This Is What You Sound Like When You Use the ‘Baby Voice’

When comedic duo Matt Catanzano and Richie Moriarty put together a skit for their YouTube channel, they try and think of scenarios that mirror real-life situations, so they can engage the audience and get them to say, “I connect with this in some way.”

In their latest video, about two friends sitting in a movie theatre together, they managed to do just that, capturing a moment that may be all-too familiar for those who have a friend who abuses the use of the “baby voice” when they talk to their significant other. “We decided to put it in movie theatre because we thought that is where that behavior would be the most obnoxious,” said Moriarty, co-creator of Simply Unemployable, the two -person troupe he launched with Catanzano.

Moriarty said they came up with the concept of the “Baby Voice” video after they decided they wanted to somehow integrate Moriarty’s three-year-old niece into one of their monthly online skits. He said after getting the OK from his sister, they recorded his niece saying things that someone might say when talking on the phone with a girlfriend or boyfriend, like arguing over who misses who more, or using pet names, and then had Moriarty lip-sync the phrases as if it were his own voice. “I talked to my sister about it to make sure they were cool with it, and then we started brainstorming ideas and said ‘how do we involve a kid in the video without it being too difficult to shoot?,'” he said. “This was something we came up with, and it just sort of morphed from an original idea along the way.”

The result was a two-and-a-half minute clip, with the tagline “Don’t talk to your girlfriend in that stupid baby voice. You will be put in your place,” that perfectly captures the awkward moments when a friend goes over the top while chatting to their partner—and the frustration a third-party has to endure while it’s happening. “The whole concept of talking like an idiot is pretty universal. [That concept] something we try and include in all of our videos,” said Moriarty.

When they aren’t playing out real-life annoyances and turning them into skits, Moriarty, a full-time photographer, works with Catanzano on their other project, “Portrait Studio,” as part of a YouTube partner channel and collaboration funded by Above Average Productions.

Moriarty said the duo would like to shift their focus towards Simply Unemployable, so they can produce more skits, but with time and money constraints on their solo venture, it can often be tough. “We are in one of those weird situations where would love to be doing stuff all the time,” he said. “But we don’t have a huge amount of money to be producing videos all the time, so we try to do stuff on the cheap and we really utilize our friends in the artist community.”