters. Wally Wingert voiced Amshell, Nathan, and George.
- Talking to Himself is relatively rare in Brazilian dubs, especially nowadays, since there are rules about it, but there were some exceptions. In Inu Yasha's dub, voice actress Leticia Quinto voices both Kagome and Kikyo. In Yu-Gi-Oh!, Marik and Odion were both voiced by voice actor Jose Parisi Jr... A season later they must've noticed that the move was not wise, as Marik's voice actor was changed.
- Briareos and Tereus share the same voice actor in Appleseed Ex Machina, by the virtue of having nearly identical genetic makeup.
- In the Horitsuba Gakuen CD dramas for Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and xxxHolic, twin brothers Fay and Yuui are both voiced by Daisuke Namikawa.
- Axis Powers Hetalia
- Namikawa also voices twins, where he uses a Fay-like voice for spacey North Italy and a deeper, louder voice for grumpy South Italy.
- Katsuyuki Konishi does the same trick with America and Canada, the difference being that America TALKSLIKEHE'SJUSTHADANESPRESSO and Canada is Konishi speaking as quietly as he can, eh.
- While this trope is mostly averted in the English dub, Eric Vale plays America and Canada in pretty much the exact same way.
- Atsushi Kousaka takes the cake by voicing the Jerkass Prussia, Meganekko Estonia, and The Philosopher Greece.
- Raivis/Latvia is a VERY weird case. In the CD dramas he was voiced by the female Rie Kugimiya, who voices the Token Mini-Moe Liechtenstein. In the anime, he's voiced by the male Kazutada (later "Kokoro") Tanaka, who also voices Poland.
- While Namikawa voiced the younger South Italy for a line in the first episode, both him and Chibitalia are now voiced by the same actress, Aki Kanada. While Chibitalia's voice is shrill and the epitome of Tastes Like Diabetes, Chibiromano's voice is rougher and more fitting of his brattier, grumpier personality.
- Shugo Chara! has lead heroine Amu and Dia, one of her Charas, voiced by Kanae Itou. Dia is essentially a part of Amu herself, but Amu's other charas have different voices.
- The dub of Great Teacher Onizuka does this frequently, with Steve Blum and Wendee Lee voicing several major and minor characters.
- Sara Werec of Soukou No Strain and Mariette, the bully who torments her, are voiced by Kawasumi Ayako in Japanese and Caitlin Glass in English. Tanaka Rie also played two characters, but they never spoke to one another.
- In Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, the nine Tachikomas are all voiced by Sakiko Tamagawa, and they frequently chatter with each other. The English dub uses several different actresses.
- In Ronin Warriors, Sage and Cye are both voice-acted by Michael Donovan, which is why Cye has an inexplicable sort-of-British-like accent.
- In both Tenchi Muyo! and the Pretty Sammy OA Vs, Sasami and Tsunami talked to each other in both the Japanese (Chisa Yokoyama) and English (Sherry Lynn) versions.
- In the OAV Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 2 - Shiroki Ryuu no Miko, Ikue Ohtani voices both Fujiwara no Yukari and Fujiwara no Misono. Justified in that not only they are twins, but both are clearly expies of Fuji-hime from the original Harukanaru Toki no Naka de (also voiced by Ohtani in the first OAV and the TV anime series). The voices are slightly different, as Yukari is female and Misono is male.
- In the Japanese version of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, both Alphonse Elric and the miniature panda Shao May are voiced by Rie Kugimiya.
- The Swedish dub of Cyborg 009 is ridiculously blatant about this. How bad is it, then? One person does all the voice for all characters. Men, women, children, what-have-you. Any scene where any two or more characters are talking thus falls under this trope.
- Magnificently averted in Legend of Galactic Heroes, where only two characters in a cast of 660 share a voice actor, and they never interact.
- Occurs in One Piece when Jimbei and Moria, both voiced by Katsuhisa Hoki, briefly clash during the Marineford arc. Thankfully, the two have completely distinct voices, Jimbei's being deep and gruff while Moria's is high and shrill.
- Some combinations imitate ventriloquism. Vampire Princess Miyu has Megumi Ogata voicing both Reiha and her creepy doll Matsukaze. Galaxy Angel has Mika Kanai counterbalancing Vanilla's lack of speech through Nomad gushing over her.
- Early European Portuguese dubs had this bad: Dragon Ball, Saint Seiya, and Sailor Moon had less than ten voice actors. They were fairly versatile, though.
- Sailor Moon had a couple of shared seiyuu (Keiko Han as both Luna and Queen Beryl, Chiyoko Kawashima as Haruna-sensei, Shingo and Sailor Pluto), but usually the characters were too different, not allowing even for a small conversation between them. Then came the fifth season and brought in Chibi-Chibi, voiced by Usagi's seiyuu Kotono Mitsuishi — it's rather easy to pull off this trope when one of the characters has a trait of Pokémon Speak.
Worth noting that the last pair actually ends up playing the role of a Red Herring, especially with all the guesses and jokes about Chibi-Chibi being Usagi's second daughter. Had the anime followed the manga closely, the shared voice would've had a justification, as Chibi-Chibi is Sailor Cosmos, who is hinted to be a form of Usagi from a distant future. In the anime, she is a completely different entity, namely, Galaxia's own Star Seed — meaning that in this continuity she has nothing to do with Usagi apart from wanting to encourage her to defeat Galaxia.
- Fairy Tail has a lot of characters played by the same person in the Japanese version. For example: Jet, Macao, Horologium, and Sagittarius are voiced by Masaki Kawanabe.
- In a literal example of people talking to themselves, a bunch of characters get to meet their Edolas counterparts, leading to plenty of this trope throughout the arc.
- Special mention goes to episode 98, which features Cana and Aquarius bickering with one another—both voiced by Eri Kitamura. Lucy even lampshades how similar the two are (note while Lucy makes such a statement in the manga, it's arguably more effective in the anime to compare just how similar the two sound together).
- All of the five characters from Mori No Ando are voiced by Takishi Taniguchi.
- In one episode of Detective Conan, Conan voices one of that week's victims, a female pop star. Many jokes are had at Conan's expense, especially considering that he can't sing for his life, but his voice actress is really a singer.
- THE iDOLM@STER - Ami and Mami are both voiced by Asami Shimoda. Justified in that they're twins.
- Spanish group Luk Internacional is infamous for this, having only a few voice actors, yet doing many series with Loads and Loads of Characters. An example of this was the same VA, with the exact same voice, doing Crayon Shin Chan's Masao and Shinko-chan, among other minor characters. Amusingly, half of the Kochi Kame male characters seem to be voiced by Shin-chan's dad, recognizable because he always sounds the same.
- The English dub of Let's Go Quintuplets features Chantal Strand voicing best friends, Vanessa and Bridget. Due to their friendship, this tends to happen.
Comedy
- Eddie Izzard does this on-stage, as would most stand-up comedians who do voices. However, he regularly lampshades it. Also, the only voices he can really do are Sean Connery and James Mason. Which he lampshades too.
- Jeff Dunham is an exemplary showcase of this trope, what with being a ventriloquist and all. Epically lampshaded by Peanut in Spark of Insanity, after Peanut jokes about the pronunciation of Jeff's name:
Peanut: You know, the weird part is I am actually pissing him off. And he would like to kill me! But he will not because that would be a form of suicide!
- Michael Mcintyre has been known to perform conversations with himself on stage, often adopting different voices while doing so.
Mcintyre: I've been down there and it's not pretty, they're all wearing trousers, so we're gonna open with a skirt. Modelling it here is Scott. You alright, Scott? I'm alright. But you've got me in a skirt. I'm not happy about that yet.
Fan Works
- ItsJustSomeRandomGuy does all of the male voices in I'm a Marvel... And I'm a DC. Mostly, he's very good at making each voice different — with the exception of the strangely gentle Captain America voice, they're all similar, but distinct. However, when characters are worked up they all sound the same.
- The internet radio drama Fobbies Are Borange, at one point, had a voice actor have a knife fight with himself.
- Every character in Reynaldo The Assassin is voiced by the same man. This is very noticeable at some points.
- LittleKuriboh of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series. Also by extension any Abridged Series. LittleKuriboh gets extra points though for doing a live-action reenactment of his first episode. Basically him being taped on a street in England switching voices/characters from one second to the next.
- Generally averted in the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney fandub of "Rise From The Ashes", with one notable exception: Phoenix and Edgeworth are the same actor. Of course, there is much shouting back-and-forth between them.
- A minor one in Turnabout Storm; one of the Ponyville Detention Center's guards that Phoenix Wright speaks with is voiced by the same guy that voices Phoenix.
Films — Animation
- Peter Pan
- In the Disney animated version, in the scene where Mr. Smee is harassed and threatened by some of the other pirates, that's Bill Thompson having one long conversation with himself.
- Also, as part of a tradition, Hans Conreid, the voice of Captain Hook, also does the voice of Mr. Darling.
- And in the film's sequel, as well as several spinoffs such as House of Mouse, Kingdom Hearts, and Epic Mickey, all of the pirate characters from this movie (with the sole exception being Captain Hook) are all now voiced by Jeff Bennett.
- Repeat The Ten Commandments Moses/God example below for Val Kilmer in The Prince of Egypt, due to a few last-minute changes in recording times.
- In its original language, the animated film Terkel In Trouble had a pretty huge cast all voiced by one single person, including songs.
- In Pocahontas, David Ogden Stiers voices both Governor Ratcliffe and his valet Wiggins.
- Robin Williams was the voice actor for both Ramon and Lovelace in Happy Feet.
- In Mad Monster Party Allen Swift voiced all the characters with the exceptions of Baron von Frankenstein, Francesca, and
the Bride of Frankenstein the Monster's Mate.
- In the Brazilian dub of Beauty and the Beast, where Beast and Gaston are voiced by the same actor. But the fight between the characters is brief in dialogue (the only line the Beast says to Gaston is "Go away").
- 90% of Disney's new A Christmas Carol is basically Jim Carrey showing the viewer he is still insane.
- Likewise the film of The Polar Express is Tom Hanks enjoying his own company and then narrating it all.
- Eight Crazy Nights has Adam Sandler voicing Davey, Whitey, Elanor, and the helpful forest deer; the first three talk to each other a lot because Whitey and Elanor take in Davey because he has no place to live after his trailer was burned down.
- In Lady and the Tramp Bill Thompson plays five characters Jock the Scottish terrier, a bulldog, Joe the Italian cook, a dachshund, and a police officer; the bulldog and the dachshund talk to each other in a few scenes.
- In The Brave Little Toaster, both the Air Conditioner and the Hanging Lamp are voiced by the late Phil Hartman.
- Alvin and the Chipmunks
- One of the older movies features the Chipettes; you can find videos on Youtube showing that if you slow down the audio, it's just one woman voicing all three.
- Likewise Alvin, Simon, and David are all voiced by Ross Bagdasarian Jr., and in the original records and cartoon his father Ross Bagdasarian Sr. voiced David as well as all Alvin and Simon. Theodore was voiced by Janice Karman (voice of the Chipettes).
- Liloand Stitch: Chris Sanders actually not only voiced Stitch, but also his Evil Counterpart Leroy as well.
- An early example would be fact that in Pinocchio, Charles Judels actually voiced both Stromboli and the Coachman, both villains that became Karma Houdinis at the end of the film.
- Lea Salonga actually does the singing voice of both Jasmine and Mulan. This is especially noticeable in several Disney Princess CDs and music videos where the two are both singing at the same time.
- If you listen very closely at the very beginning of Atlantis: The Lost Empire, you can actually hear Cree Summer voicing the former Queen of Atlantis. Cree is normally the voice of Kida, who ends up becoming a queen at the end of the film, and is the only princess created by Disney to ever actually become one.
- Lampshaded at the end of Cars where Pixar Regular John Ratzenberger, who voices Mack the semi truck in this film, is actually making comments about the fact that "some cheap production company" is using the same voice for the automobile versions of Hamm, P.T. Flea, and Yeti the Abominable Snowplow, respectively.
- In the sequel, both Luigi's Aunt Topolino and the Queen of England are voiced by the same actress, as with the actors playing Siddeley and Leland Turbo and Fillmore and Tony Trihull.
- Subverted in The Little Mermaid II where Pat Carroll (the voice of Ursula) actually does the voice of Morgana, Ursula's younger and skinnier sister and the film's main antagonist, but Ursula is now long dead when the sequel took place (which explains why Morgana was the villain in the first place).
- BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui has Lhikan, Krekka (Both voiced by Michael Dobson), Onewa and Matau (both voiced by Brian Drummond). Expect a fair amount of this trope happening amongst them. Web of Shadows continues the trend with Onewa and Matau again.
- In Spirited Away, the sisters Yubaba and Zeniba are voiced by the same actress both in Japanese and English. The English actress, Suzanne Pleshette, indicated that she changed the differences between the two voices; the Japanese voice of Zeniba was lower-pitched, whereas she changed her voice to be higher-pitched.
- J. Pat O'Malley actually voiced both Colonel the sheepdog and Horace Badun in One Hundredand One Dalmatians and both Colonel Hathi the elephant and Buzzy the vulture in The Jungle Book.
Films — Live-Action
Live-Action TV
Music
Puppet Shows
- Averted more often than not in The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and other productions featuring The Muppets. While the operators all perform multiple characters, they must operate each Muppet as well as do the voice, making it virtually impossible for one performer to handle two characters at once. So we seldom, for instance, see Fozzie and Miss Piggy (both performed by Frank Oz) interact. When they do interact, the standard method is to pre-record the character that is easier to handle. This is why, for example, it was Floyd Pepper (performed by Jerry Nelson) who represented the Electric Mayhem band in backstage discussions with Kermit the Frog (performed by Jim Henson), even though Dr. Teeth (also performed by Henson) was actually the band's leader.
- The Muppet feature films, on the other hand, enabled more of this to occur. The Muppet Movie, for instance, features a duet with Kermit the Frog and Rowlf the Dog, both voiced at the time by Jim Henson.
- Big Bird and Oscar are both voiced by Carroll Spinney; in scenes with the two of them together Spinney would pre-record Oscar's dialog and someone else would operate him, since he's easier to handle than full-body Muppet Big Bird. This has changed a little as the performers have grown older, retired, and/or had health issues. Carroll Spinney still operates Big Bird; they cast a replacement, Matt Vogel, only when Spinney is unavailable. Jerry Nelson, on the other hand, now handles only the voices of his characters, not the puppetry.
- One impressive bit by ventriloquist Jeff Dunham involves him getting in a rapidfire three-way argument with two of his characters. In another routine, the same two characters start having a conversation in presumably fluent Spanish, and Jeff remarks that he feels left out because "I don't speak Spanish!" No wonder one of his shows is called Arguing with Myself.
- Technically this trope applies to all ventriloquists, as the traditional format is of them having a conversation with the dummy. The fact that Dunham can do this with multiple dolls at the same time just shows what a master of the technique he is.
- In one of his early skits, his puppet, Peanut, has his own puppet. It involved Dunham, Peanut, Peanut's puppet Mini-Jeff, Jose Jalapeno (On A Stick), and the worm at the bottom of a bottle of wine. You can see it for yourself here.
- That skit seems to have returned in his latest installment, Controlled Chaos. Only it's a conversation/argument between Jeff, Peanut, Mini-Jeff and Mini-Peanut (a hand puppet of Peanut on Jeff's other hand).
- Peanut also does some epic lampshading of ventriloquism in Spark of Insanity as he tells Jeff, "We cannot talk at the same time!"
- British kids' show Rainbow features George and Zippy, a classic Odd Couple who are permanently arguing with each other, interrupting and talking over each other — despite being both products of the same actor who is not only Talking To Himself but doing it live.
- The 60s British marionette science fiction show Space Patrol, a.k.a. Planet Patrol in the US, has a very small voice cast who often play multiple roles, and according to one interview they would simply switch voices while recording their lines, rather than relying on editing.
Radio
- Also occurs in radio shows. Surreal 1950s BBC comedy The Goon Show often lampshaded this.
Bloodnok: (voiced by Peter Sellers) Mind your language! There may be sensitive Scots Guardsmen present!
Flowerdew: (voiced by Peter Sellers) It's all right, I don't mind really, honestly, it's quite all right.
Bloodnok: Sellers! How dare you change your voice from mine into his for one joke only!
- Another example from the Goon Show episode 'The Histories of Pliny the Elder'.
Moriarty: Why don't you stop him Julius Caesar? (Ceasar uses Grytpype's voice, played by Sellers) Bloodnok: How can I when I'm playing the part of Bloodnok? ** Spike Milligan was absent for one episode and Sellers performed his parts as well! (His Eccles in particular was flawless.) But just wait until you hear Sellers' albums...
- Becomes even more amazing when you realise that most of the roles were done by the three main cast members and Harry Secombe only played one of them (main character Neddie) most of the time. Sellers was doing well over 90% of the one-off characters.
- Former Goon Michael Bentine also did a radio sketch show where he performed all the voices, but that was done by editing. The Goons did it live on stage.
- Adventures in Odyssey
- This trope has been known to occur quite a bit, especially when farmer Tom Riley and shady businessman Bart Rathbone were running against each other for mayor. Ed Walker, who played both, switched voices in real time, meaning he was literally debating with himself.
- This also happens when Dr. Regis Blackgaard runs his brother Edwin out of town.
- ...and whenever Eugene Meltsner converses with Harlowe Doyle, P.I.
- When Kevin Clash (Elmo's puppeteer and voice) was on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, he managed to interrupt himself with Elmo's voice. It really creeped the host out, especially when it sounded like they were speaking at almost the same time.
- The Phil Hendrie Show: All the guests on his spoof talk radio show.
- In the entirely improvised sitcom The Masterson Inheritance, each performer would inevitably end up playing several different roles, most of them made up on the spot and many with ridiculous voices. Naturally, they often ended up talking to each other. Paul Merton ended up doing this pretty much ever episode (especially when the others deliberately arranged things so he'd have to). He'd sometimes wriggle out of it by having one character tell the other(s) to shut up while he spoke, or just have whichever one had the most annoying accent drop dead from a heart attack.
- I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue
- In the spin-off You'll Have Had Your Tea?: The Doings of Hamish and Dougal, all the characters (except in the Hogmanay Special) are voiced by four actors, only one of whom is female. This is frequently Lampshaded.
Mrs MacAllister: How can you stand here and say that to me?
Mrs Naughtie: It isn't easy.
- In another episode, the Laird (played by Jeremy Hardy) had an argument with his mother (played by Jeremy Hardy with a silly high-pitched voice) which ended "Now take me home before anyone realises you're doing both voices". Not being a show to let a joke rest, the Laird's mother later had a party with Mrs Dougal, Mrs Hamish, and Grandpa Naughtie.
- Spoofed repeatedly on BBC comedy The Burkiss Way, which on several occasions features conversations between characters with exactly the same voice. Usually lampshaded in the most blatant way possible, and without the performer even pausing between lines.
"Over to Professor Norman Stillmetalking. Hello!"
"Now, a man whose voice isn't done by me. Good evening. Except on special occasions."
- In one episode, Jo Kendall uses the same voice for two different characters, simply by introducing every other sentence with "in a different voice".
- I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again
- In one spectacular example, John Cleese is required to have one of his characters eaten by another. There are almost twenty seconds of discussion whether it's physically possible, before he is told to get on with it.
John: I don't come here and grace you with my acting skills to be eaten. Anyway, if there's animal eating to be done, I want to do it.
David: You did do it.... You ate yourself.
John: Well, that's even worse. That's auto-cannibalism. Makes you deaf.
- In another episode, Tim Brooke-Taylor, playing Tim Brown-Windsor, Lady Constance and Lady Constance's sister Flossie, genuinely gets mixed up when the three of them have to share a scene. Naturally, they Throw It In.
- In yet another episode, two of Graeme Garden's characters have an argument together. The scene is introduced by John Cleese explaining that it isn't going to be very funny, but Graeme would like a round of applause anyway to imply to the home audience that it's very difficult, even though (according to Cleese) it isn't.
- And in the end of that season, Graeme takes over the serial — and is, at that point, playing the main hero (Professor Prune), the main villain (Fetish), and the narrator. Naturally, chaos ensues.
Fetish: So, professor, we meet again! Professor: Oh, you monster! But I'm not beaten yet! Fetish: Oh no? Professor: No! Fetish: Oh! Professor: You see— you see— Fetish: Go on! Professor: I will! Fetish: Please do!
- The Walton & Johnson show has, alongside John Walton and Steve Johnson, three characters voiced by Johnson: Billy Ed Hatfield, a redneck Army veteran, Mister Kenneth, a gay hairdresser, and Mr. Eaux, a militant black nationalist from New Orleans. Needless to say, all three characters frequently get into fights with one another and with callers.
- The Big Finish Doctor Who audio drama Caerdroia has Paul McGann do this, as the Doctor has developed a Literal Split Personality. Despite the fact one man is playing three of the same character with only minor variations, it only gets confusing once or twice. It's partially done by having the moody, snarky one have a lower and more monotone and deadpan voice than the Doctor ordinarily has, and the cheerful, quirky, scatterbrained one have a higher voice and speak more quickly. Not only does he talk to himself, he (rather unsurprisingly) argues with himself.
- Ever since Katy Manning started playing Paul Magrs's dotty Time Lady Iris Wildthyme for Big Finish, it was inevitable that eventually there'd be a story where Iris met Jo Grant. It happens in the Companion Chronicles audio Find And Replace.
- In the Haruhi Suzumiya Sound Around radio drama a musical monster causes Kyon, Itsuki, Yuki and Mikuru to lose their voices and speak with Haruhi's voice instead. Thus we have Aya Hirano talking to herself as four different characters (although with Mikuru it is almost impossible to tell the difference). It gets even more confusing when Itsuki does an impression of Haruhi.
- As a ventriloquist, Edgar Bergen naturally did this a lot on The Chase and Sanborn Hour.
- Often happened to Bob & Ray, as a consequence of playing both hosts and (often multiple) guests on their various shows, assisted by their uncanny timing and familiarity with each other. The effect is most spectacular when baritone Ray and his falsetto character Mary McGoon hold rapid-fire discussions — often with Ray's other character Webley Webster chiming in — with Bob and two or more of his characters.
- One That Mitchell And Webb Sound sketch features a radio debate on the death penalty between two men both played by Robert Webb, who sound exactly the same. It degenerates into chaos as the moderator, played by David Mitchell, desperately tries to find a way to tell the two men apart. At the very end, Webb starts playing the moderator as well.
- On the sketch show Hello Cheeky, there were four actors, one of whom generally only played one role. They mostly managed to avoid talking to themselves, except for a few sequences in which Tim Brooke-Taylor plays a woman and a man in the same scene, at one point even muttering "You do feel a fool talking to yourself..."
- In one episode, a sketch is completely derailed as the cast change their roles around in an attempt to avoid talking to themselves.
John: I am Lieutenant Jeffrey Snob, and I don't know what I'm doing here. And don't bother trying to tell me, foreign milkman, because I'm playing that part as well.
Barry: Don't worry. I will take over the part of Klaus while you play that part.
Tim: Isn't it confusing enough as it is? Let me explain...John was playing Klaus, so Barry took over the role of Klaus so Klaus could talk to Mungo...no, wait, Barry's playing Mungo...er, when Mungo became Jeffrey, John started playing Jeffrey but he's also playing Klaus...
- Done literally by Brian Phelps of the Mark & Brian Radio Program. One sketch one the show had him portraying George W. Bush and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger speaking to one another. Brian also challenges his co-host Mark to try and trip him up at the end of the sketch, which he does by rapid firing questions to Arnold and then Bush.
Tabletop Games
- In any given Roleplaying game, the Game Master will, by necessity, be voicing all the NPCs. More talented or imaginative Game Masters will even give them distinct voices (which can get damn funny at times).
- Some campaigns have two Game Masters, averting the trope. On the other hand, in some games (such as Ars Magica) even the players will have several characters.
- In one hilarious game of Dungeons & Dragons, one player simultaneously played an elf and a dwarf who were Vitriolic Best Buds on the best of days. He used hand signals to indicate who was who whenever they got in an argument (again).
Theater
- Similarly to the example with The Muppet Show and Sesame Street, Avenue Q features the same actress playing Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut, the same actor as Princeton and Rod, and the same actor as Nicky and Trekkie Monster. The conversations with themselves are particularly impressive because all the puppeteers are onstage and usually one of the puppets is being controlled by a completely different puppeteer who had to match the mouth movements to the other actor's words. Also, they sing too. Possibly lampshaded when you notice that the voice of Nicky/Trekkie Monster has the only puppets that require two people to work (can be used by one, but not as effective).
- Charles Ludlam's The Mystery of Irma Vep heavily invokes this trope (and occasionally lampshades it in the script). It's a show with four male characters and four female characters, with two male actors playing all of the roles. In particular, the actor playing Nicodemus and Enid not only holds conversations with himself during costume changes, but also plays out a scene involving playing the monster that's mauling Nicodemus off-stage.
- This was commonly done in-story in Shakespeare's plays by his "clown" characters (played by comic actors who were presumably able to do multiple voices):
- In The Wizard of Oz On Ice, Bobby McFerrin voiced all of the characters except for Dorothy. (Yep, even Toto.) In the TV special, he also voices Dorothy.
Video Games
Web Animation
- Homestar Runner has nine main characters voiced by Matt Chapman. Nearly every conversion in the show is an example of this trope, since there are only three main characters not voiced by him (Marzipan, Pom Pom, who is The Unintelligible anyway, and The Poopsmith, who has made a vow of silence. In order to celebrate Strong Bad checking his 200th email, the Poopsmith finally broke his vow of silence to sing the intro song. Here he is voiced by John Linnell of They Might Be Giants. As of his subsequent appearance, he's gone back to being silent, though.) The ultimate example is in One Two, One Two, which has Matt singing/talking to himself in six different voices at once. The only time that this isn't the case is if circumstances render it too difficult for Matt to do a voice; for instance, his brother has had to voice Strong Sad at least once, as Matt had strained his vocal cords.
- Matt also voices nearly all of the secondary characters as well, including the cast of show-within-the-show Cheat Commandos, alternate Anime and "old-timey" versions of the main cast, and the lead vocals for Fake Bands Limozeen and Taranchula, the former in an impressive '80s-metal falsetto and the latter in a deep death-metal growl. Matt could give Mel Blanc a run for his money.
- It's all the more impressive when one of his characters starts doing impressions of another character.
- Talking to Himself also occurs in-universe: The "Teen Girl Squad" sketches are created and completely voiced by Strong Bad, and the "Powered by the Cheat" animations are all voiced by the The Cheat, imitating the regular characters' voices (these imitations are voiced by Mike Chapman, doing his darnedest to sound like his brother).
- Because many webtoons are a one-person operation, they tend to have only one voice actor: Matt Wilson does all the voices in Bonus Stage and Ed Atlin does all the characters in Space Tree, although both did when get another voice actress, Kagome Higurashi (not to be confused with the other Kagome Higurashi), who ended up voicing the female characters.
- The characters in Retarded Animal Babies are all voiced by creator David Lovelace, but tuned to different pitches. In one episode, the exact pitch levels he uses for each character are even revealed in the credits.
- Unforgotten Realms may justify this, in that the whole premise is two guys playing a homebrew tabletop RPG (and a little brother), and so it makes sense that there wouldn't be too much variation.
- While other people play minor characters, all three main characters in Park Bench are played by Anthony Mercer.
- The antagonism between The Leet World's Jerk with a Heart of Gold terrorist leader Cortez and counter-terrorist Team Dad Westheimer is made all the more interesting by the fact that they are both voiced by Eddie, who also voices the Camp Gay terrorist Montrose. Fellow crew member Daniel voices both hard-drinking fratboy Chet and the creepy Producer.
- J.I.M., creator of Neurotically Yours, voices every male character on the show regardless of species. It is obvious this trope would come up at one point or another.
- Several characters on Happy Tree Friends share voice actors. Cub, Giggles and Petunia (whose VA was replaced twice); Splendid and Lumpy (VA replaced once); Pop and Flippy. Lifty and Shifty also shared a voice actor until their VA left the show and was replaced by Kenn Navarro, also the VA for Cuddles. More recently, Pop and Flippy's VA left the show as well; while said VA is sampled for Pop and Flippy's evil side, Kenn now voices Flippy's good side.
- Animator Brad Neely voices (almost) all of the characters in his cartoons, notably the eponymous Frank and Steve Smith of The Professor Brothers and Cox and Combes of the viral "Washington Rap." Just in these two examples, Neely has not only had lengthy talks with himself, but has duet-rapped.
- Two of the main staff members from Rooster Teeth, Burnie Burns and Matt Hullum, voice multiple main characters from Red vs. Blue. In fact, Burnie made a point of voicing all of the Alpha AI fragments (except Delta, who is voiced by Mark Bellman), which are Literal Split Personalities of his original character, Church.
- Lampshaded at a particularly memorable occurrence during a live table read where Matt Hullum must voice Sarge and the effeminate Doc conversing all while reading the script for the very first time. Things seem to be heading toward a phone conversation between Church and Vic, both voiced by Burnie Burns, but unfortunately it's averted at the last moment.
Web Comics
Web Original
- Doug Walker is known for his roles as Ask That Guy, The Nostalgia Critic, and Chester A. Bum. In the Nostalgia Critic's review of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, Doug has his beard shaved, and all three of his characters pop up in the intro with their own explanation of why they had their beard shaved (Nostalgia Critic shaved it because he made a bet that John McCain would win, That Guy shaved his because he thought the bet was about him posting his next video with the viewer responses within a week, and Chester just did it because he didn't want to be left out of the group). They quabble for a bit until NC dismisses Chester and then knocks out That Guy with a brick.
- In the series There Will Be Brawl, Kirby and Meta-Knight are both voiced by Matthew Mercer.
- ...Who also does the live acting for Ganondorf.
- Lego Pirate Misadventures has, for its first two episodes, all but a single character voiced by Mayhem. This trope is mentioned by name in the third episode, which coincidentally was the first episode to have an expanded roster for the other actor. Actually becomes noticeable when two characters voiced by Mayhem are conversing with each other, as they have fewer distinct pauses between their lines and may end up sounding a bit more like each other than normal.
Western Animation
- On Ed, Edd n Eddy, Lee Kanker and Sarah have Janyse Jaud as their voice actor. Marie Kanker and Kevin have Kathleen Barr voicing for them. And May Kanker and Nazz have Erin Fitzgerald as their voice actor.
- The Simpsons
- Most of the cast of hundreds are voiced by about a dozen people. Yeardley Smith (Lisa) and Marcia Wallace (Edna Krabappel) are the only ones with a single regular character (though Yeardley Smith has voiced girls who were similar in personality to Lisa, such as the island girl in "Missionary Impossible" and Lisabella from "Last Tap Dance in Springfield.") This trope plays out most often with Mr. Burns and Smithers, who interact in almost every episode that contains either of them, and who are both voiced by Harry Shearer (making the Ho Yay between them a strange case of Screw Yourself).
- The Simpsons also called attention to this trope in "The Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie Show", where the same voice actress was revealed to do the voices of both Itchy and Scratchy (which she demonstrated for Homer). Which is awkward, because Itchy and Scratchy are voiced by Dan Castellaneta and Harry Shearer, and the voice actress's normal speaking voice was played by Tress MacNeille.
- Other examples include Dan Castellaneta as Homer Simpson, Grampa Simpson, Barney Gumble, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor "Diamond" Joe Quimby, the Mexican bumblebee man, Arnie Pie (the hapless helicopter pilot who hates Kent Brockman), the Squeaky-Voiced Teen (real name: Jeremy Freedman), and the Crazy Old Jewish man; Julie Kavner as Marge Simpson and all the women on Marge's side of the family (twin sisters Patty and Selma, her mom Jackie, her Great Aunt Gladys from "Selma's Choice," and an unnamed grandmother in "Fear of Flying"); and Nancy Cartwright as Bart Simpson, Ralph Wiggum, Todd Flanders, Lewis (one of Bart's friends from the early seasons. He was a black kid with a grayish-black afro), Nelson Muntz, and Kearney Zzyzwicz (the bald bully who looks like a teenager, but isn't).
- Lampshaded in one episode, where the sound of Bart's "conscience" turns out to be a record of barnyard sounds recorded by Tress MacNeille. Later, Homer muses that the PA system in a slaughterhouse also sounds like her.
- And speaking of Tress MacNeille, she did many female voices on Animaniacs, including Dot Warner, Maria Hippo, Miss Flameel, Mindy's mother, and many other background/one-time female characters in virtually every episode.
- This is very common in Transformers media:
- On Beast Wars, Scott McNeil was often found arguing with himself as Rattrap and Dinobot. (And the entire Golden Disk talk between Waspinator and Dinobot, and the issues Rattrap has with Silverbolt...) He also does a large chunk of each cast he's a part of, in anime dubs, American cartoons and video games. In a Gundam video game, he played the leaders of both factions, the player's wingman, and ATC at the base they were due to land at, in one scene.
- It's worth mentioning that Scott himself gets a real kick out of this trope, and frequently recites some of his more popular Talking To Himself scenes (particularly from Beast Wars) for audiences at anime conventions.
- Peter Cullen played both Optimus Prime and his right hand man, Ironhide (meaning that he's talking to himself in the first post-credits scene of the 1986 movie). Frank Welker voiced Megatron, Soundwave and most of the first-year Decepticons aside from Starscream. This is perfectly demonstrated in this clip, in which he voices all the Decepticons.
- Daniel Riordan was both Optimus Prime (well, his combined form, anyway) and Megatron in Transformers: Robots In Disguise.
- In Animated, David Kaye is Prime, Grimlock, Lugnut, and Highbrow. Jeff Bennett is Prowl, Ultra Magnus, Captain Fanzone, Soundwave, Angry Archer, and Mixmaster. Bumper Robinson is Bumblebee, Porter C. Powell, Blackout, and does three voices for Blitzwing, whose Split Personality occasionally talk amongst themselves. Tom Kenny is Starscream (as well as all of the Starscream clones except the female one), Isaac Sumdac, Scrapper, Wasp, and Jetfire. Corey Burton is Megatron, Ratchet, Shockwave (reprised from G1), Longarm Prime (who is Shockwave but has a slightly different voice), Colossus Rhodes, Ironhide, and Spike. Besides Sari, Tara Strong is pretty much every female and child except Blackarachnia, Arcee, and a brief appearance by Flareup. Bill Fagerbakke is Bulkhead and Hot Shot. While he only voiced Jazz for the first two seasons, in the third Phil LaMarr is also Oil Slick, Jetstorm, and replaces Kevin Michael Richardson as Omega Supreme. Most of them also do a few minor characters. Come to think of it, Animated has this at least as bad as the original did.
- Lampshaded in a script-reading called Bee In The City, which had Bumblebee suggest to Beast Wars Megatron (also voiced by David Kaye, who was doing Prime in the same reading) that they try to get help from Lugnut or Grimlock. Megatron responded, "Who do I look like, Scott McNeil?"
- Billy West has an exceptional range, playing four recurrers on Futurama (Fry, Farnsworth, Zapp Brannigan, President Richard Nixon's head, and Zoidberg), as well as both Ren and Stimpy from The Ren & Stimpy Show (after Ren's original voice actor, John Kricfalusi, was fired from Nickelodeon) and also playing the modern versions of most of the characters Mel Blanc was known for. Hell, Billy can do things with his voice that normally require electronic alteration to achieve.
- Besides Billy West, there's also Tress MacNeille, who doesn't do any regulars, she does pretty much every secondary female character, most notably Linda, the female reporter. There's also Lauren Tom, who voices both Amy and her mother.
John DiMaggio: (commentary) I love it when Billy gets to talk to himself during scenes.
- John DiMaggio has been known to do bit roles in the same episodes in which he features. On Kim Possible, a voice he did as a joke between takes (an homage to the motorheads that he grew up around in New Jersey) was given his own villainous character, Motor Ed. Ed was then revealed to be the cousin of DiMaggio's main role, Doctor Drakken. He plays random background characters in many episodes without Drakken or Ed. Seriously.
- One Futurama commentary laughes at the fact that a very funny scene is really just John having a bitchy argument with himself. He shrieks in delight that he's just like Billy now!
- Charlie Adler played the three main characters on Cow and Chicken, and I.R. Baboon and the Red Guy its spinoff I Am Weasel. He also provided many other background voices on the show.
- In Jem he was the voice of villain Eric Raymond and his henchman Zipper. As well as Techrat, Eric Raymond's pet mad scientist.
- Everybody in the UK dub of Magic Roundabout is voiced by Eric Thompson.
- In Rocko's Modern Life he voiced Ed Bighead and his wife Beverly as well as his boss Mr. Dupette.
- Tom Kenny voiced numerous minor or recurring characters along with one or two regulars in shows such as Rocko's Modern Life, Camp Lazlo, Spongebob Squarepants, Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!, Xiaolin Showdown and Stripperella.
- Maurice LaMarche is, well, Maurice LaMarche. His range is well established in Futurama with Kif Kroker and Lrrr (of the planet Omicron Persei VIII) as extremes. Though he's not above mocking a certain lack of variety in his characters on the commentary for the episode "The Route of All Evil".
David X: Tell me, can you show us the difference between Morbo, Lrrr, and the H.G.B?
Maurice: This is Morbo! (virtually identical voice) This is Lrrr! (virtually identical voice) And this is the Horrible Gelatinous Blob!
- His lack of variety thing can be seen in The Real Ghostbusters as well — an episode wherein Winston plays a game of baseball that will decide the fate of a single human soul, Maurice provides the voice for the Umpire as well as for Egon. It's vaguely amusing, actually, since the Ump was just Egon with a large reverb!
- Rob Paulsen played many roles on Animaniacs, The Tick, and bit parts on pretty much every cartoon made in the last decade.
- Series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone do most of the male voices on South Park, but they intentionally call attention to their own lack of range. Everyone really does sound the same. Before her death, Mary Kay Bergman did all the female voices on the show. Now, they are split between April Stewart and Mona Marshall.
- Almost the prototype example, Mel Blanc did all the male voices in most of the Looney Tunes shorts (with some minor exceptions, like Elmer Fudd), so unless Granny or another female character was needed, Mel Blanc was the only voice actor. He did, among others, Bugs, Daffy (which was his Sylvester voice sped up), Porky, Tweety, Yosemite Sam, Pepe le Pew, Foghorn, Marvin, The Tasmanian Devil, Wile E. Coyote (when he spoke), Elmer Fudd (after the death of Arthur Q. Bryan), and Sylvester (apparently the closest to his natural voice). The Bugs Bunny Show's theme song even features a duet between Bugs and Daffy.
- And if they did need a female voice, it was usually June Foray.
- In the cartoon "Hollywood Steps Out" Kent Rogers voiced all of the male celebrities with the exception of Jerry Colonna (voiced by Blanc), while Sara Berner voiced all the female celebrities.
- In the short lived 1999 cartoon Rayman: The Animated Series, Danny Mann voiced both Rigatoni and Lac-Mac, and Carlos Alazraqui voiced both Razorbeard and Cookie. So not only did Mann get to order himself around, Alazraqui got to argue with himself...in the same episode.
- Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein of Family Guy do most of the voices, male and female respectively. Mike Henry also does a few.
- Lampshaded in one episode, in which Peter (Seth MacFarlane) tells Dr. Hartman (Seth MacFarlane) that he sounds almost exactly like his father-in-law, Carter Pewterschmidt (Seth MacFarlane). Just to drive the point home, Carter randomly shows up at that moment and has a conversation with Dr. Hartman where they wonder how they hadn't noticed it before.
- In the 1996 Cartoon Network short Larry and Steve, which Seth MacFarlane made when he was at Hanna-Barbera (and was essentially a Family Guy prototype), MacFarlane voiced all the male characters, including Larry (whose voice was identical to Peter Griffin), Steve (a dog with a voice like Brian), and a pilot who was a precursor to Quagmire. The only other cast member was Lori Alan, who went on to do voices for Family Guy.
- It becomes a Crowning Moment Of Awesome when Quagmire delivers a well-deserved "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Brian, voicing every concern the viewers built up over the years over Brian's actions.
- In the original Life of Larry (MacFarlane's student film for animation), to which Larry and Steve was a sequel, he did all the voices, including Larry's wife Lois.
- American Dad isn't as reliant on this trope, with most of the characters having their own voice actor. Nonetheless, the two most important characters, Stan and Roger, are both voiced by MacFarlane.
- They even both lampshade it in their own ways, Roger dressing up as Stan and upon, ironically, not being able to get Stan's voice right, just makes him sound like Sean Connery and Stan after imitating the voice of his own body double says he can also make a good Roger, which ALSO sounds just not right.
- Also pointed out in MacFarlane's Hulu commercial, which has him going from one voice to another throughout the commercial.
- Seth Green also does multiple voices. Two main characters, Chris Griffin and Neil Goldman, and many walk-ons. He also does most of the voices on Robot Chicken, so he no doubt talks to himself a lot on that.
- Seth MacFarlane does the voices of Brian and Stewie, so this is taken to its ultimate extreme in the episode "Brian and Stewie", in which the titular duo are the only characters to appear and they're locked in isolation, so all they can do for the half hour is play off each other. It's literally 22 minutes of Seth MacFarlane talking to himself, and nothing else.
- It's really neat when there's a musical number. For example, in the Freakin' FCC number, Seth does a trio with himself and himself. It's pretty sweet.
- Bump In The Night has multiple scenes in which Bumpy and Destructo, both voiced by Jim Cummings, have lines. The show also contains other one-time characters with his voice.
- An older example is Wacky Races and both of its spinoffs, especially Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines. Except for the uncredited female voice in "Barnstormers" and some Magnificent Muttley shorts, Paul Winchell and Don Messick did all the character voices.
- Don Messick voiced the female pooches in the Magnificent Muttley segments.
- On Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Dave Willis voices Meatwad, Carl, and Ignignokt. Most episodes feature Carl interacting with Meatwad, and any Mooninites episode will usually feature Ignignokt interacting with both of them.
- Rocko's Modern Life has roughly five main characters (if you count Rocko's dog Spunky), and a lot of recurring characters, yet, the show had only five people in the main voice cast; four of them male actors, and only one actress. They consisted of Carlos Alazraqui (voices Rocko, Spunky, Leon Chameleon, Squirmy, and a few other incidental male characters), Tom Kenny (voices Heffer, Chuck Chameleon, Mr. Smitty, Peaches, Flecko, Really Really Big Man, Bloaty, the Newscaster, and practically half of the incidental male voices on the show, as well as a few incidental females), Doug Lawrence (voices Filburt, Peter Wolfe, and a few other incidental characters), Charlie Adler (voices Ed and Bev Bighead, George Wolfe, Grandpa Wolfe, Gladys the Hippo Lady, Mr. Dupette, and several other incidental males and a few females as well), and Linda Wallem (voices Dr. Hutchison, Virginia Wolfe, Cindy Wolfe, Tammy, and many other incidental female characters.) Though there were a few minor exceptions, such as Richard Simmons voicing himself in an early episode, and series creator Joe Murray voicing Ralph Bighead (and himself in one episode).
- A Static Shock episode, "A League of Their Own", had Phil LaMarr voicing Green Lantern and Static. One of the creators (either Paul Dini or Bruce Timm, I forget which) commented that he wanted to do more of Static and GL talking, to drive Phil nuts. They got to do so in the episode "Fallen Hero", which features only John Stewart as the guest hero of the episode.
- They do it to him again in the Justice League Unlimited episode(s) "The Once And Future Thing". The episode also has Batman talking to his future self. The differences are subtle.
- Justice League
- Maria Canals-Barrera voiced both Shayera Hol and Fire. In the episode "I Am Legion", Shayera and Fire share every scene with each other.
- Jennifer Hale handles Killer Frost and Giganta. In the latter's first episode, Grodd puts them through a series of trust exercises, with little Frost catching immense (6' or so) Giganta... who is letting herself fall off a cliff into Frost's arms. Predictably, pain ensues.
- And in the episode "Injustice For All", Mark Hamill voiced both Joker and Solomon Grundy, who of course start arguing.
- In the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Perchance to Dream", Bruce Wayne talked to his father — also Kevin Conroy. Even better: in that same episode, Bruce has an argument with his alter-ego. Conroy is said to have switched between his "Bruce Wayne" and "Batman" voices in real time, rather than recording the characters separately.
- He also has a long argument about ways and means with alternate-universe Batman in the episode "A Better World". Even better is that the two Batmans (Batmen?) are deliberately hidden in shadows the entire time, making it so that the conversation could be interpreted as either one starting it.
- The ultimate example in The DCAU comes in the Justice League Unlimited episode "For the Man Who Has Everything", where Batman, voiced by Kevin Conroy, has a flashback of his father, voiced by Kevin Conroy, being mugged by Joe Chill, voiced by Kevin Conroy.
- All these examples of Batman are literalised examples of the character talking to himself, so it's no real surprise...
- Tim Daly, the voice of the titular character from Superman: The Animated Series also voiced Bizarro, which is justified in that Bizarro is a clone of Superman, but they sound different as the former sounds more guttural and simple and backwards than the first. In one sequence, a yet to be corrupted Bizarro does talk as Superman and at one point saves Clark Kent from falling.
- This was carried over to Justice League Unlimited, following (though with a three-year delay) the change of Superman's voice actor from Tim Daly to George Newbern, even though he and Superman don't interact directly here.
- An early episode of Hanna-Barbera's version of The Little Rascals had Patty Maloney doing at least one brief exchange between Darla Hood and her beauty-pageant rival, whose family had just moved to Greenpoint.
- It would seem that Phil Lamarr (Wilt) voices basically every male side character on Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends... some better than others.
- The Boondocks does this a lot because two of the main characters (Huey and Riley) have the same woman, Regina King, doing their voices.
- Drawn Together makes extensive use of this practice by having its actors voice numerous minor characters in addition to their regular roles. Most of the female characters are voiced by Cree Summer or Tara Strong while most of the male characters are voiced by Jess Harnell or James Arnold Taylor. Strong, in fact, voices two regular characters, Princess Clara and Toot Braunstein. In one DVD commentary, the creators state that they often give Clara and Toot scenes together just to watch Tara have conversations with herself.
- Code Lyoko
- This show features a situation where two characters, Jérémie and Aelita, are voiced by the same actress [Sharon Mann]. Because the two characters are both best friends and the show's most blatant and canonical couple, this must've been fun to watch for everyone in the voice acting studio.
- Another example from the same show is David Gasman, who has a laundry list of voiced characters: a gruffer "older guy" voice used for the likes of Jim, Mr. Ishiyama, and various minor MIB, TV reporters, and teachers, and a lighter "kid voice" used for Herb, William, Chris [Jim's nephew] and various students.
- Nine voice actors cover all the voices in the English dub of the show. Here's a breakdown.
- Codename: Kids Next Door
- In the Mexican dub, voice actor Óscar Flores often does the voice of Nigel Uno and one of the several secondary characters that he also interprets. Still, in an episode where three of his characters appeared, he voiced only two.
- In the original English-language version, Ben Diskin voices both Numbuhs 1 and 2.
- Also, Lauren Tom is again her own mother, with Number 3 and Mrs. Sanban; and Cree Summer is 75% of an entire family, being Number 5, her older sister Cree, and their French-accented mother, all seen having dinner together in one episode.
- And Dee Bradley Baker voices Numbuh 4 along his baby brother Joey and many villains like Mr. Fibb, The Toilenator, Lunk, and Heinrich,and many of the monsters.
- Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers
- Tress MacNeille played both Gadget and, yes, Chip. They talked to each other. (And spoke simultaneously in other situations, including but not limited to "Rescue Rangers away!", but that's another story.)
- This video shows just how similar their voices are: the pitch (but not the speed) is increased to achieve Chip's voice.
- Also, Corey Burton voiced both Dale and Zipper.
- The Spectacular Spider-Man already has a few instances of this. John DiMaggio's Hammerhead coaxes his Flint Marko into adopting the Sandman identity. Clancy Brown's Captain Stacy tries to order his Rhino to stand down. Daran Norris performs both sides of a conversation between J. Jonah Jameson and his son John. Steven Jay Blum plays both the Green Goblin and a thug that he recruits.
- Teen Titans
- Hynden Walch played both Starfire and her evil sister Blackfire — and the characters ended up fighting pretty much every time Blackfire showed up. Scott Menville also played Robin and Red X which made sense since the first time the character showed up he really was Robin, but all of his subsequent appearances were when an unnamed villain stole the old Red X suit.
- Not to mention when Beast Boy faught Adonis in "The Beast Within". Both characters were voiced by Greg Cipes.
- Taken to a bit of an extreme with the episode "Hide and Seek", which has Tara Strong as Raven and baby Teether, and Russi Taylor (voice of Minnie Mouse since the mid-1980s) as Melvin and Timmy. The four characters spend the entire episode together, starting from before the theme song even starts. Of course, there were only a total of six main characters in the episode, but still...
- On Superfriends, Shannon Farnon did most of the female voices, including Cheetah. As Seanbaby points out, if you couldn't see the screen, it "sounded like Wonder Woman was kicking her own ass."
- Likewise, every female character on ThunderCats except Wily Kit sounded an awful lot like Cheetara doing a Katherine Hepburn impression.
- Daria
- Wendy Hoopes voiced both Helen and Quinn Morgendorffer. In the Musical Episode, she even sings a duet with herself. Plus she voices Jane Lane, who also converses with each of the other two at least once.
- There's also Timothy O'Neill and Anthony Demartino (Both voiced by Marc Thompson), who have a lot of conversations together.
- Gets a bizarre Lampshade Hanging in the season finale of Stroker and Hoop, where it turned out all of the extras that had the same voice were actually all the same guy, who was taking revenge after the title characters ruined his life over and over again. Doubly so because Jon Glaser does the voice of both that guy and Stroker.
- Grey Delisle does this on the finale of Avatar The Last Airbender where she as Princess Azula berates herself as a handmaiden for leaving a pit in her cherry. Though they didn't actually end up talking to each other she ended up playing Ta Min [Roku's wife] and Kya [Katara and Sokka's mother], as well as the actress-playing-Katara in the episode Ember Island Players. Dee Bradley Baker is also most of the animals on the show (and Chong), so there's all the time Momo and Appa were bickering with each other.
- The Fairly OddParents
- Grey Delisle also plays sisters Vicky and Tootie.
- Cosmo, Jorgen and Anti-Cosmo have the same voice actor.
- Grey Delisle, again, plays Frankie, Duchess and Goo in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, none of which get along especially well.
- And best friends Ingrid and Lupe in My Gym Partner's a Monkey.
- And twins Jeanette and Therese in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, who can often be found arguing with one another. Very loudly. And, in fact, turn out to be a single person — Tourette — with severe split-personality disorder, meaning that she is literally talking to herself.
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy has a few:
- With Richard Horvitz doing Billy and Billy's dad Harold, Greg Eagles doing Grim and Sperg, and of course Phil Lamarr doing Irwin's entire family (sans him and his mom, whom were also voiced by the same person); his father, his grandmother, and grandfather Dracula.
- Note, though, that Irwin, a young black boy, is voiced by an adult white woman. ComicCon panel interviews confirm that she was unaware of Irwin's ethnicity when first introduced to the character's design as a colorless sketch. * two Asian characters.]]
- Home Movies
- H. Jon Benjamin does the voices of both Coach McGuirk and Jason, and converses with himself quite often.
- Lampshaded in the "Home Movies Drinking Game" on the Season One DVD set: the viewers are told to yell "Jon-Jon!" whenever this happens, and whoever yells first has the power to make anyone or everyone do a shot.
- O'Grady
- All characters except guest star voices are done by the same six people. In one episode, three teenaged characters all played by H. Jon Benjamin have several lengthy scenes together.
- This is subverted in an outtake that was featured on The-n.com, where a completely different actor is trying to come up with a suitable voice for a one-time character and he sounds suspiciously like one of Benjamin's regular teen characters. The teen in question then asks the other actor, "Father? What are you doing here?"
- Seth Green does at least half of the voices on Robot Chicken.
- Muppet Babies
- Frank Welker voiced both Baby Kermit and Baby Beaker, while Greg Berg voiced both Baby Fozzie and Baby Scooter, and in the first two seasons, Howie Mandel assumed triple duty as Baby Animal, Baby Skeeter and Baby Bunsen Honeydew. In the third season, Howie Mandel left the show, and Dave Coulier (a.k.a. Joey Gladstone of Full House) took over as Baby Animal and Baby Bunsen, while Frank Welker took over the triple-duty, voicing Baby Skeeter in addition to Kermit and Beaker.
- Dave Coulier also voiced Bean Bunny, Janice, Statler and Waldorf. Russi Taylor voiced Gonzo and Robin.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars
- Dee Bradley Baker does the voices of all the clones. The episode Rookies becomes almost the ultimate example of this trope, as the main plot features a number of rookie clones in over their heads being led by older, more experienced clones. The actor barely varies his voice from one to another. If you choose to annoy Karen Traviss and assume they're all one person, it's almost in-world Talking to Himself. Justified in this case, since all the clones are cloned from the same man and raised in the same setting.
- Umbara arc would be the best example. Nothing but clones and one Jedi general for four episodes.
- James Arnold Taylor voices both Plo Koon and Obi Wan. When they have conversations with each other, it veers into this trope.
- Metalocalypse
- Both Senator Stampingston and Mr. Selatcia are both voiced by Mark Hamill with the former basically being a less raspy and malevolent version of the latter. They are part of the same group that doles Infodumps almost Once an Episode. This is very noticeable. In the same group, General Crozier and Cardinal Ravenwood are both voiced by Victor Brandt, which is less noticeable.
- The entire Five-Man Band is voiced by two people. Toki and Murderface are both played by Tommy Blacha (who also voices Dr. Rockso and more); Nathan, Pickles, and Skwisgaar are all played by Brendon Small (who also voices Ofdensen), meaning he does the most Talking to Himself of the cast.
- The entire list of recurring characters is voiced by maybe six people. Considering these are split into 2 groups that rarely interact, you're more likely to find someone following this trope than talking to anyone else.
- Rugrats
- Michael Bell voiced Chazz Finster and Drew Pickles who often had conversations with each other. In an earlier episode, he also voiced both of the criminals who kidnap Tommy after mistaking him for a millionaire's child.
- Also Kath Soucie voices twins Phil and Lil, who often argue with each other, as well as their mother, Betty Deville.
- The actress for Didi and Minka (Melanie Chartoff, from the early 1980s sketch show Fridays and the late 1980s sitcom Parker Lewis Can't Lose), who thought it was amusing that she could have a mother-daughter conversation with herself.
- In Beavis And Butthead, Mike Judge voices both the title characters and most of the adult male characters who interacted with them (the hippie teacher David van Dreisen, the militant gym coach Mr. Buzzcut, their neighbor Tom Anderson and Principal McVicker).
- In King of the Hill, Mike Judge voices Hank Hill, Boomhauer and Stuart Dooley; Lauren Tom voices Connie Soupanoosinpone and her mother Mihn; Toby Huss voices Cotton Hill and Kahn Soupanoosinpone; Pamela Adlon voices Bobby Hill and Clark Peters, and Stephen Root voices Bill Dautrieve and Buck Strickland.
- Jim Cummings (a voice actor of considerable talent) is the voice of both Winnie the Pooh and his best friend Tigger, ever since halfway through the late-1980s Saturday morning series (although Paul Winchell did return for the sequel film).
- ... And the voice of Darkwing Duck and his Evil Counterpart, Negaduck. Darkwing also talked to Herb Muddlefoot and Professor Moliarty, who were also... Jim Cummings!
- And Bonkers and his partner, Lucky Piquel, in Bonkers
- Kath Soucie voiced Cadpig, Rolly, and Anita in 101Dalmatians the Series. The first two are half of the show's main cast.
- In the Legion Of Super Heroes cartoon, Superman and Superman X were both voiced by Yuri Lowenthal.
- Similar to the example for Tom Kenny above, both he and fellow Handy Manny VA Nika Futterman have this happen a lot to their characters; Tom Kenny voices Pat, of the main cast and Mr. Lopart of the supporting, who occasionally have dialogues. Nika Futterman has it happen a bit more though, because both her main characters (Stretch and Squeeze) will frequently chat between themselves, and she also voices many of the adult female supporting cast members. Another VA, Carlos Alazraqui, also has this happen to a degree because besides Felipe in the main group, he also voices many of the adult male supporting cast.
- In the series The Animals Of Farthing Wood, Rupert Farley voiced Fox, his sons Bold and Friendly, his grandson Plucky, Mr. Hare, Mr. Peasant, Measley and Mr. Newt; Stacey Jefferson voiced Vixen, her daughters Charmer and Dreamer, Adder, Kestrel, Lady Blue and Mrs. Rabbit; Ron Moody voiced Badger, Toad, Mr. Hedgehog, Mr. Vole, Mr. Fieldmouse and The Great White Stag; Jon Glover voiced Scarface, and his sons Ranger and Bounder; Jeremy Barrett voiced Whistler, Mr. Rabbit, Mr. Shrew, Mole and his son Mossy; Sally Grace voiced Owl and Weasel, and Pamela Keevilkral voiced Whisper, Mrs. Squirrel, Mrs. Hedgehog, Dash, Cleo and others.
- G.I. Joe: Resolute has a cast of roughly twenty characters, each voiced by Charlie Adler, Steve Blum, Grey DeLisle, or Eric Bauza.
- In Star Trek The Animated Series, the regulars also did many of the one-shot guests (and even secondary and recurring characters). With rare exception, any woman you hear that wasn't a member of Star Trek: The Original Series' main cast will be voiced by Majel Barrett (when they're not voiced by Nichelle Nichols), and any man will be voiced by James Doohan (a.k.a. Scotty). This means there are several conversations in which the two Talk To Themselves — even if Scotty and Nurse Chapel aren't in on the conversation.
- Veggie Tales
- Most of the main characters are voiced by either Phil Vischer or Mike Nawraki, the series' creators. A recurring trick is that whenever there is a pair of closely-associated characters (Jimmy and Jerry Gourd, the French Peas), one is voiced by Phil and the other by Mike, but the voices are performed similarly.
- Over the years some of the minor characters have started sounding more like the major characters voiced by the same actors. This is finally lampshaded when Larry comments that he had always thought Archibald was the announcer for the "Silly Songs with Larry".
- On Jackie Chan Adventures, Shendu, Chow and Jackie "himself" were voiced by James Sie.
- Gargoyles
- Averted: despite the fact that Keith David voices both Goliath and Officer Morgan, the two only ever met in the comic.
- Although David does get to do it whenever Thailog shows up, you know, since Thailog is an evil clone.
- Also played straight with David Warner when the Archmage has conversations with his future self in "Avalon, Part Two."
- Not to mention Kath Soucie does this when Princess Katharine is talking to Ophelia on Avalon.
- The Powerpuff Girls
- An episode has the Mayor and the Narrator (both voiced by Tom Kenny) talking to each other.
- Other examples in the show include Brick and Boomer of the Rowdyruff Boys are voiced by Rob Paulsen, the Gangreen Gang is voiced by two people (Jeff Bennett voices Ace, Big Billy, and Grubber and Tom Kenny voices Snake and Arturo), and all three members of the Amoeba Boys are voiced by Chuck McCann.
- X-Men: Evolution episode "Ascension", Professor X and Apocalypse were arguing with words, both voiced by David Kaye.
- Bernard Cribbins provided the voices of all the main characters on the original The Wombles.
- Occurs in the frist two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons.
- The first one had a handful of actors performing multiple roles, so you'd have Cam Clarke doing both Leonardo and Rocksteady, Barry Gordon as Donatello and Bebop, Pat Fraley as both Krang and Baxter Stockman, and Tress MacNeille as two of the three Neutrinos.
- Although rarer in the second cartoon, since characters voiced by the same actors tended not to appear together, it also had a handful of examples, mostly involving voice actor Sean Schemmel, the most notable being with the Foot Mystics, a five-man mini-boss squad voiced entirely by Schemmel and fellow actor Brian Maillard.
- In the Mexican dub of the first cartoon, both Shredder and Krang were voiced by voice actor Herman López.
- Happens constantly in The Venture Brothers, considering writers Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick voice about three quarters of the regular cast between them, and James Urbaniak voices the main character. Urbaniak does it pretty often, voicing Dr. Venture and his twin Jonas Jr., while he also voices Phantom Limb and the Sovereign in his David Bowie form. Publick also does it a lot, providing the voices of Hank, The Monarch, Sgt. Hatred, 24, Col. Gathers, Action Man, Pete White, Tim-Tom, Watch and, for one episode, Professor Impossible (after Stephen Colbert's departure and before Bill Hader took the role). Finally, Doc Hammer voices Dr. Girlfriend, Kevin, Ward, 21 and Billy Quizboy. Expect any one-shot character to be voiced by one of these guys.
- The season 4 episode "The Revenge Society" has Urbaniak in a three-way conversation with himself.
- The season 3 episode "Shadowman 9: In the Cradle of Destiny", an episode with over a dozen characters, was voiced entirely by three people.
- In Jungle Cubs, Jason Marsden in the first two seasons voiced both Shere Khan and Louie who often had arguments.
- The Mexican dub of Dennis The Menace (US) had voice actress Patricia Acevedo do the voices for Joey, Margaret and Alice [Dennis' mom]. Likewise, Dennis and Gina are both voiced by voice actress Gabriela Willert.
- Likewise in the English version, Phil Hartman and later Maurice LaMarche voiced Henry Mitchell, Mr. Wilson and Ruff, Marilyn Lightstone voiced Alice Mitchell and Mrs. Wilson, and Jeannie Elias voiced Joey, Margaret, Tommy and P.B.
- A crossover episode of The Mask had the main character interact with Ace Ventura. The Mexican dub had both characters being voiced by voice actor Mario Castańeda.
- Cartoon Network's relatively new Marvel project, The Super Hero Squad Show, has Tom Kenny as regulars Iron Man, MODOK, and Captain America, all of whom almost always end up interacting in one combination or another. They also have Steve Blum as both Wolverine and Abomination, who again, get a lot of screen time together (and in one episode actually play a round of golf).
- The only Omnitrix aliens in Ben 10 Alien Force and Ben 10 Ultimate Alien who are not voiced by Dee Bradley Baker are Alien X, Ghostfreak and Rath; even then, the latter two have voices outside of the aliens (Azmuth and Will Harangue, respectively and for starters). But since the aliens hardly interact with one another (being part of the same person and all), it's mostly averted.
- Yuri Lowenthal voices Ben and Albedo. Justified in that the latter was stuck in Ben's human form (long story).
- We also have Ashley Johnson, who, in one episode, provides the voice for main character Gwen and her distant cousin, Sunny.
- In fact, this was intentionally avoided in the episode "Fused": by having Lowenthal as the voice of Omnitrix alien AmpFibian in his first appearance because Baker was already Ra'ad (the alien who supplied the DNA but was temporarily still a part of Ben). In future episodes, Baker had replaced Yuri as the voice of AmpFibian.
- Due to the limited amount of main characters of KaBlam!'s Henry and June shorts, many of the one-appearance characters will be done by a member of the regular cast (most notably is Billy West, who did most of the recurring characters). One of the most shown examples was in "A Nut in Every Bite!", in which Dawn, the executive's grand-daughter comes to visit the show. Dawn was done by Julia Mcilvaine, who did June, one of the main characters.
- From 1999 to 2001, Scott Innes voiced both Scooby-Doo and Shaggy Rogers. You only have to watch half an episode to understand how often those two interact.
- Jaleel White voices all three of the characters in Sonic Underground (Sonic, Manic, and Sonia), which takes talking to himself to a whole new level.
- An episode of Nightmare Ned had Kath Soucie voicing a set of twins, essentially repeating what she had been doing on Rugrats.
- Jeff Bennett voiced both Pith Possum and his villains on The Schnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show, meaning he was essentially fighting himself.
- Fanboy and Chum Chum has him voicing a good 60% of the cast, and there are three straight cases of Talking to Himself - in "Sigmund the Sorcerer", where Sigmund and the Necronomicon have a conversation, in "A Bopwork Orange" where Boog and Agent Johnson talk to each other several times, and on a few occasions when Man-Arctica and his Arch-Enemy, The Global Warmer are interacting.
- On Jimmy Two Shoes, Sean Cullen voices both Lucius VII and his father, Lucius VI.
- Happens with many characters on The Mr. Men Show. Perhaps the strangest example is Mr. Grumpy and Mr. Happy in the US dub.
- Willow The Wisp was voiced by Kenneth Williams (or in The Remake James Dreyfuss). That's it. Six main characters, two of whom were female, and various guest roles, all done by one man.
- Frank Welker also voices both Odie (reprising the role from Garfield and Friends) and Garfield on The Garfield Show. Welker also voices various extras and secondary characters. In one episode, Garfield is terrorized in a nightmare by a talking scale (also voiced by Welker); over the course of the dream, the scale slowly changes its shrill voice until it winds up with Welker's Dr. Claw voice. Jason Marsden also does several voices on the show.
- On Wakfu, Benjamin Pascal provides the voices for both Nox and his underlings.
- Cle Bennett voices both DJ and DJ's mother in Total Drama. He also voices Chef Hatchet, who has frequently interacted with DJ.
- In the PBS animated show Arthur, both Binky Barnes and Arthur's father are actually voiced by the same actor.
- On My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, there are three examples:
- Rainbow Dash and Applejack are both voiced by Ashleigh Ball. Carried to extremes in "Fall Weather Friends", where both ponies spend the entire episode arguing with each other. Ball also voices Little Strongheart in the episode "Over a Barrel", who spends a lot of time talking to Rainbow Dash.
- Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie are voiced by Andrea Libman.
- Which leads to a bit of Fridge Brilliance, as Pinkie Pie won't play any pranks on Fluttershy, as she claims Fluttershy is too sensitive and would take it seriously. However, it's often implied that Pinkie Pie is well aware of the Fourth Wall.
- Rarity's voice actor, Tabitha St. Germain, also voices Princess Luna, Granny Smith, Mrs. Cake, Derpy Hooves (in the original), and Photo Finish. The only time Tabitha actually talks to herself is in the episode with Photo Finish, "Green Isn't Your Color."
- Tabitha St. Germain had a lot more of this in the Generation 3 My Little Pony cartoons where she played Minty, Wysteria, and Thistle Whistle, though it was less of an issue for one-shot character Fiesta Flair and the Core 7's Scootaloo.
- She also voices Twilight Sparkle in the recordings done at The Ocean Group (Tara Strong, Twilight's voice actress, is based in Los Angeles, The Ocean Group is in Vancouver), so while she does a lot of this (for example, most of season 2 episode 4 is Twilight talking to Luna, not to mention all the times Rarity and Twilight have a conversation), most of it is dubbed over later.
- In "Party Of One", Pinkie Pie goes a little crazy when she believes her friends don't attend her parties anymore. So she makes new friends...out of a pile of rocks, a dust bunny, a bucket of turnips and a sack of flour. And then starts arguing with them. They argue back (she's voicing them, of course.)
- Filmations Ghostbusters, full stop. To wit:
- Pat Fraley: Jake Kong, Jr., Ghostbuggy, Scared Stiff, Jake Kong, Sr., etc.
- Alan Oppenheimer: Prime Evil, (possibly) Long John Scarechrome, (possibly) Fangster
- Peter Cullen: Eddie Spenser, Jr., Eddie Spenser, Sr., Haunter, etc.
- Lou Scheimer (also Filmation's founder): Tracy, Ansabone, Sir Trance-a-Lot, Fib Face
- On The Penguins Of Madagascar, James Patrick Stuart voices both Private and Joey, and John DiMaggio voices both Rico and Burt. The former is interesting in that Stuart is a California native, but he uses a British accent for the former and an Aussie accent for the latter. The two characters also have a conversation in "Kanga Management".
- Batman The Brave And The Bold
- John DiMaggio: AQUAMAN, Black Mask, Vigilante, Ubu, Black Adam, Gorilla Grodd, etc.
- Tara Strong: Billy Batson, Mary Marvel, Toddler Batman, Huntress, etc.
- Dee Bradley Baker: Clock King, Oberon, Scarecrow, Etrigan, Detective Chimp, assorted animals
- Kevin Michael Richardson: B'wana Beast, Lex Luthor, Black Manta, Monsieur Mallah, Mr. Mxyzptlk, Steppenwolf, Starro.
- James Arnold Taylor: Green Arrow, Guy Gardner, Nabu, Major Disastor
- Jeff Bennett: The Joker, Captain Marvel, Batman's singing voice
- In The Problem Solverz, Ben Jones voices Alfe and Roba.
- In Regular Show, J.G. Quintel voices Mordecai and High-Five Ghost, and Sam Marin voices Benson, Pops and Muscle Man. In his first appearance, High-Five was voiced by Jeff Bennett, who splits most of the background character voices with Mark Hamill (Skips). William Salyers as Rigby is the only VA who doesn't pull double duty.
- Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes
- Fred Tatasciore voices not only The Incredible Hulk, but also Graviton, the first villain the Avengers defeated together.
- Tatasciore also does some taking to himself in an episode guest-starring the Fantastic Four, as rivals The Hulk and The Thing.
- Another character Fred Tatasciore voiced, Volstagg the Voluminous, became one of the first mythological beings to greet the Hulk to his realm.
- Rick D. Wasserman voices The Mighty Thor and the Absorbing Man, who have a fight in "Gamma World" while exchanging battle cries.
- Robin Atkin Downes voices Baron Zemo and The Abomination, the two Masters of Evil who argue the most.
- Danger Mouse had David Jason as Danger Mouse, Flying Officer Buggles and Count Duckula. (Edward Kesley was Colonel K and Baron Greenback, but the format of the show meant they didn't interact.)
- The Adventures of Blinky Bill takes this trope to the extreme, with only 2 voice actors in the whole series: Keith Scott and Robyn Moore.
- Most of the characters in Taz-Mania were voiced by only a handful of people, though only a few instances involved interaction between characters with the same VA (given how Taz himself was generally the central character of nearly any given episode). Taz himself was voiced by Jim Cummings, who also voiced Bushwhacker Bob (Taz's boss), Wendal T. Wolf (a minor character who would bother Taz in attempting to befriend him) and Buddy Boar (Taz's self-appointed best friend). In addition, both Taz's father and uncle (Hugh and Drew) were voiced by Maurice LaMarche, who, in the episodes that Drew featured in, interacted almost exclusively with one another.
- Young Justice
- Bruce Greenwood: Batman, Pieter Cross
- Danica Mckellar: Miss Martian, Marie Logan
- Kevin Michael Richardson: Martian Manhunter, John Stewart, Mal Duncan, Vykin, Bruno Mannheim.
- Crispin Freeman: Red Arrow, Guardian
- Masasa Moyo: Secret, Karen Beecher, Cat Grant, Wendy Harris
- Nolan North: Superboy, Superman, Match, Marvin White
- Khary Payton: Aqualad, Black Manta, Brick
- Yuri Lowenthal: Icicle Jr., Tempest, Lagoon Boy
- Cree Summer: Aquagirl, Mattie Harcourt
- Vanessa Marshall: Black Canary, Firebrand/Red Inferno, Amanda Spence
- Kelly Hu: Cheshire, Huntress/Paula Crock
- Ultimate Spider-Man
- Tom Kenny: Doctor Octopus, Curt Connors, Wizard
- Tara Strong: Mary Jane Watson, Thundra
- Matt Lanter: Harry Osborn, Flash Thompson, Klaw
- King Leonardo And His Short Subjects: Jackson Beck was King Leonardo and Biggy Rat; Allen Swift was Odie Cologne, Itchy Brother, the narrator, and the King's twin nephews Duke and Earl.
- The Beatles cartoon: Paul Frees was John and George, Lance Percival was Paul and Ringo.
- In all the old school Donald Duck cartoons not only was Donald voiced by Clarence Nash but so were his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie; so every short that exclusively focused on the four of them was simply just Mr. Nash providing all the voices. Not only that, but in her first few appearances Nash voiced Daisy Duck as well. The short "Mr. Duck Steps Out" solely features Donald, Daisy, and the nephews, with Nash voicing all five.
- For that matter, with the exception of Quack Pack which gave them each a distinct voice, this trope always counts for the nephews. All three are always voiced by one singular actress or actor.
- And speaking of Huey, Dewey, and Louie appearances, we might as well add in DuckTales as well. Russi Taylor voiced not only the nephews but also Webby, and the four often worked together being the main kids on the show. The four main Beagle Boys (Big Time, Bouncer, Burger, and Baggy) were voiced by two actors each: Frank Welker as Big Time and Baggy, and Chuck Mc Cann as Bouncer and Burger. Hal Smith also provided the voices of Flinthart Glomgold and Gyro Gearloose, and although not as common as the previous two examples, the two characters did share a couple scenes together; for example one early episode has Glomgold hire Gyro to build giant construction robots for him.
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