Why doesn't Yoshi sound like he used to

if I asked you to do an impression of Yoshi right now , it would probably sound something like this .

That is Yoshi's iconic voice , right ?

But in the 19 nineties he had an entirely different voice .

And that's not all .

This is Yoshi Yoshi Hope , No ghost in Shat Forest .

And so is this .

Yo , Welcome back , Mario .

We racked up tonnes of frequent globul mild logging for you .

Yoshi has actually had a lot more voices than you might have realised over the last 30 years .

But why is that ?

And where did his current voice what come from ?

Let's answer the question .

Why doesn't Yoshi sound like he used to ?

Part 12 notes ?

For many years , Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto had wanted to include some kind of animal for Mario to ride .

He had a sketch of Mario riding the back of a dinosaur like creature stuck on the wall in front of his desk .

For years and years .

However , because of technical limitations , Miyamoto couldn't bring this idea to life in Super Mario Bros .

12 or three .

The NES just wasn't powerful enough , But then , in 1991 Nintendo brought out a new , more powerful games console , the SS NES .

And finally , Miyamoto S idea could be brought to life in the form of Yoshi , the green dinosaur like creature that Mario rides the back of in Super Mario World .

Now , Yoshi was a really important part of Super Mario World .

He was right on the front of the game's box , after all , and it was up to Super Mario World's composer Koji Kondo to figure out what this new Yoshi creature should sound like .

Now , on the original NE SS , all music and sound effects had to be created using simple wave forms .

That's what gives old Nintendo music its distinctive eight bit sound .

However , you could play very short audio samples .

They just used up so much cartridge space and sounded so low quality that they weren't used very much .

On this new SNES console , though audio samples were everything .

Instead of composers using those built in eight bit sound waves , composers on the SNES had to import their own audio samples to be used as instruments .

So , for instance , with Super Mario World , Koji Kondo imported this short recording of a piano note , and that meant he could use piano sounds throughout the game's music .

Of course , Super Mario World has many , many different instrument samples , but one extremely important one is this orchestra hit this orchestra .

Hit is what Koji Kondo used to create Yoshi's distinctive sound effect .

Kondo first played two notes using the orchestra hit sound , and then he bent their pitches .

The first note was pitch bent upwards , the second downwards .

And here's how the final result sounds now .

For a number of years , those two orchestra hit notes were used as the voice of Yoshi like in Mario Kart 64 when characters like Mario , Luigi Peach and Toad were speaking full phrases Let to go , Yoshi instead sounded like this , and that works fine in a video game .

If you need to convey more detailed information , just write it using text on screen .

But Super Mario World was a huge hit when it came out in 1990 so huge of a hit , in fact , that it was adapted into anime , other games and cartoons , which caused a problem .

How do you turn Yoshi into a cartoon if he sounds like this ?

Part two .

The cartoons .

It took a year for Super Mario world to be released in America , and when that happened , D IC Entertainment began producing a Super Mario World cartoon .

Interestingly , though , despite the cartoon being targeted towards the US , the voice actors hired were almost all from Canada , and that includes the voice of Yoshi Andrew Sabiston .

Sabiston gave Yoshi a high pitched , cutesy sounding voice .

Take a listen .

Oh , but he's book and he's scary .

Yoshi Hope No Ghost in Shatter Forest .

Uh , Yoshi Boogie Now Yoshi More afraid than ever , We Yoshi wish he wasn't alone now that same year , 1991 an interactive anime adaptation of Super Mario World , was released on VHS .

However , in this anime version , there are three different Yoshi's .

And unlike in the American cartoon , all three Yoshi's are voiced by women .

The main Yoshi is voiced by Chika Sakamoto and sounds like this , but can we go to a ?

Then there's yellow Yoshi , voiced by Tamal Hayashi , who sounds like this .

And lastly , there's Red Yoshi , who is voiced by Ikue Otani , the voice of Pikachu .

Here's how red Yoshi sounds , right , so the next Yoshi voice came the following year 1992 .

But it wasn't in a cartoon .

This time it was actually in a Japanese commercial for the puzzle game .

Yoshi's Cookie Yoshi only had one line to say , but he was voiced by famous Japanese voice actress Junko Hoi , who also voiced Jerry from Tom and Jerry and Bart Simpson from The Simpsons .

Check out her take on Yoshi .

Then one year later , in 1993 the live Action Super Mario Bros .

Film was released in America .

Now it did feature Yoshi , but he looks pretty different here , Dare I say Horrific .

And his vocal cry sounds were performed by American voice actor Frank Welker , best known as The Voice of Fred and Scooby Doo from Scooby Doo .

He doesn't really speak here , but here's what the animalistic noises of Yoshi sound like .

And then finally , in 1994 the infamous game Mario Is Missing was released for Mac , and Yoshi speaks in the game .

Kind of .

He makes this bizarre Blau sound when he swallows enemies .

No , now , no , no .

Now there was another voice clip recorded for Yoshi , a full line of dialogue .

Yo , welcome back , Mario .

We wrapped up tonnes of frequent globul mild looking for you , However , strangely , this final audio clip was removed from the game before it was released .

The voice actor behind these short snippets of Yoshi's voice is not 100% known as the game's credits .

Don't actually specify which voice actor voiced which character the most likely candidate is a programmer called Bruce Sand .

Whether he really did voice the character is impossible to know , though .

So as you can see from 1991 to 1994 there were quite a few varied voices of Yoshi .

But none of them really counted as official .

As far as I can tell , Nintendo had little to no input on any of the casting decisions made in these projects , except , perhaps , for Junko Hori in the advert .

But back at Nintendo , Yoshi's official New Voice was being worked on , and it is the voice that he still uses to this very day .

Part three back at Nintendo .

So as I mentioned , Yoshi's original sound effect was reused in pretty much every game he appeared in .

Up until the year 1997 that is .

After the success of Yoshi's Island on the SNES , Nintendo began work on a sequel called Yoshi's Story for the N 64 and this time Koji Kondo was not the composer .

Instead , Kazumi Totaka took over .

You might know Kazumi Totaka for his work on the animal Crossing series .

He's the guy KK Slider was based on .

Plus , he wrote the famous Me maker theme .

But in 1997 Kazumi to Taka's task was to compose the music for Yoshi's story .

Meanwhile , the game's two sound designers , Yasushi Ida and Haime Wakai , were deciding what to do about Yoshi's voice .

Up until then , he'd only really had that one single sound .

But the two sound designers decided to finally change that they wanted to give Yoshi a new voice .

Now , normally , in this situation , a professional voice actor would be hired .

But instead , composer Kazumi Totaka was roped into voicing the character .

Or perhaps he asked to voice the character himself .

The details aren't super clear , but however it ended up happening .

Composer Kazumi Totaka entered a recording studio at Nintendo around 1997 and made all kinds of noises that he thought were Yoshi like , into the microphone .

Here's how some of those recordings sounded Mm .

Hm .

Yeah .

Yay !

Whoa !

Wow !

couple yoy , yoy yoy .

Now , obviously , those voice clips sound like an adult man , not a cute green dinosaur .

So the next step was to speed up those recordings , Alvin and the Chipmunks style .

And here's the finished result .

The voice of Yoshi .

Um , never And what ?

Oh , was it was it So ?

Yoshi's story was released in 1997 and for a few years afterwards , the voice of Yoshi wasn't super consistent .

Some games immediately began using the voice clips recorded by Kazumi Totaka like Super Smash Bros .

In 1999 and Mario Tennis in the year 2000 .

However , other games kept using Koji Kondo's old sound effect , like Mario Golf in 1999 and Mario Party two and three in 4001 .

But by 2002 , Nintendo's games had completely phased out the old voice of Yoshi in favour of Kazumi to Taka's new voice .

But back in 1997 Totaka only recorded the sounds that Yoshi's story would need 60 of them in total , which sounds like a lot .

But since then , Yoshi has appeared in all kinds of Nintendo games .

So about four years later , while Super Mario Sunshine was in development , Totaka recorded a whole new batch of Yoshi sounds , but that wasn't the last time he did it .

About 10 years after that , Super Mario Galaxy two's director personally asked Totaka to record some new voice lines .

According to the director , When I asked him to do it , he was a little uneasy .

10 years have passed , so he was worried it would sound as if Yoshi had aged .

But impressively enough , Yoshi doesn't sound any different .

I don't think to how he sounded back in 1997 .

Here's how Yoshi Sounds in Super Mario Galaxy two I like So perhaps one day Totaka will be dragged back to the recording studio to record another set of Yoshi sounds .

But for now , Nintendo seems happy to keep reusing the three collections of Yoshi Noises they've got .

Over the years , Kito Taka has actually voiced quite a few Nintendo characters , shy guy , professor ga Captain Omar and even Bedo .

But the first character he ever voiced is also his most important and iconic Yoshi .

It was 25 years ago that Totaka first recorded Yoshi's voice , and it has become iconic .

I kind of love that alongside writing music for Animal Crossing , Luigi's mansion and Wii sports every now and again , Totaka gets dragged back into the recording studio to record a couple of new voice lines .

Hi .

Thanks for watching .

I've always loved Yoshi's voice , so it was interesting to dig into where it came from .

Hopefully , you also found it interesting .

All right , I'll see you next week , then .

Bye .