Josh Relives the Adventures of Young Indiana Jones

One of my earliest posts for this blog last year was a list of a bunch of DVDs on my “to-watch” shelf that I hoped to get to some time in the near future.  One item on that list was the first set of DVDs collecting The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones.

Well, it took me quite a while, but I am pleased to report that almost a year later I have made my way through that DVD set!  (It’s the first of three sets that collect the entire run of the series.)

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones was a TV series that ran, somewhat sporadically, from 1992-1996.  Alternating episodes would follow the adventures of 10 year-old Indy (played by Corey Carrier), and teen-aged Indy (played by Sean Patrick Flanery).  In each episode, Indy would find himself in adventures in varying parts of the globe, each time running into many real-life historical figures, Forest Gump style.  ABC cancelled the series after its second season in 1993, but the USA network picked it up and aired a number of new episodes in two-hour mini-movie formats until 1996.

For the 1999 release of the series on VHS, the entire series was re-edited chronologically, with each episode paired with the next one in sequence to form a two-hour mini-movie (similar to the way the episodes were aired on USA).  In so doing, all of the framing device scenes with a very Old Indy (93 year-old Indy was played by George Hall) that used to start and end each episode were completely removed.  These are the versions that have been released on DVD.  Also in 1999, Lucas, ever one to re-name his work (Star Wars eventually becomes Episode IV: A New Hope; Raiders of the Lost Ark eventually becomes Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark), at this point also changed the name of the series from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles to The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones.  (And thank heaven for wikipedia for that little tidbit.  Writing this whole review I kept writing The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, but I could see that the title on the DVDs was The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones.  I had no idea why I kept getting the title wrong!  Well, it’s because I always knew this show as The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles! Sheesh!)

(By the way, here’s another amusing tidbit.  Does anyone but me remember how, when this series was released on VHS in 1999 in the form of 22 mini-movies, each labeled “chapter 1” through “chapter 22,” Lucas also re-released the Indy movie trilogy, labeling the movies “chapter 23″ through” chapter 25″??  This got me so worked up at the time, but now it just makes me laugh at its ridiculousness.  The man just has a thing about numbering the episodes of his adventure serials!)

I watched this show when it originally aired.  I remember sort-of enjoying the episodes with teen-aged Indy (particularly the episodes that took place during World War I), although I was rather bored by the adventures of 10 year-old Indy.  Even as a kid I knew mediocrity when I saw it.  Since these DVDs contain the episodes re-edited chronologically (rather than by their original air-date), this first set of DVDs contains mostly the adventures of 10 year-old Indy (10 episodes, divided into 5 mini-movies), and only a few featuring Sean Patrick Flanery as teen-aged Indy (4 episodes, split into 2 mini-movies).  Nevertheless, I hadn’t seen any of these episodes since the mid-90’s, and many of them I hadn’t ever seen at all, so I was curious to revisit the series.

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones is an interesting endeavor.  It was designed to focus more on education — teaching kids about history, geography, politics, and different peoples and cultures — than it was to be a whiz-bang action adventure.  I can appreciate that more now, as an adult, and as I re-watched the episodes I also didn’t have the immediate dis-interest in 10 year-old Indy that I had as a kid.  That being said, the show is, for the most part, pretty boring.  This is exacerbated by the mini-movie format, as sitting through two episodes in a row is a bit of a chore.  After the first movie, I started putting the episodes on, periodically, while I was drawing.  If I just sat down to watch one, I’d get bored, but having one on in the background while I worked suited me just fine.  (Most episodes didn’t require 100% of my attention in order to follow!)

What I found myself enjoying on the DVDs more than the episodes themselves were the ENORMOUS quantity of documentaries.  Each mini-movie is accompanied by up to eight documentaries (many of them around 30 minutes in length) that provide further detail about the people, places, and historical events covered in that particular adventure.  I found these documentaries to be FASCINATING in the extreme.  As with the episodes, these would probably be dull if I just sat down to watch a few straight through… but playing in the background while I was drawing, they were phenomenal.  I often was eager to get through an episode so that I could check out the accompanying documentaries.  An enormous amount of time, effort, and money must have gone in to the creation of these documentaries.  Again, it is clear that Lucas’ goal with this project is education, and I have to commend him for that.

Other thoughts:  I was pleased to see the number of famous guest-stars who popped up in the episodes in this first set (although some of them weren’t quite so famous at the time).  These include Max von Sydow as Sigmund Freud in “The Perils of Cupid,” Michael Gough as Leo Tolstoy in “Travels with Father,” and Elizabeth Hurley as Indy love-interest Vicky Prentiss and Vanessa Redgrave as Mrs. Prentiss in “Love’s Sweet Song.”  Young Indy is also notable in that it was one of the first TV shows to utilize digital effects in order to create some of the far-off locales in which the different adventures were set.  (In many ways, this was a test-bed for the techniques that Lucas would eventually use for the Special Editions of the Star Wars Trilogy in the late 90’s and then, of course, for the Prequel Trilogy.)

I think I would have preferred if the episodes had been released on disc as originally aired.  I do like the chronological presentation, but the transitions half-way through each mini-movie (where one episode originally ended and another began) are very awkward.  Often-times the episodes, although chronologically in sequence, were shot many months apart.  This resorts in some awkwardness in which 10 year-old Indy seems to age by a year or more between one scene and the next!  Also, as noted above, sitting through two of these episodes in a row can be a bit rough.  Another nit-pick: while I understand the decision to excise all of the Old Indy framing-device scenes (my recollection is that, even to childhood-me, those scenes were lame in the extreme), for completeness’ sake I was really disappointed that they’re not included on the DVD set as a special feature of some kind.  That’s a pretty enormous omission.  Also, while I understand that Lucas and co.’s focus was on all of the educational documentaries, I would have really liked to see some sort of making-of documentary or featurette that dealt with the creation of this show itself.  I bet there are some interesting stories to be told, and it’s a bummer that there’s nothing like that on the set.

So there you have it, folks.  In the end, the episodes are about what I expected, and the documentaries are fascinating (if you’re interested in that sort of thing, and have a lot of time to kill or the need for something mildly-diverting to watch/listen-to as you work on something else).  But I’ll tell you this, though: the lamest Young Indy adventure on this set is still better than the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull!