Voiceover Letter

"For the first time in his long search, he has heard her voice again —
if only in writing."

— Narrator, King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow

The narration voiceover of what the on-screen characters are reading. This narration is usually in the voice of the person who wrote the text, although whomever is reading the text may fade in or out at the start or end of the message.

While named for letters being read by a second party, this trope covers any text that gets a voiceover from the author. These could be text messages, diary entries, or posted signs. Often the audience will not see the text in question, but shorter scripts may allow the whole thing to be shown briefly on the screen. Visually, we are often watching the reader for the Reaction Shot, the author while they write, or a flashback that the writing narrates the events of.

Subtrope of Inner Monologue. Compare Reading Foreign Signs Out Loud (for the methods of translating foreign language text shown onscreen) and Sounding It Out (for when the character who is reading the letter does so out loud). Often overlaps with other letter tropes, such as Epistolary Novel (for when one or more letters form a Framing Device for the story), and Epilogue Letter (for when the letter serves as summary/ending for a story). See also Pop-Up Texting for a more modern version.

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Examples:

Advertising

• "Dear Alice": The grandmother's letter to her granddaughter Alice, which is seen attached to the fridge at the end of the short, is read as a voiceover.

Anime & Manga

• Attack on Titan has Christa/Historia reads Ymir's letter, with Ymir's voiceover reading it aloud. The anime letter is somewhat abridged from the manga, in which Ymir relates some of her backstory.
• In Bleach, Aizen's letter to Momo, which he leaves behind just before his apparent death, is read aloud in his voice.
• Misa's farewell letter for Yusa in episode 12 of Charlotte, where at first it's Yusa who reads the letter, but halfway through the voice changes into Misa's. They share the same voice actress, though.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba has this happen with Urokodaki's letter to the head of the Demon Slayer Corps, in which he vouches for Nezuko's character and says that if she does attack someone, he, Giyu and Tanjiro will all commit Seppuku to atone for it.
• In the second episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Ed reads aloud the certificate from Fuhrer King Bradley granting him the status of State Alchemist and the title of Fullmetal Alchemist, but after a moment, Bradley's voiceover takes over.
• In the 2017 anime of Kino's Journey, Kino receives two letters at the end of "A Kind Country," one from Sakura's mother and one from Sakura herself. After the volcano destroys the country, Kino starts reading both of them aloud, at which point the letter writer takes over.
• When Cobra gets Vivi's letter in One Piece, which reveals Crocodile to be the mastermind behind the Alabasta civil war, she begins reading the letter aloud.
• Used in episode 158 of Ranma ½.
• Episode 16 of Steins;Gate: Suzuha's letter, which is read by Okabe, that explains her failure. At first it's Okabe who reads it, but not long after that the voice changes into Suzuha's, in a depressed tone.
• In Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online, when LLENN reads the letter from Pito to M, she starts reading, then the voiceover switches to Pito's voice.
• Tamagotchi:
  • In Yume Kira Dream episode 10, Mametchi leaves Ikaritchi some cookies he brought back from Tamagotchi Town along with a letter explaining them. The brief letter is read aloud in Mametchi's voice when Ikaritchi reads it.
  • In Yume Kira Dream episode 35, the farewell letter written by Himespetchi is read in her voice as the others receive it and run to say goodbye to her.
• As you'd expect from a series where the protagonist writes letters for others in her job, one of these, involving extracts from four letters, occurs at the end of Episode 10 of Violet Evergarden when Ann receives the letters her mother and Violet wrote throughout the episode. They are read in the mother's voice. You can see/hear it here.
• Kaori's letter at the end of Your Lie in April is voiced by her. It also counts as Dead Man Writing.
• There's a case from Yu-Gi-Oh! when Tea reads Pegasus's diary.
• In Yuki Yuna is a Hero - Hero Chapter, Yuna's journal that details the circumstances behind the curse she's been implanted with is narrated in her voice.

Asian Animation

• Happy Heroes: Whenever a character reads a note from another character, it's usually read in the voice of the character who wrote it.
• In the Simple Samosa episode "Tutti Frutti", Tutti Frutti's voice reads the letter she wrote to her father, Mayor Royal Falooda, informing him that she's tired of him repeatedly asking her questions and she's running away.

Film — Animation

• Done twice in Anomalisa. In the beginning we hear Bella voicing her letter that Michael reads on the plane. Happens again at the end. This time it is Lisa voicing out her letter to Michael.
• Kiki's Delivery Service, the letter right near the end. Her father begins reading it but it fades out into Kiki's voice.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: Starting with the ending of Rainbow Rocks, each time Sunset Shimmer writes a message to Princess Twilight in her magical book, we hear the content as a voiceover. In Forgotten Friendship, we also hear Twilight responding, making it sounds like a dialogue.
• At the end of Shaun the Sheep: The Movie, Shaun finds a letter left by Slip the dog, and we hear her voiceover as he reads it. Except, Slip, like all animals (and indeed humans) in Shaun the Sheep doesn't actually talk, so we just hear her barking.
• In When Marnie Was There, when Anna reads Marnie's diary, the lines are voiced by Marnie herself.

Films — Live-Action

• Are You Being Served?: When Captain Peacock reads Mrs. Slocombe's love letter, it is all heard in his mind in her voice.
• Subtly played with in Back to the Future Part III. At the end of Part II, Marty receives a letter from the temporally-displaced Doc Brown which had been sent 70 years prior. Marty begins to read it aloud... and then the next morning, it's read aloud in its entirety for both Marty and the audience by the 1955 Doc, who is also reading it for the first time.
• In Corvette Summer, Kenny voices the letters he writes to McGrath about his progress in tracking down his stolen car.
• In The Cranes Are Flying, when Veronika starts reading the letter from her boyfriend Boris, her voice switches over to his.
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button uses this for its frame story (although it's a diary, not a letter).
• In The Dark Knight, Rachel's "Dear John" Letter to Bruce that we see Alfred reading is voiced out by Rachel herself.
• Emily: Variation, when characters read Emily's writing, her voiceover reads out the excerpts.
• In Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), when Peter reads the note from his mother.
• Played with in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Harry reads an article by Rita Skeeter, and we hear her voiceover of what it says. A few sentences in, it pisses him off so much he throws it into the fire, and Rita's voice first tries to cram in as much as possible, and then screams as the article burns. Given that talking envelopes exist in this series, it's quite possible that the letter was actually reading itself out loud.
• In Your Afterglow: Several characters keep journals, and they all mentally read their entries aloud.
• When Dr. Rogers reads Cooper's diary in The Man Who Turned to Stone, it is narrated in Cooper's voice.
• The Notorious Daughter of Fanny Hill: After each client, Kissey writes her thoughts regarding them down in her diary. The shots of her writing are accompanied by a voiceover of her reading what she is writing. Oddly, the actress seems to actually seems to be reading at the speed she is writing, so there are significant pauses between words.
• Rocco and His Brothers: The "Rocco" section of the movie starts with Rocco getting a Voiceover Letter from his mom in which she catches him up on events while he's been away in the army.
• In The Rocky Horror Picture Show, during the "Eddie's Teddy" number, Dr. Scott reveals a note his (late) nephew sent him warning him that he was in trouble. Eddie's voiceover reads the note out loud, ending with him screaming in terror.
• The letters from Anna to her parents-in-law in The Seventh Continent are voiced by her.
• Spoofed in Top Secret!. Nick Rivers arrives at his banquet table and finds a note from his agent waiting. As he starts reading it, the agent's voice appears, slightly distorted, as if done in voiceover. As Nick keeps reading, the agent walks into frame towards the table, talking in stride with the letter with a small megaphone over his mouth.
• This, from Tough Guys Don't Dance, has a voiceover when reading a letter about a woman's husband in bed with the reader's wife, then requesting that the reader kill the two people mentioned, followed by Narmish melodrama.
• In Vertigo, we hear Judy's voice as she writes her letter to Scottie, spelling out The Reveal to the audience.
• Played with in WarGames, when Joshua types, somewhat justified in the fact that David has a text-to-speech device, but it's totally unnecessary in-universe, but is HandWaved by David trying to impress Jennifer with it. When they are conversing with Joshua at NORAD, it apparently has the exact same consumer-grade TTS device piped into their loudspeakers — perhaps to impress visiting Congresspeople.
• All the time in You've Got Mail. In her commentary Nora Ephron made it clear that she wanted to get away from the computer screens ASAP, for fear that the audience would get spooked and leave the theater.

Live-Action TV

• Happens in 31 Minutos at the beginning the episode "Educativio". Tulio, the anchorman, accidentally starts reading a paper thinking it is a news flash when it was actually a private letter from his girlfriend. So to avoid further embarrassment he says that he will read it quietly, and the voiceover of his girlfriend starts... Just for his assistant to point out they can still hear it.
• Andor: Cassian reading Nemik's manifesto in "Rix Road" is portrayed as Nemik narrating it over the scene.
• Baywatch episode "Baywatch Down Under Part 2". As Jake reads a letter from his ex-wife Clare, we first hear it in his voice, then hers. Bonus points because she's deceased at the time.
• Occurs in the Birds of a Feather episode "Just Visiting", with Chris' voice being heard when he writes a letter to Sharon. Humorously, his voice is muffled after being beaten up by Darryl.
• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy tries to get her sister Dawn out of town to safety before the Grand Finale. As Xander drives them away, he gives (the understandably angry) Dawn a letter from Buffy.
  Voiceover: Dearest Dawn, don't be angry with Xander. He only did what I told him to do. This isn't the place for either of you. Please know that I love you and that everything I do is for you. I promised once to show you this beautiful world, and I'm going to do everything I can to make that happen —
  (Dawn knocks Xander out with a taser, takes the wheel and turns them around)
• El Chavo del ocho: After getting tired of hearing Chavo misread Chilindrina's letter, Don Ramón seizes it from him so he can read it himself, and the voice heard as he reads it is that of Chilindrina. Funnily enough. The P.S. message tells him to hurry up.
• The Chronicles of Narnia (BBC): In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: When the children read the note from Maugrim in Mr Tumnus's ransacked home, Maugrim appears in the middle of the letter, saying it out loud.
• Cold Case:
  • Towards the of the two-part Season 6 finale, the apology letter from Lilly's father is read while she is taken to the hospital after a car accident and the cold case she's handling was solved by her teammates.
  • This also happens towards the end of the Season 5 episode, "Family 8108", where the letter from a Japanese-American soldier who died in combat during World War II was read to his mother and sister.
• On CSI, when Sara leaves, v. unexpectedly, the letter is read in her voice, with shots of her in a taxi, as Grissom reads it. Major Tear Jerker.
• CSI: NY: Several, including:
  • Classic version in "Time's Up." When Mac reads the Dear John letter from Peyton silently, only her voice is heard.
  • The fade-in/fade-out version is used with Mac reading Reed's real-time blog aloud in "Taxi" to analyze the clues he knows Reed is leaving for him.
  • A variation when Lindsay gets a congratulatory note from Stella in "The 34th Floor." The audience hears only Lindsay's own voice as she reads it.
  • Fade-in/fade-out is used in "Misconceptions," when Lindsay reads the last entry in the original suspect's journal (which explains his intentions for his actions).
• Lampshaded in the sketch show Exit 57, where Amy Sedaris's voiceover gave way to a hacking smoker's cough during the first sentence of her letter, forcing her to start over.
• Extraordinary Attorney Woo: A few times in Episode 4, where Geumgang's CEO unsuccessfully tries to convince Young-woo to drop the case against them.
• Fellow Travelers: When Lucy Fuller reads Tim Laughlin's letter to Hawkins Fuller in episode 6, it's Tim's voice that's narrating his own message.
  "Dear Hawk, I went into the Army to get away from you. I thought time and distance would help. But it hasn't. Hawk, I still love you. But I'm hoping to find something else. Maybe a deeper faith someday. Tim."
• Textbook example in Frequency, when Frank cites Larissa's diary, describing the appearance and disappearance of Meghan at the Hideaway Camp. Frank's voice morphs into Larissa's voice at the beginning and back to his at the end of the narration.
• Interview with the Vampire (2022): In the first scene of the series, when Daniel Molloy reads the letter Louis de Pointe du Lac had sent to him, the latter's voice is heard narrating its contents.
• In episode 12 of Jane the Virgin, the Lemony Narrator starts reading a letter Luisa wrote, before realizing that Luisa's voice should be reading it, not his.
• Spoofed into the ground by The League of Gentlemen, which opens with a character reading a letter from his aunt, the voiceover narrating the contents in an old lady's voice. Then panning to show the old lady next to him reading out loud over his shoulder.
• Legion: In "Chapter 22", while Gabrielle writes a letter to her husband Charles, we hear her narrate its contents.
• Several of the characters on M*A*S*H write letters home this way, including Hawkeye (several times), Trapper, Radar, B.J., Colonel Potter, Klinger, and Father Mulcahy. In the ninth season episode "Letters", all of the major characters do this when they're responding to letters from the fourth-grade class of a teacher Hawkeye knows.
• Mimpi Metropolitan:
  • In general, most text messages in the series are both displayed as a pop-up and accompanied by a voiceover from its sender.
  • Wawan's farewell letter in episode 41 has a voiceover from Alan, who is reading it. It's not quite Sounding It Out as the voice is clearly non-diegetic.
  • Episode 44 has a voiceover of Bambang reading his apology letter as Melani reads it.
  • In the final episode, Slamet's voiceover is heard as Bambang reads his letter.
• An episode of Mister Ed had Ed run away from home because Wilbur was too insistent on learning the mystery ingredient in Ed's health drink. He left a note read in Ed's voiceover saying the secret ingredient was hay.
• In the Season Finale of Murdoch Mysteries Season 13, Detective Watts leaves a note for Inspector Brakenreid, with one word scribbled out. In the voiceover, Watts does one of his distinctive self-interruptions as he reconsiders that word.
• Parodied in My Hero (2000): Cassie runs away, leaving a letter for her parents. At first, the trope seems to be upheld, then Janet asks George to stop reading it out loud in Cassie's voice.
• Occurs whenever Lizzie reads a letter in the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice.
• Spoofed in an episode of Scrubs where it initially looks like an example of this trope, Dr. Cox sitting reading a letter from J.D. with J.D.'s voiceover, but then the camera zooms out to show J.D. is in fact, right there, reading the letter he wrote out loud over Dr. Cox's shoulder.
• In Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Sabrina occasionally gets letters from Drell, head of the Witches' Council. Her recoils suggest that she can actually hear the voiceover herself, which makes a certain kind of sense.
• On two episodes of Sports Night, Jeremy writes a couple of letters to his sister in this way.
• Star Trek: Voyager: The Framing Device for "Thirty Days" is Tom Paris, confined to the brig for disobeying orders, dictating a letter for his father to his PADD, producing the same effect.
• Stranger Things: In the Season 3 finale, the speech Hopper intended to give Eleven and Mike at the beginning of the season is instead shown to the audience in his voice as Eleven reads through it.
• A Touch of Cloth: Parodied/subverted when Anne comes home to find a letter written by her girlfriend telling her that she's leaving because Anne is always so focused on work. Turns out she was simply standing offscreen.
• War and Peace (1972): When the war-traumatized Pierre attempts to read a letter from Hélène, her voice repeats words several times due to Pierre's inability to concentrate.
• On the second season The West Wing episode "The Stackhouse Filibuster", C.J., Josh, and Sam all narrate the episode through e-mails they're sending (C.J. and Sam to their respective fathers, Josh to his mother).
• Lampshaded in a You Can't Do That on Television sketch. Adam Kalbfleisch reads a letter from his father and looks around wondering where that voice is coming from. Turns out Adam's father is standing right there.

Manhua

• At the end of Infinity Game this is subverted. It looks like Long Wei is reading out his letter to Lu Xiao, but really he's writing his diary as though it were a letter to her and she's reading a menu somewhere else.

Radio

• Spoofed all over the place in Bleak Expectations. It often happens with Mr. Benevolent's letters in particular, where Benevolent's voice reads the letter ... then the character actually reading aloud is complimented on how well they can do the voice.

Theatre

• Aida turned this into a song, aptly named "Radames' Letter."
• Hamilton, duet "One Last Time": not quite a letter between people separated by distance, but used for Hamilton writing the Farewell Address and Washington almost in parallel delivering it.
• Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812: The song "Letters" has the cast sing out the letters they're writing mixed with their internal thoughts about the relationships at hand.
• Used extensively in the Stephen Sondheim musical Passion.
• The Phantom of the Opera: Used in "Notes" with a letter starting to be read by one of the managers, but then it switches to the Phantom, before ending with the manager again. In the film adaptation, we see the Phantom illustrating what he's talking about in the letter with a diorama.
• In She Loves Me, most of the third "Dear Friend" letter is read in voiceover by Georg together with Amalia. Georg's voice fades out towards the end, when Amalia realizes she's late for work.
• Spring Awakening: "And Then There Were None" has Mrs. Gabor speaking a letter that she wrote to Moritz in between Moritz' lyrics (which are a reaction to the letter).

Video Games

• In Assassin's Creed II all important letters are read like this.
• Most games in the Dark Tales series begin with Dupin reading a letter about the current case, and the letter writer provides the voiceover.
• In Eternal Darkness, one of Edward's later letters to his granddaughter Alexandra, regarding how she can defeat the Ancient that Pious is summoning, is read aloud in his voice, and this is the only letter in the game that receives this treatment, emphasizing its importance.
• Fire Emblem: Three Houses
  • In a variation, Jeralt gives a voiceover for his diary when Byleth discovers and reads it after he is killed in Chapter 9.
  • This also happens to various letters, such as a letter Seteth sends to Rhea if he and Flayn survive Chapter 15 of Crimson Flower, and a letter Claude sends to the protagonist on Silver Snow.
• Hundred Days begins with Emma receiving a fully-voiced letter from Bepe, who offers her to work at her vineyards.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • After the final boss of Kingdom Hearts II, Riku finds a letter in a bottle from Kairi that she sent out at the beginning of the game. After realizing it's for Sora and handing it to him, Sora reads the first few lines before it changes to Kairi reading it instead.
  • At the end of Kingdom Hearts coded, Mickey Mouse writes a letter to Sora, Riku, and Kairi. While the scene shown is him writing it and then cuts to the trio reading it, Mickey's voice over is reading what he's writing out loud.
• In the voiced version of King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow, the hero reads a letter by his beloved princess in her voice. Lampshaded by the narrator: "For the first time in his long search, he has heard her voice again — if only in writing."
• In Labyrinths of the World: Shattered Soul a letter from the main character's sister is treated this way.
• In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III, Rean receives a letter from his step-father that's read in his voice, telling Rean that he's proud for his actions and apologizes for hiding the truth that Giliath Osborne is his real father.
• Yeesha's memory amulet Myst IV: Revelation allows for every journal in the game to be read aloud by whoever wrote them. Played straight with her mini-journals in Myst V: End of Ages.
• If the player clicks on Oedipus' letter in day 3 of Oedipus in my Inventory, Oedipus' voice will read it aloud.
• Oni has Konoko reading her father's memoirs like this. Specifically, the part that narrates how he met his wife and how he took her life via Mercy Kill.
• Persona 4: In the Updated Re-release, Marie reads aloud her poems if you go to the Velvet Room on certain days and find her absent. If you complete the Jester Social Link, Adachi will do the same with the letter that he sends you after being arrested and imprisoned for the murders.
• Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth and Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth also feature Marie's poems and give them the same treatment.
• At the end of his WakuWaku course in Puyo Puyo Fever 2, Sig reads a letter from Ms. Accord concerning Lemres, and the letter's writing is spoken in Accord's voice.
• The PC game Secrets of da Vinci: The Forbidden Manuscript begins with the protagonist, Valdo, reading a letter from his mysterious employer which explains the situation for the player, with this trope happening simultaneously.
• Used in Super Mario 64, Paper Mario 64, and Super Mario Galaxy for letters read by Princess Peach.
• Silent Hill 2 - the letter from Mary serves as Book Ends to the game.
• Sonic Heroes: The start of Team Sonic’s story has them receive a letter from Eggman, which includes an animated photo of the Mad Scientist who reads out the text of the letter for them. (The paper itself is also glowing during this, suggesting that the “video paper” is actually something occurring and not just a dramatic device for the audience)
• Tales Series:
  • In Tales of Symphonia, Colette's voice is used as the voiceover when Lloyd reads a letter from her.
  • In Tales of the Abyss, Luke, after being separated from his friends for around a month late in the game, reads letters from Tear, Anise and Guy, and their voices describe what's been going on in their lives.

Webcomics

• Parodied in The Order of the Stick, where the author is standing behind the reader doing the voiceover. And Elan, being a Genre Savvy Ditz, refuses to acknowledge this because it would spoil the scene.

Web Videos

• This is Lampshaded in an episode of Being the Elite. "Hangman" Adam Page, having been absent from AEW for a few months (out of Kayfabe, to allow him to take paternity leave), receives a letter from the promotion's HR team informing him that he has run out of paid time off. The first half of that letter however is dedicated to explaining how the voice in Hangman's head is his own, and not the voice of the HR representative writing the letter, in a telepathic case of The Tape Knew You'd Say That.
• One part of episode 69 of Critical Role involves Keyleth receiving a letter from a guest player-turned-NPC, Kerrek (played by Patrick Rothfuss), who had befriended the group and provided some much-needed advice to her in particular. As she opens the letter and begins to read it, a recording of Patrick reading the letter is played.
• In Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, when Billy receives a letter from Bad Horse three cowboys lean into the frame to sing the contents of the letter.
• In a Rooster Teeth short, Kerry the intern is ordered by Gus to mow the lawn on the company campus with a push mower (When Kerry asks why he can't use a motorized mower like normal people have since their invention, Gus yells at him about the price of gas before walking away). As Kerry attempts to mow, he stumbles across a box labeled "Gus' Time Caspule" or something along those lines. He finds some random things inside including a letter, which he begins to read. The letter is read and narrated in Gus' voice, getting progressively creepier and stalker-like towards Kerry until at the end, where Gus is shown to be reading the letter out loud over Kerry's shoulder with his shirt off.
• Video Game High School: Ki reads a letter from the Law, with his voice narrating it. When she reaches the end, he rips the letter out of her hands, revealing he was standing there the entire time and really doing the voiceover out loud.

Western Animation

• Spoofed in Aladdin: The Series. The letter from Genie is being "read" in his voice, but then we cut to the other side of the shot and see that the letter is actually a mouth reading out loud.
• Parodied in The Amazing World of Gumball: "The Parasite" opens with an entry in Anais' diary being read in her voice, but it's actually Gumball perfecting imitating her while reading her diary aloud to Darwin.
• Amphibia:
  • At the end of "Froggy Little Christmas", Anne does this while writing letters to Marcy and Sasha's parents about their daughters' whereabouts.
  • In "All In", as Sprig starts to read his ancestor Leif's secret letter to Andrias, her own voice takes over as the scene fades to flashbacks of her life after taking the Calamity Box.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force:
  • In "Video Ouiji", Shake's letter after letting himself get eaten by piranhas on the unreal chance he'd become a ghost to haunt Meatwad.
  • Meatwad's message in the episode "Carl" that's just in unreadable scribbles and pictures is narrated in his voice on different parts of Carl's house.
    Carl: Alright... what the fuck does this say?
  • Parodied in "Brain Fairy" when Shake and Meatwad refuse to read a letter they found on Frylock, and suggest they just stare at it believing the letter would read itself. They end up asking Carl to read it for them.
• BoJack Horseman does this a few times in "Live Fast, Diane Nguyen", specifically whenever Todd is around notes or photos of BoJack in his absence.
  BoJack: Todd! Stop singing your dumb scrambled eggs song!
  Todd: Who said that?
  BoJack: If you're wondering who said that, it's this note that you're reading. You're hearing my voice in your head because that's how reading works.
  Todd: Oh yeah.
• Parodied in an episode of Chowder when Chowder runs away from home, Mung finds his note, after the letter ends he says "It's a good thing there was a voiceover, because his handwriting is terrible", the screen then pans over to the letter which is just a bunch of scribbles.
• When Dan sends Chris a letter in the Dan Vs. episode "Dan vs. the Salvation Armed Forces", it reads in Dan's voice in a perfectly normal tone... but several words are wrong, ranging from the equivalent of a wrong letter to complete gibberish. Halfway through, Chris comments "Dan's handwriting is terrible."
• Moral Orel: Happens twice in "Beforel Orel": First, Orel writes a letter to his grandfather, revealing that he plans on murdering his baby brother. At the end, Grandpa writes a letter to Orel telling him that he's a good child and not to let growing up in Moralton affect him.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Twilight's "Dear Princess Celestia...." letters are always done in her voice.
• Parodied in The Powerpuff Girls (2016) episode "Bye Bye, Bellum", where Blossom reads a letter from Miss Bellum to The Mayor. It turns out Blossom was reading it aloud doing a spot-on Bellum impression.
  Buttercup: Wow, Blossom, you do a really good Miss Bellum impression.
  Blossom: Thanks, but apparently, it's worthless now.
• Rugrats: When Chas starts to read Chuckie the poem written by his late wife Melinda, it shifts to Melinda's voice reading it.
• The Simpsons:
  • Parodied in "Simpson And Delilah", complete with Lampshade Hanging from Homer:
    Homer: So that wasn't just a sweet voice I heard in my head!
  • In "Brush With Greatness", in the 1960s, the teenaged Marge sent Ringo Starr a letter with her portrait of him, but he didn't respond. At least, until 1991, when he finally got it.
    Ringo: Dear Marge. Thanks for the fab painting of Yours Truly. I hung it on me wall. You're quite an artist. In answer to your question, yes, we do have hamburgers and fries in England. But we call French fries "chips". Love, Ringo. PS: Forgive the lateness of my reply.
  • In "Cape Feare", Lisa receives one from her pen pal in a Banana Republic, only for the voiceover to change halfway through:
    Anya: Dear Lisa, as I write this, I am very sad. Our President has been overthrown and...
    Male Voice: ...REPLACED BY THE BENEVOLENT GENERAL KRULL! ALL HAIL KRULL AND HIS GLORIOUS NEW REGIME! SINCERELY, LITTLE GIRL.
  • In "A Star Is Burns", the crossover with The Critic:
    Marge: Dear Mr. Sherman, on behalf of the people of Springfield I would like to invite you to judge our film festival. You can stay with us, and enjoy the sights and sounds of the country.
    Homer: Marge, is this a pimple or a boil?
    Marge: Just a minute, Homer! Oh, look what you made me write.
• Steven Universe: Parodied in "Letters for Lars": The episode starts with Steven giving Lars a letter telling him about what's been happening in Beach City while he's away. Then at the end of the episode it's revealed that the voiceover was Steven reading Lars the letter in person.
  Lars: I appreciate the sentiment, but why'd you bother writing a letter if you were just going to tell me in person anyway?
• Tintin:
  • Tintin: Cigars of the Pharaoh has a voiceover for the letters from the drug trafficker leader to his minions.
  • The animated version of Tintin: The Red Sea Sharks has Tintin start reading the Emir's letter aloud to share it with Captain Haddock, before the screen transitions to the Emir writing it with echo.
• A Thousand and One... Americas: In later episodes (this doesn't happen during the first few), whenever Chris begins reading the expedition book written by his late grandfather, the text will be voiced by the old man instead of Chris himself. The voiced narration continues as the episode begins setting the scene where the events will soon take place, and ends once Chris falls asleep and begins dreaming of what's about to come.
• The first episode of VeggieTales has Bob reading a fan letter with a child's voice reading it aloud. This was dropped for subsequent episodes because the producers felt it was too distracting.

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