Because sounding like your constantly on helium isn't scary? Yeah it makes more sense, but lets be realistic (or as realistic as we can get, it is Batman we're talking bout) deep, growly voices do a better job at scaring people.
Theres sex and death and human grime in monochrome for one thin dime and at least the trains all run on time but they dont go anywhere.Because Mysterious Sounds Deep? That should totally be a trope.
I at least know most voice actors, voice or otherwise, who's done the Joker in recent years has gone for high-pitched and slightly to very raspy. It's like Adaptation Displacement for a character's voice.
edited 20th Jul '12 3:17:28 AM by KnownUnknown
Bat's aren't so much high pitch as "so high you can't even hear them. Giving him a high pitch voice kind of sounds like the Theme Park Version...then again, Tropes Are Not Bad. Next time they should experiment by giving him that raspy old lady voice Freeza had in the Dragon Ball show.
Modified Ura-nage, Torture RackPerhaps a better question would be why doesn't he employ more sonic based weaponry into his arsenal? I think we've only ever seen him use that Bat Caller in Year One and Batman Begins.
Theres sex and death and human grime in monochrome for one thin dime and at least the trains all run on time but they dont go anywhere.The Bat Caller isn't that useful. There needs to be several bats nearby, or else the villain will just escape before they arrive. The bats themselves make for little but confusion, and actually could allow a single villain to escape better during the confusion (they are better for crowd dispersal). Furthermore, villains with long reaching weaponry like Firefly or Joker (with his poison gas) would dispose of them quickly.
Because Batman's not really trying to be a bat. He's trying to evoke an iconography that inspires fear in a lot of people. Bat's really aren't particularly scary. They might nip at you, get tangled up in your hair if you have longish hair, or (in rare cases) give you rabies. Still, a lot of people are just freaked out by bats at a visceral level. There's also the blood-sucking, vampiric connection to consider. High pitched voices just generally wouldn't scare the people he's trying to scare.
You know the more I think about it, the more it makes sense that Batman should have sonic weaponry. I mean, being set in a comic book universe, stuff like the brown note could exist so it makes sense that he would use some kinda sonic device to scare people or make them feel off.
Theres sex and death and human grime in monochrome for one thin dime and at least the trains all run on time but they dont go anywhere.Well, there was that thing with mobile phones in The Dark Knight. That sort of counts.
Ukrainian Red CrossWhat doesn't he usually have on him?
Theres sex and death and human grime in monochrome for one thin dime and at least the trains all run on time but they dont go anywhere.

Okay, yeah, you can't really tell what someone's voice pitch is from a comic. But in every adaptation of the character I can think of, Batman is given a really deep voice.
But he's a bat-themed character. Shouldn't his voice be really high, like a bat's shriek? If Judge Doom can pull it off, why not Batman?