Nome Meets Snob Hill, Part 1

by Earl J. Aversano

This story was inspired by the movies Balto (1995, © Universal Pictures and Amblimation/Amblin Entertainment), Balto 2: Wolf Quest (2002, © Universal Cartoon Studios), Balto 3: Wings of Change (2004, © Universal Cartoon Studios), Lady and the Tramp (1955, © Walt Disney Productions), and Lady and the Tramp 2: Scamp’s Adventure (2001, © Walt Disney Television Animation, Walt Disney Pictures), as well as the real history of the Great Serum Run of 1925.

The original Balto cartoon characters which appear, or are referred to, in this story: Jenna, Nikki, Kaltag and Star, Rosy (and Rosy’s dad), and the cartoon version of Balto are copyrighted property of Universal Pictures, Universal Cartoon Studios, and Amblimation/Amblin Entertainment, respectively. The original Lady and the Tramp characters which appear, or are referred to, in this story: Tramp, Lady, Jim Dear, Darling, Junior, Aunt Sara, Jock, Trusty, Reggie, Tony, Joe, Scamp, Annette, Collette, Danielle, Buster, the Dogcatcher (the version from L&T 2), Mrs. Mahoney, Mooch, Sparky, François, and Ruby, and location names: Snob Hill and Tony’s Restaurant, are copyrighted property of Walt Disney Productions, Walt Disney Television Animation, and Walt Disney Pictures.

Neither this story, nor any part of it, may be reproduced in print, or posted on a web blog, message board, or other electronic medium, without the permission of the author.


PREFACE
This story is a melding of fictional milieus of the Balto cartoon universe, and the Lady and the Tramp universe. It also blends with elements of the real events experienced by the real Balto and his team after the Serum Run of 1925. This is going to take some explaining, so that you understand the setting. If you don’t want to read it, then don’t. But I recommend that you do. I felt it was necessary to provide this preface.

The story itself is made up of many short chapters, meant to break up the action into segments, more in keeping with the flow of a cartoon rather than that of a book. I did this on purpose.

I would like to credit the following MySpace members, who are character role-players, with contributing to this story. They are the best at representing their characters on the entire MySpace community: http://www.myspace.com/baltostruelove (Jenna), http://www.myspace.com/collarfree (Tramp), and http://www.myspace.com/jimdearanddarling (Lady). (My RP profile on MySpace, for Balto, is http://www.myspace.com/baltoseppala.) Without their participation in the role-play scenario which was the inspiration for this, I probably would not have turned out a story half as interesting and entertaining.

In this story, we find Balto and his team (including Nikki, Kaltag and Star), and their musher touring the United States during the latter half of 1925 (even though the name of the team’s musher was never identified in the Balto cartoon movie, I have given him the name Gunnar Kaasen…that of the real musher of the real Balto’s team. The cartoon character is rather older in appearance than the real Gunnar Kaasen was at the time, and has an American accent and a beard. The real Gunnar Kaasen did not have a beard, was only in his early twenties, and was Norwegian). I have also given names to the last three dogs of Balto’s team (as you’ll see below). In the original Balto movie, their names were never mentioned.

It is autumn, and now almost eight months since Balto’s team arrived in Nome, carrying the life-saving diphtheria anti-toxin. In the early summer, the team was invited to come to the U.S., by Hollywood producer Sol Lesser, to make a short movie about their experiences. After that, the team was convinced to go on a tour of the states by train, taking part in vaudeville shows across the country. Balto was now a bona fide national celebrity, and people wanted to see this heroic dog who had led his team through blizzard and treacherous terrain on their errand of mercy.

Accompanying the team is Jenna and her master, Rosy’s father. Being better-traveled than Gunnar Kaasen, and an accomplished businessman, he has offered to assist as a liaison. He has also brought Jenna along, almost as an after-thought (which pleased her and Balto very much).

The team has spent the entire summer touring the United States, starting in Los Angeles, California and working their way across the country. Now, with the advent of autumn, they find themselves entering New England. It is late September, and the leaves on the trees are turning a dazzling array of colors…brilliant red, yellow, pink and orange. It’s something to which the team is not accustomed. In Alaska, the seasons turn so suddenly (and usually harshly), that there rarely is a chance for such a marvelous display.

They have just completed a visit in Boston, Massachusetts, when they are diverted to a small town nearby. Some wealthy citizen has arranged a parade, to include a ceremony and picnic in his posh community (“Snob Hill”), and managed to exert enough influence to convince Rosy’s father to commit the team to an appearance.

Snob Hill is a rich neighborhood in an unspecified town in New England. Fans of the Disney movies Lady and the Tramp and Lady and the Tramp 2: Scamp’s Adventure have often speculated that it is either in Boston or New York. However, this has never been officially documented…and I have not tried to pin it down here. It’s best left to the imagination. Snob Hill, which sits on the “right side of the tracks” from a rough-and-tumble working-class neighborhood, is a mixture of beautiful Colonial, Victorian and Edwardian homes with preened lawns and gardens, wrought-iron, stone, brick, and white picket fences, and fine iron and brass gas lamps lining concrete and brick-lain walkways as well as cobblestone and paved streets. Further along, the business district is inviting and decorative. In between are expansive, bucolic municipal parks also bordered by wrought-iron fences polished off with brass fixtures. It is as far removed from the simple frontier gold mining town of Nome as any neighborhood could be.

An exact date was also never indicated in the Lady and the Tramp movies…though there is a very obscure shot of a newspaper, in Lady and the Tramp 2: Scamp’s Adventure, which mentions the sinking of the S.S. Titanic (which occurred in April of 1912). So the producers of the 2001 feature tried to pin it down generally to April/May of 1912 (maybe…those could just as easily have been old newspapers that Jim Dear and Darling kept for occasions such as that which is played out in that scene – bathing the dogs). Walt Disney himself (and the producers of the original 1955 feature), on the other hand, never seemed to have been interested in tying Lady and the Tramp down to a specific date…beyond suggesting (through visual imagery…vehicles, buildings, clothing) that the time period is either the 1910s or 1920s.

Either way, this story is meant to take place in late September of 1925, approximately eight months after completion of the actual historical Serum Run. And so that is where I have decided to place the date within the confines of this fan fiction. For the purposes of the Lady and the Tramp movies, I have set this after the first one, but before the second. Scamp and his sisters are still much younger than they appear in Lady and the Tramp 2: Scamp’s Adventure, though some familiar characters from that movie will appear (Buster and his pack, Mrs. Mahoney, and the dogcatcher…I like him better than the dogcatcher in Lady and the Tramp…he’s got a more comical vibe, and is clearly a take-off on the legendary comedic character actor Don Knotts). As concerns the Balto movies, it is set eight months after the events portrayed in the first movie, but still two years before the second (which is set in what appears to be both the spring or summer of 1926 AND the summer of 1927).

Here’s a final note concerning my use of colloquial English. I have tried to stick strictly to the characters and the way they spoke in their respective movies…including any regional accents or regional grammar. To those reading this, for whom English is not their native language, it may appear a bit odd (especially with Nikki, Jock, Trusty, Buster and some others). I hope this doesn’t present too much of a problem. Remember that Nikki and Buster speak with a heavy Brooklyn/Bronx accent (that of a working-class New Yorker). Jock, the Scottish terrier, speaks with a Scots accent and colloquial manner. And Trusty, the old blood hound, speaks with a southern drawl, of course…and the colloquialisms of the old South (what in America is known as the ante-bellum South…pre-American Civil War). So you will see their lines purposefully misspelled (and some purposeful grammatical errors as well), which is meant to bring out their accents on the pages.

CHAPTER 1
The cozy yet demure streets of Snob Hill were packed with people and dogs alike, the former dressed in their Sunday best. Autumn had come to this quaint New England town, and multi-colored leaves tossed and twirled in the cool, blustery breeze. Painted banners offered welcome to Balto and his team. There were also decorations of red, white and blue, the remnants of the summer’s Independence Day celebrations, which adorned the buildings, gas-lamp posts, and fences along the street. People clamored for the best viewing spots for a special parade down Main Street. Those people who could not find room on the street leaned out of the second-story windows of apartments or those few shops which remained open for the day. It was no ordinary parade which drew this kind of a crowd. Today a group of canine heroes, and their human musher, were to be honored for helping to save the population of a small, far-off Alaskan town from the grips of the terrible disease known as “diphtheria”.

Into the crowd stepped a fair-faced young woman, her gentlemanly husband at her side. Behind them followed an older, well-dressed woman with a toddler in her