Trivia / Balto

• Acting for Two:
  • Muk and Luk are played by Phil Collins.
  • In the Finnish dub both Balto and Star are voiced by the same actor, namely Jarkko Tamminen who is known for his many voice roles.
    • Kaltag, Muk and Luk were also voiced by the same actor, namely Jukka Rasila, in the Finnish dub.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Balto and Boris also share the same voice actor, Rubén Trujillo.
  • In the Greek dub, this is true for Jenna, Sylvie, Rosy's Mother, and elderly Rosy, Steele, Muk, Kaltag and Rosy's Father, Luk, Nikki and Star, and Rosy, Dixie and Rosy's granddaughter.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: Where to begin?
  • Kevin Bacon as the titular character^note This makes for a fun game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon., while Bridget Fonda is his love interest, Jenna.
  • Bob Hoskins as Boris.
  • Phil Collins as Muk and Luk.
  • In the Japanese dub, Balto is voiced by movie actor and singer Kyohei Shibata.
• Creator Killer: While not an outright bomb, it didn't turn a profit. Combined with the failure of We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, Amblimation was forced to close its doors after only three films. Most of the staff would migrate over to DreamWorks Animation for The Prince of Egypt.
• Dub Name Change: In the Finnish dub, Steele's name became Kiilu, which means 'glow', while Star's name became Välkky which is a colloquial Finnish term for someone who is smart. The latter seems to be a case of Ironic Name.
• Dueling Movies: With Toy Story from then-new-kid-on-the-block Pixar, which slaughtered this film. Some animation fans consider it to be the first sign of CGI eventually overthrowing traditional animation. It also dueled with Pocahontas, another animated film loosely based on American history, and didn't win that duel either.
• Fake American: The Oxford-born British-Australian actress Miriam Margolyes portrays the older Rosy in the live-action sequences.
• Fake Russian: The Russian Boris was voiced by the British Bob Hoskins.
• The Other Marty: Brendan Fraser was initially cast as Steele and recorded all of his dialogue. However, he didn't test well in early screenings and Jim Cummings ended up replacing him shortly before release.
• Playing Against Type:
  • In the Japanese dub, Steele is voiced by Isao Sasaki, a voice actor well-known for voicing either heroic roles, or in the worst case, anti-heroes. Voicing a rotten villain is normally outside his modus operandi.
  • Steele was this for his slated actor Brandan Fraser, who normally plays much more heroic characters.
• Spared by the Cut: In a deleted scene, after Steele's crimes are exposed, he tries to attack Balto and is buried alive under a pile of coal during the struggle. In the final cut, he is merely shunned by the other dogs while they all abandon him to praise Balto.
• Underage Casting: Despite playing the older Rosy in the live-action Framing Device segments, Miriam Margolyes was only 53 years old at the time of production.
• Vindicated by Cable: Was sadly a flop at the box office, largely due to being released around the same time as Toy Story, but it found new appreciation on VHS and through repeated airings on television in places like Cartoon Network; its songs and animation won especially strong praise from critics.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Originally, instead of simply being abandoned by the other dogs, Steele was going to suffer a Family-Unfriendly Death that involved getting his collar snagged on a lever and falling into a coal pit. ^note Fans have also pointed out that, since Steele survived falling from a high, rocky cliff earlier in the film, him dying in a coal pit doesn't make too much sense. Unless Steele also happened to get buried in coal as well in this deleted scene.
  • Balto's lack of commercial success closed down Amblimation for good, and with said closure several projects never came into fruition, including an animated version of Cats.
• Word of God: The white wolf in the first movie is not meant to be Balto's mother. That was something the people behind the sequel came up with.