Baby Yoda is a cultural icon like no other.
Aside from having the face of a literal angel, he's also got the adorable alien/baby gibberish to match.
And now thanks to The Mandalorian's Supervising Sound Editor Matthew Wood, we now know the magic formula behind baby Yoda's voice:
How about the REAL answer?!? #BabyYoda is voiced by a combination of baby samples, bat-eared foxes, kinkajous, & the sound design vocal talents of @DaveAcord ! PS, he also voiced baby Rotta the Huttlet for #TheCloneWars ! RT @CarlosCrits https://t.co/2CLaDnQ5aa
Yep, you heard that right. Baby Yoda's voice is literally part human baby, part animal, and part grown man.
David Acord, The Mandalorian's Sound Designer/other Supervising Sound Editor elaborated on this with video examples. First he showed a video of the team recording a kinkajou, which is a tropical rainforest mammal that is related to the raccoon.
1/2 As @matthewood has noted, animal component to the #TheMandalorion #babyoda voice is part kinkajou. Shown here:
Next he showed the adorableness that is the bat-eared fox. Given that both the fox and baby Yoda share the same ears, this is a match made in heaven.
2/2 The other animal component to the #babyoda voice is a bat-eared Fox. Shown here:
And the third component, as mentioned by Matthew earlier, is some vocal magic by David himself.
3/2 The other component is human.
As far as the baby samples go, it's unclear which lucky baby (or babies) these came from.
So until baby Yoda starts speaking his first words, you won't be able to un-hear all of these sounds going forward. Sorry.
