I wonder if the voices of the bandits in the 1981 film Time Bandits were altered in the mixing or if they are just naturally a little bit higher in pitch because of shorter vocal cords? The latter is probably the case given their smaller stature. Certainly with other ways of altering pitch, like sliding a finger up a taut string pressed against a hard surface, the shorter vibrating length increases the pitch.

It came to mind this week when I was doing a final listen back to the focus group session I ran and recorded the previous week. I had it loaded up in Reaper and, to speed things along, I slightly increased the playback rate. That reduces the time but increases the pitch. About 1.2x original speed was about the fastest I could go with this recording while still making out the details of what people were saying and that small pitch increase put me in mind of Time Bandits (a most excellent film although, in terms of subject matter, not at all related to the recorded discussion).