We all know Balto right? The courageous dog who led the sled team to deliver the diphtheria antitoxin to Nome, Alaska. This was all covered in the animated movie, Balto, which showed how brave that dog was. What if I told you that while Balto gets a lot of the credit there was an even braver dog who traversed over 200 miles with the serum and tackled the most difficult and longest part of the journey. That dog who led the team was Togo.
Togo aims to tell the story of the sled team who arguably faced the most difficult part of the 1925 serum run to Nome. If you are unfamiliar with that it is the relay that involved sled teams attempting to get a diphtheria antitoxin to the town of Nome. This required 20 teams and around 600 miles to save this small town from succumbing to a horrible epidemic. While Balto is the most famous of the sled dogs, it is fair to say that Togo might deserve the most respect.
Willem Dafoe plays the leader of this ragtag group of dogs that means to get that medicine to the children afflicted by the epidemic. They embark on the possibly dramatized perilous trip to act as part of the rally. Dafoe being in a Disney movie like this lends a bit more credibility than it may have received without him and the trailer was as uplifting and motivating as the Disney formula can produce. Let’s see if that good boy and his team of good boys can get the medicine to its destination and save all the children.
Togo will stream on Disney+ starting December 20, 2019
