This is the sound of Sonovox, a device created in 1939 that's like an early vocoder. Two small speakers are held against the throat and the sound of an instrument is played through them. The throat acts as a filter for the sound, which is then picked up by a separate microphone and amplified, resulting in a sort of metallic, spoken version of the instrument or whatever sound is played into the speakers.

It was popular in the 1940s and '50s and can be seen here demonstrated by a very young Lucile Ball in a Pathé newsreel, where she turns the sound of a steam train into a sort of train voice. You can also see it used as part of a big band setup, modulating the sounds of horns and other instruments, and as the voice of some terrifying puppet blues character.

The Sonovox was marketed by the Wright-Sonovox company, an affiliate of the Free & Peters advertising agency, and it wound up being used on a lot of radio commercials. It provided the voice of a talking train in the Disney movie "Dumbo,"

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