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Robin: So how did you do Batman's voice?
Superman: [in Batman's voice] Precise muscle control. [in Robin's voice] Plus, I have a pretty good ear!
Robin: Don't do that again.

We've all seen a shapeshifter, and we all know that when a shapeshifter shifts themselves into another entity, they usually assume the voice of the entity they are copying — meaning a perfect imitation of another character's voice is a Required Secondary Power of anyone who would change their physical form.

Being a Voice Changeling, however, requires the distinction between someone who changes their physical form and someone who merely changes their voice. Meaning, while any run-of-the-mill shapeshifter can copy a subject's voice, in order to be a Voice Changeling, you've got to perfectly copy a voice without changing your body.

It is important to realize that the Voice Changeling creates a perfect and flawless imitation — not one that is merely different from their own. In other words, if Bob is annoyed with Alice, and decides to mimic her in his most obnoxious-sounding girl voice, that is not a Voice Changeling. If, however, Bob's imitation of Alice requires a voiceover from the actress who plays Alice, then the trope is in play. As a general rule, it is only a Voice Changeling if there is a momentary change in voice actors. That's the kind of ability we're talking about.

This ability can be a natural gift or an acquired talent. It can be gained through circumstance, magic or machines. But the important element is not to confuse this trope with Voices Are Mental. Therefore, if some magic turn of events causes a body switch, or if someone gets possessed, then this trope is not in effect, no matter how different the voices become. This trope strictly applies to a voluntary ability — Voluntary Shapeshifting, if you will — but only concerning the voice. It's that simple.

It's especially handy for a Master of Disguise that disguises him or herself in a conventional manner (i.e., not actually shapeshifting) and can accompany Latex Perfection really well (typically resulting in the use of Cast as a Mask).

Note: A character is only a Voice Changeling when they can imitate an actual voice/means of communication. Meaning, if some character can make non-human sounds that are not associated with a specific character, the trope is not in action. Only when their voice matches that of another character is this trope in effect.

If someone gets suspicious about the identity of the Voice Changeling, expect Bluff the Imposter or Something Only They Would Say to come into play. The Changeling may even give themselves away with I Never Said It Was Poison or Saying Too Much.

Compare Voluntary Shapeshifting, Voices Are Mental and Secret Identity Vocal Shift. Not to be confused with Man of a Thousand Voices.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Kisaragi Saemon from Basilisk not only can take the appearance of other people using mud to take their shape, but he can also copy their voice flawlessly, though at one point he complains that it's tiresome to copy the voice of a woman (which he does anyway).
  • Case Closed:
    • There's a voice-changing bowtie that basically does this.
    • There's also Kaito Kid, who can change voices without any device or magic.
    • While Vermouth does not show the huge repertoire as Kaito Kid, she pulls off acting as Dr. Araide, Jodie, and her own mother. It's basically in-lore that you can't trust any voice.
  • City Hunter:
    • Ryo can make a flawless impression of any voice after hearing it once, often accompanying it with a pathetic disguise.
    • Silver Fox is implied to be one: he could imitate the voice of a professional photographer well enough to fool his model, and then imitated Ryo's voice well enough to fool Kaori. Kaori still saw through his disguise, but that's because she was expecting something like that and had a test ready (namely, her bra. Silver Fox faked being aroused, but Ryo wouldn't have been).
  • In Cyborg 009, Francoise Arnoul aka 003 has sound-related powers in the graphic novel, which she uses to defeat 0011+/- by mimicking each brother's voices so they'll be tricked into running into each other, causing them to suffer a fatal electrocution due to the polarizing nature of their electric powers.
  • Dr. STONE: Gen is very talented at imitating voices. His Tsukasa impression appears to unnerve even Kohaku, and he can even do a woman's voice, like when he imitates Lillian Weinberg as part of a plan to pacify the Tsukasa Empire's army.
  • Fairy Tail: Brain imitates Hoteye's voice to lure the heroes into a trap.
  • Japan does a spot-on impression of Italy in the Hetalia: Axis Powers 2007 Christmas Event.
  • In High School Debut, Asaoka shows the ability to imitate Koh's voice well enough to fool Haruna after they've been going out for some time.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
    • Stardust Crusaders has two examples that overlap with Voluntary Shapeshifting, being Rubber Soul of the Temperance card and Oingo of the Khnum card. Yellow Temperance allows Rubber Soul to change his face, body, and voice to match any target, but he can't mimic their vocal mannerisms. Meanwhile, while Khnum can't allow Oingo to copy a target's body, he can copy their face, voice, and vocal mannerisms. Problem is, neither are very good at capturing their targets' personalities.
    • In Crazy Diamond's Demonic Heartbreak, Pet Sounds can mimic just about any voice, from human speech to the sound of a helicopter flying. Hol Horse theorizes that Pet Sounds has memorized voices from at least ten years prior.
    • The Radio Gaga in JoJolion has this as a part of its hunting strategy, in which it mimics the voices of other people to get people close enough to devour them.
  • In Kamisama Minarai: Himitsu no Cocotama, the robotic Cocotama Picota has the power to copy people's voices, which he often uses so he can speak to troubled people while emulating the voices of their loved ones.
  • Ritsu Tainaka in K-On! is able to copy just about anyone she knows, at one point tricking Azusa into answering a question she thought came from Ui. A Running Gag has her pretending to be someone's inner voice, which manga readers wouldn't be able to notice.
  • In Lupin III, this is one of the many talents of the titular protagonist.
  • Shinso's costume in My Hero Academia has "artificial vocal chords" in it, allowing them to mimic the voices of others, which lets him easily use his Compelling Voice Quirk.
  • A basic ability for ninja in Naruto. Normally it is used in combination with the transformation jutsu to disguise oneself as another person, but they are shown to be separate abilities when Yamato has to disguise himself as someone whose voice he has never heard (Sasori) and has to consciously adjust his voice after transforming (guided by Sakura, who had heard him speak) until he matches it.
  • One Piece:
    • Usopp has a talent for mimicking other people's voices perfectly. He usually uses this just to joke around, but he shows in the Alabasta arc that it's quite useful in combat, using it to defeat Miss Merry Christmas by tricking Mr. 4 into whacking her with his 4-ton bat.
    • Vinsmoke Niji, one of Sanji's older brothers, has this power, which came in use by impersonating Charlotte Nusstorte and tricking Charlotte Mont-D'or into giving away the Straw Hats' rendezvous location on Cacao Island. The anime shows that as long as Niji is touching someone, he'll be able to mimic their voices perfectly
  • In Paranoia Agent, Kawazu imitates all of Tsukiko’s coworker’s voices and mannerisms (and makeup) when trying to turn her against them. It starts off as a gag and Tsukiko smiles in what looks like amusement, but as it goes on it gradually stops being funny and Tsukiko stops smiling.
  • Team Rocket from Pokémon: The Series have sometimes used voice-changing megaphones to imitate other characters, including Ash. When Meowth uses one, however, it fails to mask his Brooklyn/Joisey accent.
  • Beatrice of Princess Principal, despite being the team's Token Mini-Moe, can effortlessly mimic a man's voice thanks to a steampunk-esque voicebox in her throat. As she's a spy, this comes in handy.
  • In Unico, the eponymous unicorn has the ability to mimic animal noises and a person's voice. In "The Tale of the Fangs of Athens" chapter, Unico reveals to Piro that he's able to do this immeditely after first hearing their voices. During a training session, he has a difficult time training Piro to become brave and strong due to stillmourning his mother's death. Noticing this, Unico decides to change his voice to Sphinx (Piro's deceased mother) as he voices encouragment to Piro during the session.

    Comic Books 
  • Batman:
    • Batman has the ability to perfectly impersonate many people's voices; his voice, in turn, can be perfectly impersonated by Alfred.
    • Damian Wayne uses this skill to fool the Batcave's voice-activated locks.
  • Diabolik:
    • Diabolik and Eva Kant usually combine this with Latex Perfection and very good acting, and between those Altea can't tell her fiancée Ginko from a disguised Diabolik, nor Ginko can tell Altea from a disguised Eva.
    • While they're the ones who do it most often, the ability is shown to be relatively common, with good actors being able to learn how to imitate at least one voice. Ginko himself has copied multiple voices, and Eva has been impersonated successfully enough to fool Diabolik at least twice.
  • The Disney Mouse and Duck Comics have a few:
    • Miklos, alias the Grey Mouse, as part of him being a Master of Disguise. He's good enough that Mickey can't tell him from O'Hara, and the only one who can reliably tell Mickey from Miklos (his favourite disguise) is Pluto (Minnie too, but it takes her a while and isn't usually sure).
    • Paperinik, both in his classic stories and Paperinik New Adventures. What makes this funny is that he's actually Donald Duck.
    • Paperinik New Adventures adds One, Two, Solomon Hicks, Geena, the Raider, Grrodon, and Trauma. Most of them are justified, as One, Two and Solomon are artificial intelligences, Geena is a droid from the 23rd century, the Raider uses 23rd-century technology for his disguises and Grrodon is a shape-shifting alien Super-Soldier. Trauma, on the other hand, is just unexplained.
    • Fantomius the Gentleman Thief and his fiancée/accomplice Dolly Paprika.
  • Kylun from Excalibur (Marvel Comics) has this as his mutant ability, able to mimic any sound or voice he heard flawlessly (his favorites are birdsong). A childhood spent stranded in a magic dimension also affords him a cat-like body and magic swords that can cut through anything that isn't "pure of heart" to shore up the lack of combat ability that this apparently provides. He's a bit embarassed about it, as it's only rarely useful (though when it is, it's very useful), and while his teammates are a bit amused, they point out how it just makes his heroics even more incredible.
  • GloomCookie: Isabella imitates Lex's voice and tricks Damion into thinking that she hurt Lex. Later on, Moon Raven is able to imitate Lex's voice and trick Vermillion into meeting her at his house.
  • Superman, Depending on the Writer and franchise, either through "Super-Ventriloquism" or just being an excellent actor.
  • Wonder Woman:
    • Wonder Woman (1942): Don Enrago can mimic others' voices to perfection, and later uses this ability to impersonate one of his students, a young woman, after abducting her and chaining her in his torture dungeon.
    • Wonder Woman (1987): Artemis, Euboea and Io hunt down and recapture an escaped Leucrocota that tries manipulating them by imitating the voices of other Amazons.

    Fan Works 
  • BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant: Despite being a clone of Saya, Kappa-10/Penny Polendina doesn't sound anything like her. As she reveals in Chapter 40, this is because she has very precise control of her vocal cords and can completely disguise her original voice. The only times she reverts back to her old voice are when she's in immense distress, such as when she sees Ragna get impaled and in the aftermath of Tukson's death.
  • This Bites!:
    • Soundbite can mimic any sound he's ever heard, backwards, forwards, or any other way you can think of. This is, however, the only way that he can speak, which results in him using an amalgamation of different voices for his sentences. Chapter 17 reveals that he's fully capable of picking one voice and sticking with it, and he explains his reasoning for doing otherwise: when he gives animals the ability to speak with his powers, he determines their voices based on what/who they are. The voices he gives them suit them, but his own voice is all of the voices. Cross dubs the ability "Gastro-Clone".
    • In the Sabaody Revolution arc, Nefratari Vivi demonstrates the ability to disguise their voice as another voice entirely without Soundbite's aid.

    Films — Animation 
  • In Aladdin, Iago shows this ability when impersonating Jasmine and Jafar. His Jasmine impersonation is used to steal the lamp. Hand Waved by him being a parrot.
  • Bambi II eerily depicts a hunter's deer call this way, with Bambi hearing it as his mother's voice.
  • In The Little Mermaid (1989), Ursula acquires Ariel's voice through a magic spell.
  • Peter Pan has Peter perfectly replicating the voice of Captain Hook. This is used to trick Mr. Smee a number of times.
  • In Soul, Joe asks 22 why she sounds like "a middle-aged white lady". She explains that, as a soul not born to Earth yet in a hypothetical world, she can sound like someone else if she wants, demonstrating when she uses the voice of an old man, a child and even Joe himself. She just chose the voice she has because it annoys people.
  • Tarzan can do this as an extension of his ability to speak with animals. At one point, he perfectly imitates a gunshot.

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • The alzabo in Book of the New Sun is a semi-sentient alien creature that gains access to the memories of anyone that it eats. It also gains the ability to perfectly imitate their voice. It uses these as a hunting technique to lure prey out of hiding, and it is especially effective when it has eaten somebody's loved one.
  • Stefan from Brotherband is an excellent mimic. He's good enough to completely destroy the other team's tactics in a war game, just by calling out contradictory instructions in their leader's voice.
  • Tzigone from Counselors and Kings has this in her bag of tricks (in her youth, she was briefly part of a troupe of travelling entertainers who billed her as "the Human Mockingbird", though apparently there were problems with the feathers that were part of the costume). Throughout the trilogy, she mimics other characters' voices frequently and with an almost alarming degree of accuracy. It's unclear if this ability is purely mundane or if such precise vocal control is somehow connected to her Magic Music.
  • Several characters from the Discworld books have this ability:
    • TomJon from Wyrd Sisters has this as a result of the three witches' blessings; Nanny Ogg blessed him that he would "always remember the words", a handy ability for the adopted son of an actor.
    • Agnes Nitt from Maskerade and Carpe Jugulum has such amazing vocal ability that she can do this. The Vampires in Carpe Jugulum also demonstrate this ability when they're trying to coerce Magrat to unlock the door.
    • Mort has the ability to speak like Death when he begins to slip into Death's role, as does his daughter Susan when she feels like it.
  • In Richard Powell's Don Quixote, U.S.A., Arthur has the ability to mimic anyone he hears. When El Gavilan and Eduardo start fighting over the mike at the end of a pirate radio broadcast because El Gavilan likes to hear himself talk too much, Arthur grabs the flying mike and flawlessly imitates both of them to bring the program to a close.
  • Aza from Fairest is skilled at mimicking various sounds and voices, and often uses it while doing her illusing skill. For instance, she uses her mother's voice while pretending to sing for Ivi, and she perfectly sings in several characters' voices in quick succession at her and Ijori's wedding at the very end of the book.
  • In Hit Man by Lawrence Block, Keller uses an electronic voice changer to make himself sound like a teenage girl to lure the mark to a No-Tell Motel where he can be murdered. He has the advantage that he doesn't have to mimic a particular person — 'she' just rings him up and pretends to be someone he gave his phone number to at a party.
  • In The Hobbit, Gandalf uses this trick rather handily against a group of trolls.
  • In Horns, one of the powers Ig develops while transforming into a Big Red Devil is voice mimicry.
  • Richie Tozier from It has this ability, as one of the uncanny knacks all the kids get after defeating the monster for the first time. It's described as "not an imitation or even a likeness, exactly; it was more like an auditory painting".
  • Darrel, the head of Darrel's Detective Agency in Lawrence Treat's "Jackpot", not only can imitate anyone's voice but a wide range of sound effects as well, from a dog barking to a revving motorcycle. His favorite imitation is the sound of a cash register.
  • The wilderness-guide steamman Ironflanks from The Kingdom Beyond The Waves frequently mimics the cries of various jungle animals when he's excited, perfectly re-creating their vocalizations. His human companions take a while to catch on that this isn't just an affectation: he does this to vent excess steam from his boiler without betraying his position to enemies or rainforest predators, the way a normal steamman's pressure-release whistle would.
  • Konrad Beezo from Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz has the ability to mimic other people's voices with frightening perfection. He's an insane clown with many tricks up his sleeve, and uses this ability, along with some good plastic surgery, to impersonate an FBI agent.
  • Magical Girl Raising Project: Cranberry, Musician of the Forest, has powers related to sound, which allows her to imitate voices.
  • One of the Gasman's skills in Maximum Ride is the ability to mimic any sound.
  • In Alexei Pekhov's steampunk novel Mockingbird, the protagonist, Till, belongs to a Master Race called luchars. Each luchar is born with a unique superpower; Till's is imitating other people's voices and sounds. This "talent" is deemed absolutely useless, but the author uses it as a Chekhov's Gun and eventually gives Till his A Job for Aquaman moment.
  • Miss Marple is revealed to have this ability in A Murder Is Announced when she mimics a recently murdered woman in order to guilt the murderer into confessing.
  • No Gods for Drowning: Glories have the ability to copy the voices of their prey. They can then mimic the voice perfectly when they're communicating with others. They use this to lure people into coming close so they can kill them.
  • Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Tyson, like all cyclopes, can mimic voices and even entire conversations verbatim. It's considered incredibly creepy, so he doesn't use it that frequently.
  • Erik in The Phantom of the Opera. He uses it against Carlotta and several other characters.
  • Ruler of the Magical Keys: Vihrik, a mischievous warm wind in A Girl Named Glazastik, can perfectly imitate any voice. It comes in handy when he distracts a guard with the voice of the latter's fiancée.
  • The Ship Who...: Helva, the Ship Who Sang, trained her voice to have an astonishing range, from bass to coloratura. Normally she just uses it to, well, sing, but in The Ship Who Killed, she and her brawn Kira end up at a Cult Colony following the directives of Lia, another brainship, who crashed at the colony's edge and is constantly playing back her dead brawn's voice. Thinking quickly, Helva imitates his recorded voice, which distracts Lia for long enough that Kira can administer a Mercy Kill. Then as the cultists close in, Helva mimics Lia's voice and orders them to return Kira to her ship. The cultists, addled by long-term exposure to hallucinogenic gases, obey their "Temple" without question.
  • Wayside School's substitute teacher Mr. Gorf steals the kids' voices through his third nostril. He's able to deceive numerous parents, but he gets found out by the lunch lady when he says something uncharacteristically nice using a meaner student's voice.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The 4400: In "Ghost in the Machine", one of Jordan Collier's followers has the ability to perfectly imitate people's voices. He lures Kevin Burkhoff into a trap using Tess' voice, allowing Kyle to capture him and bring him to Promise City.
  • In the "Kalahari" episode of the Nature Documentary series Africa, a fork-tailed drongo bird imitates the alarm cry of a meerkat sentry, tricking the foraging meerkats into abandoning their prey to retreat to their burrows. The drongo then scarfs down the abandoned meal.
  • Dorian in Almost Human can do this. John hates it when Dorian imitates him.
  • The Angel episode "RmWAVu" has Dennis' mother as a ghostly spirit mimicking Angel's voice to lure Cordelia inside the haunted apartment she built.
  • Batman (1966): In one episode, Bruce Wayne is missing, so Alfred dresses up in the Batman outfit and talks with Commissioner Gordon and Chief O'Hara. He uses a special voice synthesizer to make himself sound like Batman and stands at a distance so that they can't identify him. "Batman" explains that he has a cold and doesn't want them to catch it.
  • In Charmed (1998), a few characters are shown to have this ability, complete with actor voiceovers.
  • In Doctor Who, this is a Time Lord power:
    • In "The Time Monster", the Master tries to trick Sergeant Benton into leaving the TOMTIT device unattended by impersonating the Brigadier over the telephone. However, while the Master does produce a perfect imitation of the Brigadier's voice, he gives himself away by addressing Benton as "my dear fellow", something the real Brigadier would never do.
    • In "The Masque of Mandragora", the Doctor masquerades as Heironymous by imitating his voice perfectly. Impressively, Tom Baker isn't actually dubbed in the scene and was doing the impersonation himself.
  • A mild example in The Flash (2014). When "the Streak" finally introduces himself to Iris, he disguises his identity as her best friend by keeping his face in the shadows (sometimes rapidly shaking his face to blur it), constantly zipping around, and disguising his voice by vibrating his vocal cords to create a heavy flanging effect. When he later demonstrates the voice to Joe, the latter is amazed that Barry can do it. The Reverse-Flash does the same thing, except he vibrates his whole body to blur it, somehow causes his eyes to glow red, and the voice is a lot more disguised. Both of the above were achieved through voice changing software in Real Life. Played more straight with Zoom, whose voice actor as Zoom (Tony Todd) is different from the actor playing him, mostly to hide the eventual Reveal. The same thing is done with Savitar, whose voice actor (Tobin Bell) is completely different from Savitar's real identity (Barry Allen's future time remnant).
  • Gilligan of Gilligan's Island fame occasionally does perfect voice imitations.
  • Happy!: The voice of Very Bad Santa's sock puppet is female, making the already bizarre sock puppet ventriloquism scenes that much more surreal.
  • Henry Danger: In "Stuck in Two Holes", when Jake calls Jasper in the Man Cave and wonders where Henry is, Schwoz uses a headband which electronically disguises his voice as Henry's so he can cover for him.
  • In the It's About Time episode "Witch Doctor's Which", Hector perfectly mimics Boss' voice so as to fool the tribe into thinking Shad turned Boss into a monkey.
  • Zein from Kamen Rider Outsiders is capable of mimicking anyone's voice to a perfectly terrifying degree. By impersonating Nico Saiba, it tricks the CEO of a video game company to relaunch a certain Deadly Game in order to hasten the extinction of the human race.
  • Bree is given this ability late in Lab Rats. At one point, she can use it in conjuntion with her Holographic Disguise, but it glitches and is never seen again.
  • Person of Interest: The Machine and Samaritan are capable of this, despite usually communicating with either a mish-mash of assembled voice clips or via human avatars. A chilling example occurs in "QSO" when the host of a conspiracy theory radio show has stumbled on a secret that Samaritan would rather did not get out. During a live broadcast, his soundboard and phone lines go dead, yet he continues to hear his own voice talking over the radio, announcing that he intends to commit suicide.
  • Power Rangers:
  • In Scrubs, J.D. has the ability to perfectly mimic Turk's voice. In the solitary occasion we see it, Donald Faison voices over Zach Braff's lipsync. He justifies by having worked on the imitation for years, besides he loses the perfection later in the episode while trying to show off.
  • Star Trek:
  • This trope is used as a one-off gag in an episode of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody when Zack is trying to get the two out of school by perfectly mimicking their mother Carey's voice. He does it again after Cody compliments him, telling him to tuck in his shirt.
  • Supernatural:
    • Angels have the ability to imitate voices. In "The Song Remains the Same", Anna uses it when she calls John Winchester posing as his boss to lure him away.
    • Castiel presumably employs this ability in "Death Takes a Holiday" when he calls the brothers with a job pretending to be Bobby. However, since the call is shown from Sam's perspective, we don't actually see him do it.
    • The crocotta in "Long-Distance Call" has the ability to perfectly mimic voices, which it uses to catch people to eat.
  • Cameron from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles can do this. She uses this memorably in one scene, where she's talking to the principal about an emotional rant that a classmate had in the bathroom to Cameron. Cameron usually speaks with a Creepy Monotone, but in this one instance, Cameron recites what the classmate said, word for word, inflection for inflection. It's more than slightly unsettling. She later makes John Connor cry by perfectly imitating the voice of his dead girlfriend, while trying to convince that girlfriend's foster father that she's alive and has simply run away.
  • This is Suki Sato's power in Tower Prep, allowing her to perfectly copy any voice she hears.
  • In True Blood, a few vampire characters are able to do this. For example, Bill throws Eric into a pit of wet cement, then calls Pam while pretending to be Eric. At another point, Eric takes out a guard, then imitates the guard and says to his partners that he found nothing.
  • Victorious: Jade pulls this off twice. First in "Prom Wrecker" where she imitates Tori well enough to cancel the band Tori had gotten for the dance. She pulls this off again in "Opposite Date" where she perfectly imitates Cat's voice when talking on the phone with Tori.
  • The pilot of Wonder Woman (1975) shows Wonder Woman perfectly impersonating a German spy's voice. She uses this ability a few more times in season one but never in the subsequent seasons.

    Manhwa 
  • In Auto Hunting, the Red Dragon Gale squad working with Oh Yunsung is understandably quite annoyed since he's paralyzing them and dumping them atop a plateau without explanation, due to Language Barrier, and fail to understand his motives... until they hear their own voices coming from below. Surprise! There's a Wicked Tricker in the area, known as one of "The Deadly Four" for a reason!

    Myths & Religion 
  • The Ahuizotl of Aztec Mythology is often credited with this ability. Its favorite tactic was to imitate the cries of a small child to attract the attention of sympathetic people who are then pulled to a watery grave by the creature.
  • Brazilian Folklore:
    • The Pé-de-Garrafa (Bottle Foot), a hairy single-legged monster, often has this ability, replicating the voice of people and shouting horrendous screams so he lures his victims deep into the woods.
    • The Cabra Cabriola is a bogeyman-like monstruous nanny goat that preys on misbehaving children at night. In order to enter their houses, she can mimic the voices of the child's parents so he or she will open the door and let her pass.
  • Echo in Classical Mythology was famous for having a gift with speaking and a beautiful voice — but one day she misused her ability, and Hera cursed her to only ever repeat the last thing that had been said to her. Eventually her heart was broken so that she faded away to nothing but her voice — and obviously, an echo can always reproduce exactly what was said before.
  • In Japanese legend, the ape-like youkai known as "Yamabiko" are known for stalking people in the mountains, terrorizing them by repeating everything they say back to them in their own voice. Now, guess what "yamabiko" means in Japanese...?note 
  • The Leucrotta or Crocotta, a hooved hyena-like creature with a lion's tail and jagged bone instead of teeth, is described in medieval bestiaries as capable of imitating humans to attract curious people or dogs to be eaten.

    Pinballs 
  • One-Eye the talking skull from Bone Busters speaks in a variety of voices and pitches.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Arduin: According to The Compleat Arduin Book 2: Resources, the Greater Demon Gorog-Nor, the Hungry One, can mimic the voices of creatures he eats. He uses this ability to lure the victim's friends to him so he can devour them as well.
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • Some feats or class features, such as the Assassin sub-class' "Imposter" ability, allows the character to perfectly mimic another's speech, as well as their writing and behaviour, after a few hours of close study.
    • Ahuizotls are amphibious monkey-jaguars that lure humanoids in by mimicking cries for help, before slashing out their victims' eyes and pinning them underwater to drown.
    • Cheliceras are blood-sucking Giant Spiders that can also mimic any noise they've heard. As unintelligent vermin, they have to test each sound they encounter to see what reliably draws in prey, usually finding that garbled or faint speech, or the screams of previous victims, are the most effective lures.
    • Leucrottas are sadistic badger-hyenas who can mimic the sounds of other animals or even humanoids, in order to lure victims into ambushes. They can also "replay" the sounds of their victims, particularly the ones they managed to keep alive for a long time, to torment their prey and entertain themselves.
    • Mongrelfolk are fantastic vocal mimics, sort of like how their extremely mixed heritage lets them count as any given race for the purpose of using magic items.
    • Two races of Bird People, the tengu and kenku, are natural vocal mimics, while oddly enough the parrot-like aarakocra are not. The flightless, corvid kenku deserve special mention, as in their original 5th Edition rules, they were The Echoer, only able to communicate by mimicking voices or sounds they'd heard before.
  • The Baddacelli bloodline in Vampire: The Requiem compensate for their blindness with a sound-based Discipline that, among other things, lets them perfectly imitate any voice they have ever heard. It's how they hunt:
    "Mommy? Mommy, is that you? Please! I'm in here. It's so dark! I can't see you, Mommy... come closer."

    Toys 
  • The Oohnorak spiders of BIONICLE use Telepathy to read the minds of their victims, then mimic the voice of a person they know to lure them into a trap. Otherwise, they can't actually talk (aside from their own spider language, of course).

    Video Games 
  • AI: The Somnium Files: If choosing the balloon cage in Mizuki's somnium near the beginning, the last mental block is eliminated by having Aiba use the loudspeaker to speak some comforting words to her in Shoko's voice.
  • In Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse, this can be done by stealing the original voice and bottling it (as opposed to simply duplicating it).
  • ANNO: Mutationem: The Monster Compendium entry for the Bloodluster creature describes when it hunts in packs out in the wild, it can imitate any voice that it has overheard to lure prey to their death.
  • Deadly Rooms of Death: One secret room reveals that the Pit Thing has this ability, though he only uses it that one time to Troll Beethro.
  • In Deep Rock Galactic, the Rival corporation's Nemesis killbot will use the same voice callouts as player dwarves — "I'm hurt!" "Over here!" or even "We're rich!" — to lure miners into range of its Combat Tentacles, though with low audio fidelity and occasional stutters to reveal the ruse. It's especially unnerving to hear another "dwarf" when you're playing solo.
  • Connor and Markus both display this ability in Detroit: Become Human. In "The Stratford Tower", Markus uses it to distract a human receptionist by posing as a fireman, a teacher, or a parking attendant over the phone. Connor can optionally use it in "Last Chance, Connor" to mimic the voice of either Markus or one of the Traci androids from an earlier chapter, and if he becomes deviant, he can copy a guard's voice while infiltrating CyberLife Tower.
  • In Ensemble Stars!, voice mimicry is among Wataru's many entertainment skills. He also taught it to his apprentice Natsume.
  • Peter Pan once again demonstrates this ability of his in Kingdom Hearts, drawing Captain Hook out of hiding by imitating Smee's voice from the other side of a door.
  • Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords: This is how the HK-50 unit managed to kill nearly everyone on the Peragus Mining Facility. Atris still refuses to believe the Exile's saying that pretty much everyone on the manned staff of the Peragus Mining Station was already dead, despite it being nothing but the actual truth.
  • The reworked Fiddlesticks in League of Legends absorbs the voices of people he kills, as demonstrated in his (teaser trailer).
  • Mass Effect: Andromeda: Ryder manages to pull this off with a little help from SAM, imitating a kett goon to get through a door. Their teammates are a little creeped out by it.
  • Monster Hunter 3 (Tri): The Qurupeco can mimic an array of monster cries. Which can turn a simple hunt into a nightmare.
  • In a few of her intros in Mortal Kombat 11, Mileena reveals that while she normally speaks with a slightly deep and occasionally guttural voice, she can perfectly imitate Kitana's refined Lady of War voice on command. This makes an amusing amount of sense given that Mileena is a clone of Kitana, and both characters are usually voiced by the same actress (in the case of 11, by Kari Wahlgren).
  • Both Alex Mercer from [PROTOTYPE] and James Heller from [PROTOTYPE 2] can use the voice of anyone they shapeshift into after eating them. Mercer uses this to call artillery strikes at desired targets. Interestingly, this apparently requires additional conscious effort given both characters grunt and monologue in their default voices even while disguised, which leads to this gem:
    Pilot: Doctor Carson, we're ready for your pickup, but we can't land until the, uh, disturbance on the ground is dealt with. Over.
    Heller (as himself): Roger th— [clears throat]
    Heller (as Doctor Carson): Roger that. Let's just hope someone can save our wuss asses from whatever the fuck is going on out there.
    Pilot: Uh, right... Over and out.
  • Chisato of Suikoden V is known as The Woman of a Thousand Voices, and for good reason: she can do astounding things with her voice. Her range is so fantastic that, at one point, she perfectly duplicates the voice of a pirate captain to trick his crew into lowering their guard at a critical moment. As a member of the Loyalist Army, she also functions as the Voice Changer, enabling the player to alter the sound of the Prince's voice.
  • The wendigos from Until Dawn can mimic others' voices, although this ability is only displayed once in the tunnels connecting the lodge with the asylum. If you fall for it, Ashley, Chris or both can die.

    Visual Novels 
  • The Big Bad of Gyakuten Kenji 2 possesses this talent. It's represented with playing Edgeworth's "Objection" audio clip instead of their own.

    Webcomics 
  • Willis from Awful Hospital can "recreate almost any voice to perfection." Pretty good for someone with no discernible mouth.
  • Last Res0rt has Spirit of the Murphy's Law, who can do this flawlessly enough to give orders to the players by imitating Cypress over the intercom.

    Web Originals 
  • The image for the page is based off of a short Creepypasta in which someone hears their mother call them downstairs, but then hears their mother right behind them going "I heard it, too!" It's up to the reader to decide which voice, if any, actually belongs to the narrator's mother.
  • Red Panda Adventures supervillain the Crimson Death has voice changing among his Combo Platter Powers, taken from a low-level supervillain called Mockingbird. He doesn't use it as part of his plans often, however he has a different voice every time he appears. This has been used to hide the fact he's the villain of the week.
  • The SCP Foundation holds several specimens of SCP-939, which that can perfectly imitate the voices of dead humans. This of their tools used to lure in prey. Naturally, this is one of their less creepy traits.
  • In one episode of Search and Rescue Woods, the narrator remembers a time he heard a child crying and went to investigate, only to stop himself when he realizes the crying is the exact same every time he hears it...
  • One of the powers Vox uses the most in the Whateley Universe. She's a Siren, so she can do a lot more than just Voice Changeling. Including perfectly imitating a pop singer and the singer's backup singers and the singer's background musicians, all at the same time.
  • In Worm, Screamer, a former member of the Slaughterhouse Nine, could mimic people's voices, which she used to sow chaos and disrupt communications.

    Web Videos 
  • The titular monster from the Crypt TV short The Mimic can copy voices near perfectly to distract and lull prey.
  • In Fixing RWBY, Melanie Malachite has a Semblance that lets her perfectly mimic any voice she hears. She demonstrates it in the finale of season six by disguising herself as a male Atlas pilot for her and Cinder to ambush a supply depot. She then mimics Cinder's voice to tease her, to Cinder's displeasure.
  • Kane Pixels' The Backrooms has a strange spindly creature only known as Bacteria. Its appearance in Pitfalls shows that it can mimic human voices it hears to lure in potential victims.

    Western Animation 
  • Adventure Time: In "One Last Job", Jake's old gang includes the Flying Lettuce Brothers, a pair of Creepy Twins who can work in tandem to imitate just about anyone's voice.
  • The Amazing World of Gumball: The episode "The Parasite" opens with Anais' voice narrating her diary entry about making a new friend at school, but at the end of the scene it's revealed that the voice-over was just Gumball doing a perfect imitation of her, and he and Darwin stole her diary and were reading it in secret. Darwin compliments Gumball on his perfect impression of Anais, and Gumball thanks him in her voice. Gumball uses his Anais voice several more times throughout the episode, on one occasion prompting retribution by the real Anais.
  • One episode of American Dad! has Francine do this to Stan during her "kidnapping" of Roger.
  • Amphibia: In "Adventures in Catsitting", Hop Pop is able to mimic the confirmation sound of a bus card reader, and later copies a fire alarm to drive the customers out of a shawarma restaurant.
  • Around the World with Willy Fog: Fittingly for a Master of Disguise, Transfer has the ability to imitate perfectly the voices of others. This includes Fog and Dix, whom he impersonates so convincingly that it even fools those who are familiar with them.
  • In Camp Lazlo, Clam can mimic people's voices, as shown in the episode "Being Edward".
  • The Crumpets: In the episode "Pity the Prize", Cassandra mimics the voice of the Weather Girl as part of her disguise of her, though she accidentally speaks in her regular voice for a few times.
  • Danger Mouse: In "The Wild, Wild Goose Chase", Danger Mouse does an uncannily accurate imitation of Baron Greenback's voice in order to operate a device that will tell Greenback where his next hideout will be when present coordinates are entered.
  • In one episode of Dexter's Laboratory, Dexter uses a machine to copy the exact voices of his babysitter and her boyfriend to sever their relationship so that he can move in himself.
  • In the Donkey Kong Country episode "Kong for a Day", it is revealed that Krusha can perfectly imitate voices. K. Rool has Krusha use his imitation of DK's voice to insult Dixie and Diddy, making the both of them get angry at DK.
  • DuckTales:
    • In the DuckTales (1987) episode "Armstrong", Armstrong perfectly imitates Gyro's voice to deter the triplets from coming to investigate.
    • DuckTales (2017) is full of these. For example:
      • Mrs. Beakley is able to imitate Roxanne Featherly's voice perfectly to practice with Scrooge in "Jaw$!"
      • While possessing Lena in "The Shadow War Part I: The Night of De Spell!", Magica speaks with her own voice, Lena's voice, as well as Scrooge's voice.
      • Louie mimics Huey's voice while he's disguised as him twice in "GlomTales!" and "Beaks in the Shell!".
      • Webby demonstrates this ability in the episode "Escape from the Impossibin!" when she perfectly mimics Dewey’s voice to throw Huey off guard while also disguised as him. She also does this in the series finale while she's disguised as June.
  • The Fairly OddParents!:
    • In "The Really Bad Day", Timmy calls up Vicky to try and get a bad idea for Cosmo to carry out. He disguises his voice to pretend to be a "completely random survey", and pulls off a perfect deep, smooth adult male voice while doing so.
    • In "Information Stupor Highway", when Cosmo and Wanda fool Timmy's dad into thinking Timmy is using the bathroom, Cosmo turns his head into Timmy's and does a perfect Timmy voice saying "Do you mind? I'm doing my homework." Being a fairy, Cosmo can presumably change his vocal chords by magic.
    • "Hassle in the Castle" shows that Timmy can perfectly imitate Wanda's voice.
  • In Filmation's Ghostbusters, Belfry's cousin Beauregard is capable of deceiving the bad guys by imitating voices, flawlessly imitating Prime Evil's voice in the episode "Country Cousin" and that of Jake Kong in "Whither Why".
  • An episode of Futurama has Prof. Farnsworth invent a machine that makes anyone sound like him (and which is quickly borrowed by Hermes's son Dwight and Farnsworth's clone Cubert). His explanation:
    Dwight: What's this device's marketability? Who's its target consumer?
    Farnsworth: There is no target consumer, only targets. Targets who will tremble in fear, as their new masters hand down edicts in my GLORIOUS BOOMING VOICE!
  • In G.I. Joe: Renegades, Zartan has the ability to perfectly mimic any voice he hears. When he was just a gang leader, it was primarily a tool to torment his victims, but it becomes especially useful after he gains possession of a device that can project holographic disguises onto himself, making said disguises virtually flawless.
  • In Herself the Elf, Willow Song demonstrates this ability by mimicking Thorn's voice as a ruse, but this effect wears off quickly.
  • Hey Arnold!: Arnold does a perfect impression of his grandpa over the phone as he calls in sick to school when he and Gerald cut class.
  • Justice League Action: In the short web episode "Missing the Mark", the Joker and the Trickster both kidnap famous (voice) actor Mark Hamill. Hamill (who actually voices both characters for the show) gets them to fight each other by imitating their voices. (They're rescued by, incidentally, Swamp Thing, who is also voiced by Hamill in this series!)
  • In the Littlest Pet Shop (2012) episode "Gailbreak!", Blythe, Russell, and Sunil attempt to break their friends and Zoe's sister Gail out of Largest Ever Pet Shop's day camp, but can't get past Monban, the robot security guard that only responds to the Biskits' voice. They devise a plan in which they attach a pair of cordless headphones to Monban's auditory sensors, and Blythe, over a walkie-talkie, perfectly mimics the Biskit Twins' voice note  to command the robot to release the pets in the day camp.
    Blythe: [in the Biskit Twins' voice] Monban, can't you do anything right? You should totally go release the pets like, now!
  • Looney Tunes: "Robin Hood Makes Good", an early Chuck Jones Merrie Melodies short, has a small squirrel save his older brothers from a fox preparing to cook them in his cabin by perfectly imitating a group of human hunters and their hounds, complete with his voice going from sounding like a prepubescent young child (voiced by a woman, no less!) to sounding like adult males (with his imitations being provided by Mel Blanc). The imitations are so convincing the fox gets so terrified that he turns all yellow and tries to get out the back door to the point where he loses his grip on reality and manages to break free, he's still panicky and banging on the door clinging to his body while running down a pathway. Even the older squirrel brothers are fooled, opening the front door and saying in unison, "Gee, fellas, thanks a lot", only to find no one there but their little squirrel brother.
  • My Gym Partner's a Monkey:
    • In one episode, the gang tries to prank-call people by imitating Principal Pixiefrog. Adam and Slips do bad imitations, while Jake does it perfectly and manages to fool Pixiefrog himself.
    • Jake also does it in another episode, where he imitated Pixiefrog over the school's intercom, and again fooling the real deal.
  • Subverted in My Life as a Teenage Robot when Jenny provides a spot-on impression of her mother... by playing a tape she has recorded internally. She puts on her mother's glasses for full effect.
  • One The New Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo Show episode has the Master of Disguise villain named the Chameleon perfectly pull off Scooby-Doo's voice when disguised in a Scooby-Doo mask and body costume. The fake Scooby voice was even provided by Don Messick instead of the Chameleon's regular voice actor.
  • In Ninjago, the second Samurai X has this ability, which she uses to obfuscate her real identity to Nya. The fact that she can alternate between voices on the fly so effortlessly foreshadows that she's the Fembot P.I.X.A.L.
  • The Owl House:
    • In "Yesterday's Lie", Vee demonstrates the inate ability to perfectly mimic other people's voices. It's apparently a completely mundane skill for their species, as she's able to freely swap between Luz's voice and her own even after she's completely run out of magic reserves to shapeshift.
    • Amity uses a spell that makes her sound like her father in "Reaching Out" to send an Abomaton on a Snipe Hunt. Unlike the previous example, this spell is more akin to a voice changing microphone since her real voice can still be heard underneath his.
  • PJ Masks: Munki-Gu, a villain introduced in season 4, has this ability, and uses it to great effect to play pranks on people.
  • The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In "Telephonies", Grubber copies the Mayor's voice (and even Miss Bellum's voice to fool the Mayor!) to make fake crises and divert the Powerpuff Girls. What makes it doubly funny is that Grubber is usually The Unintelligible. However, in "Buttercrush", he does an absolutely terrible impression of Buttercup.
  • Rocky and Bullwinkle: Played with in a "Fan Club" sketch when Boris does impression act for a telethon and pulls off a perfect imitation of Bullwinkle. It turns out that the "imitation" is his real voice, and that his "normal" voice is just a bad accent.
  • In an episode of Rugrats, Angelica steals an invention of Stu's which allows her to speak in the voice of her mother Charlotte and uses it to buy things and throw a party for herself, though it still contains her usual childish inflections such as "bestest" and "ezackly".
  • Hordak's Imp from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power can apparently repeat any conversation he overhears using the participants' actual voices. Very handy when your underlings are keeping secrets from you. Whether or not he can use the voices he samples to remix an original conversation is unknown, however.
  • Spider-Man (1967): In "To Catch a Spider", Spider-Man defeats Green Goblin, Vulture, and Electro by throwing his voice and imitating them to make them think they insulted each other. The villains angrily attack each other and knock each other out.
  • In Stōked, Reef does a perfect impersonation of Mr. Ridgemount to distract Bummer away from the phone.
  • Superman: The Animated Series:
    • Superman has this ability. It's explained as "precise muscle control".
    • The Parasite can mimic the voices of people whose energy he's absorbed. In his debut episode "Feeding Time", he power-drains Clark/Superman and imprisons him so that he can keep feeding. When Clark points out that his co-workers will start asking questions, Parasite reveals that he can perfectly mimic Clark's voice, allowing "Clark" to call in sick.
  • The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!: In "Hooded Robin and His Mario Men", the hero Hooded Robin can imitate any voice. When Mario and his friends get captured in the beginning, Hooded Robin imitates King Koopa's voice and orders the mooks to leave, then frees them. Later, he imitates a girl's voice to lure a guard away.
  • Teen Titans Go!:
    • Cyborg once mimics his own grandmother's vocal tones to taunt a villain, only to find himself adopting her personality when his voice gets stuck that way for days.
    • In "Pig in a Poke", Robin, Beast Boy and Cyborg make impressions of various incarnations of the Joker (Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, Jared Leto and Mark Hamill) to fool his goons and enter his lair. Note that the three characters are usually voiced respectively by Scott Menville, Greg Cipes and Khary Payton, but when they do the Joker impressions, they're all voiced by Eric Bauza.
  • Transformers:
    • In The Transformers's third season, Starscream's ghost uses this ability when he possesses and poses as other Decepticons. He and Octane also joke about this trope, taking turns imitating each other.
    • In Transformers: Animated, Soundwave utilizes his voice-modulation systems to forge messages on the phone line and Autobot comlink.
  • In one episode of Watch My Chops, after Corneil learns Bernie basically made him risk exposure solely to return a videotape to Romeo, he obtains a voice modulator to disguise his voice as the school's principal to make a call to Bernie by telling him they witnessed Corneil's secret, causing Bernie a Freak Out.

    Real Life 
  • The Lyrebird can mimic almost any sound it hears. The more complex the better. It's not limited to other birds' songs.
  • Mockingbirds and crows are also famously good mimics.
  • Impressions, when practiced, can be extremely accurate, or even spot on.
  • Tigers are capable of imitating the cries of other animals in order to lure them in for hunting, with examples including deer, bears, and allegedly monkeys. It's theorized that the chirping sound that domestic cats make right before attacking rodents and birds is for similar reasons.
  • Voice Actors are often called upon to provide vocal imitations of certain physical actors either for a No Celebrities Were Harmed type of character or for Looping Lines on a film when the actor is unavailable. A lot of the art of voice acting is being able to start with a particular impersonation before twisting it into an original character. Those with sufficient skill and practice often become labeled a Man of a Thousand Voices, and you get enough of them together an entire cast can be filled out by six people.
  • Now possible with audio deep fakes and similar technology. This can be done with permission, such as James Earl Jones authorizing a voice synthesizer that replicates his voice to enable him to retire while more Star Wars media are made featuring Darth Vader. But it is most commonly used illegally for frauds.

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J.D.'s Turk impression

J.D. can perfectly mimic Turk's voice.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (8 votes)

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