Monty Python's Argument Sketch recreated on two vintage speech synthesizers
teropa · x · 2026-09-28
Peter Kirn of CDM recreated Monty Python's classic "Argument Sketch" using two vintage speech synthesizers: a DECtalk Express voicing Michael Palin and an Intex Talker (Votrax SC-01A) as John Cleese, with reflections on hand-crafted expressive speech synthesis.
Key points:
- DECtalk's voices stem from Dennis Klatt's work on MITalk; the Perfect Paul voice was the synthetic voice of NOAA weather radio.
- Detroit's Votrax, built on Richard T. Gagnon's work, powered arcade games, Gottlieb pinball machines, talking terminals, and even the first Kurzweil Reading Machine for the Blind.
- Kirn argues early synths could be played like instruments, and something is lost if we only ever let AI do expressive speech for us.
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