hey friends your old pal bar dog back with another
movie review this time we're taking a look at one of the last great animated films this one from
the 1990s and no it wasn't made by Disney this time it's Balto a 1995 film from Universal and
Steven Spielberg's amblin entertainment offshoot amblimation our story goes like this in the waning
days of 1924 a diphtheria epidemic hits the small town of Nome, Alaska they're miles from anywhere
and desperate for serum to save the town's kids our he
ro is Balto a stray dog who is reportedly
half wolf the sled dogs in town don't like him and his made fun of for his wolfly heritage he has one
friend Boris the goose anyway he meets this sexy lady dog whose owner is one of the kids stricken
with the disease Balto is determined to help out despite the attempts of a celebrity sled dog named
Steele the baddie of the piece to stop him Balto sets out alone to follow the trail and guide the
team team back to Nome he winds up leading a team with
the medicine through the perils of Alaska in
winter Steele and his hench-dogs try to thwart him the whole way Simon Wells directed this movie
we just saw his work in my video on The Time Machine well here he is again he also directed
The Prince of Egypt and Spirit and more recently Puss in Boots The Last Wish and Ruby Gillman
in our cast we have the voice talents of Kevin Bacon Bob Hoskins Bridget Fonda Jim Cummings
Phil Collins and one of my favorite British comedic actors Donald Sinden fr
om Two's Company
and Never the Twain longtime voice actors Danny Mann and Jack Angel are both here as is Miriam
Margolyes as the batty grandma in the live-action scenes that bookend the story along with a
metric ton of other roles you may know her best as Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter movies
finally James Horner composed the music which is of course lovely the animation is first class
the snow and forest scenes are perfectly rendered and the goose Boris is amazingly expressive and
n
ot a fraction as annoying as Aquafina's seagull in the fake Little Mermaid there are absolutely
breathtaking action sequences and Balto and his friends take on a truly frightening grizzly bear
the baddy Steele is legit bad and the story moves along at a good pace and you really root for our
heroes to overcome the odds and make it so awesome all the way around right? so why was this movie
a flop? well sadly Balto was released around the same time as another animated film a juggernaut
called
Toy Story Toy Story all but demolished Balto at the box office and was hailed as the wave
of the future in animation the burning irony to me is that Balto just as it is if it were released
today would be able to demolish anything crapped out by Disney Pixar in the past six or seven
years Balto did modestly at the box office at best it got good reviews and over time developed
a sort of cult following and deservedly so there have been two direct to video sequels Balto 2 Wolf
Quest in 2001 and
Balto 3 Wings of Change in 2004 not seen either but they exist believe it or not
this movie was based on a real story well kind of let me s'plain in the last few days of December of
1924 there was an outbreak of diphtheria in Nome Alaska the only diphtheria medicine they had was
long expired so the local doctor wired Fairbanks for a fresh supply the Governor gathered enough
to help but the problem was getting it to Nome in the dead of winter in Alaska they couldn't
take a boat on account o
f pack ice making ocean travel impossible they only had one plane and
open cockpit biplane that had been mothballed for the winter and although they tried to use it
weather conditions were simply too bad the only way to get the medicine to gnome was overland
they managed to get the stuff as close as they could via train but that was still hundreds
of miles away and they could go no further so things were looking super ultra not good Nome had
one last hope namely using sled dogs to deliver t
he medicine sled dogs had been used to carry
mail and freight over established trails but it normally took weeks this time they'd have to
do it in days days like in a 100 odd hours which was unprecedented spoiler alert they did it this
race against death became known as the great serum run of 1925 it was a stunning achievement given
the temperatures were 50 below just for starters the serum run was not made by one guy and one
team of sled dogs no it was a relay there were lots of men and do
gs involved the first driver
who got the medicine and arrived at the first relay stop was severely frostbitten but he got
there and the serum was handed off to the next team and so on now one of these drivers owned
some of the dogs and helped organize the thing his own daughter had the illness so he was hella
invested in saving the day this guy was a legit hero and his lead dog was named Togo this team was
the next to the last on the run to Nome and this guy had to make a command decision s
ee he could
follow the established trail along the coastline or he could cut across the ice in Norton Bay
if a storm came in the ice would break up and all would be lost and one was coming in but time
was the enemy and so he said we're going across the ice this shaved an entire entire day off the
timeline and just after crossing a storm hit and the Ice broke up so this guy had cajones of solid
rock or they were frozen but either way they were solid and the success of the serum run was in no
small part due to his courage and the lead dog on his team Togo they traveled something like 200
miles in harsh winter conditions so where does Balto come in well the guy who finished the run
who made the last leg of the journey put Balto in the lead position on his team now up to this
point Balto was considered a loser he wasn't a very good sled dog by all accounts but as the
storm hit leading to whiteout conditions so bad the driver couldn't see his hand in front of his
face with temper
atures plunging to 70 below plus a wind chill Balto led the team some 50 or 60
miles into Nome, Alaska at one point the driver may have steered the team right into a river but
Balto saved the day this driver was a legit hero and Balto a legit hero dog so how come no one ever
talks about Togo and this other driver? well on of people being people see the serum run this race
against death was national news reported as it happened when Balto and his driver came into
Nome they became the big her
oes and the face of the thing to his credit this driver always
made a point of telling everyone it wasn't just me it wasn't just me there were there were all
these other guys too but no one really listened to him and since he was the guy who made the final
delivery that was good enough for John Q Public it was not so good enough for that other driver Mr
Solid Rock he was a bit put out at being passed over for some of the credit and seeing a loser
like Balto held up over Togo so what happene
d to Balto? Balto appeared in a short silent film
relating the events of the serum run "Balto's Race to Nome" which sadly is lost film and the mayor
of Los Angeles gave him a bone-shaped key to the city in a ceremony attended by Mary Pickford then
the owner Mr Solid Rock sold him pretty much to spite this other driver who loved Balto Balto and
the other dogs on the team wound up in a sort of traveling carnival freak show along with other
famous or odd people and things the owner didn't trea
t the dogs so good and they got sick one day
an audience member named George Kimble recognized this famous heroic dog and offered to buy him so
he could be properly looked after but the owner was kind of a dick and wanted a gabillion dollars
in 1927 money so Kimble made it his mission to raise the money to buy Balto and the sled dog team
from donations with the help of the children of Cleveland then Balto and the other sled dogs
were installed in the Cleveland Zoo so people who helped save
him could see him which is only
fair and the dogs were properly cared for for life ultimately Balto lasted until 1933 when he died he
got his ass stuffed and now he's in a glass case at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History where
you can still see him because the serum run was national news and one of those edge of your seat
inspiring stories of courage and all of that Balto was memorialized with this a statue in of all
places Central Park New York City you see this statue in the movie as
for Togo the owner and his
dogs did tour the country and ran many exhibition races when he retired Togo was used for breeding
and he got it on with a lot of lady dogs so his lineage continues to this day when he croaked in
1929 he also got his ass stuffed and is now under glass and a museum in Alaska Disney made a movie
focused on Togo in 2019 for their crappy streaming service Disney Plus the movie is supposed to
be pretty good surprising if true I don't know I've not seen it because Mode
rn Disney William
Defoe stars as Mr Solid Rock in that one the the great serum run was immortalized in another
way as well in the early 1970s some sled dog drivers got together to revive the tradition of
the sled dog freight trail only as a race that race was called the Iditarod which is still run
today anyway Balto is a really good picture in spite of only having a nodding acquaintance with
actual history it only clocks in at 78 minutes or so the animation is old school and stunning so do
yourself a favor and skip the latest Disney Pixar trash and marvel at the sheer quality of this
picture instead Balto is easily 3 and a quarter paws up and well worth a watch you take care
of yourselves and I'll see you in the next one
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