Dead Television: Young Indiana Jones

[TMC]

https://dekkareviews.wordpress.com/2...indiana-jones/

May 15, 2023
Dave Cameron



1981: The world was introduced to Indiana Jones, in Raiders of the Lost Ark, immediately audiences took to the old school serial-styled adventures of Harrison Ford as Henry “Indiana” Jones. In the (initial) final film, The Last Crusade, we got a glimpse of Indy’s life as teenager, played by the late River Phoenix. River’s short appearance in the movie was well received, and it gave George Lucas the idea to tell the adventures of Indiana Jones as a young man. Writing a heavily detailed timeline explaining Indy’s life from his birth leading up to the trilogy, writing enough material for at least 70 episodes. Ironically, while writing the timeline, George became obsessed with the Crystal Skulls, and even wrote an episode where Indy and Belloq search for one of the skulls, the concept would of course be recycled for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The show was picked up by ABC and ran for two seasons.

The show (as it originally aired) would usually start in then-present day New York 1992, where a 93 year old, one-eyed, (and possibly senile) Indiana Jones played by George Hall, would regale the person or people with tales from his youth, weather he, she, or they’d want to hear it or not. The episodes alternate would alternate between which Young Indy we’d see, one episode would be a story with 8 to 10 yr old Indy played by Corey Carrier traveling the world with his parents, on his father’s world lecture tour, or 16 to 21 year old Indy played by Sean Patrick Flanery fighting in World War I (under the fake name, Henry Defense), and starting his journey to study archeology. Also, in each of these episodes, Indy would meet historical figures, to help with the edutainment aspect of the show.

While the show focused primarily on Indy, we also see his family in the Kid Indy episodes, with Lloyd Owen playing Henry Sr (who does a great Sir Sean Connery impression), Ruth De Sosa as Indy’s never heard of mother, Anna, and his tutor Helen Seymour played by Margaret Tyzack. The more prominent Teen Indy episodes only had one supporting character, Indy’s friend, Remy Baudouin played by the late Ronny Coutteure. The show is also know for its use of big named actors, as well as future directors helming episodes.

Now you’re probably wondering weather or not the show is in fact canon to the movies, to which I say, sort of. We get references to the movies, like the Peacock’s Eye shows up in the first episode, in episode 3, the University Club chant was recited by Henry Sr, and an old friend, and in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indy told Mutt he learned Quechua from Pancho Villa, this also happened in the first episode. But, in one episode, we learned that Indy has a daughter, and not a son.

This brings me to a very popular episode/TV Movie, Mystery of the Blues. In this movie, Harrison Ford returns as Indiana Jones, though he has a beard, due to Harrison filming The Fugitive at the time, and unlike some other people, they just let him keep the beard. This takes place seven years prior to Crystal Skull, he and an old friend, Greycloud were being chased for a ancient peace pipe, during the chase they end up in the Jones Family cabin, where he finds his old saxophone, and recounts how he worked at a Jazz club while studying in a Chicago. He also had to help solve the mystery of the club owner’s death, with help from his roommate Eliot Ness.

Sadly, not even Harrison Ford could save the show, ABC canceled the show after two seasons, due to low ratings, also its massive budget didn’t help matters either. Each episode cost $1.5 Million ($2,151,361.37 in 2023), and required location shots all around the world, and its effects, which at the time was pretty impressive for the time. Lucas, even stated that the show served as a template for where he wanted to take the Special Editions.

Speaking of, after the series was canceled, George Lucas took a few episodes, re-edited, and at first created four TV Movies for Freeform, back when it was called the Family Channel. He then re-edited both seasons into 22 direct-to-video movies (with Mystery of the Blues being the only one unedited), retitled The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones. As mentioned above, the episodes were never aired chronologically, so new scenes were filmed to help with transitioning from episode to episode. Because of this, most of the actors (notably Corey Carrier) look older than they did back when they first filmed the episodes. Another notable change, is the bookends with Old Indy were removed. This was most likely, due to fans (and mostly George) not liking the idea of Indy turning into a senile old man, but if you think about all the things Indy has gone through in his life, wouldn’t it actually makes sense that he became the way he did in the bookends?

The TV Movies were released on DVD in three volumes from October 2007 to April 2008, to coincide with the release of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull., though they’re now out of print and difficult to get a hold of, but the entire series is available on YouTube. And if you’re curious about the George Hall bookends, a YouTube channel called StooTV, has compiled all the George Hall bookends into a series of videos called The Old Indiana Jones Chronicles. He also has some deleted scenes from the Freeform TV Movies, and behind scenes snippets from the show and the movies. Last year he also, posted two candid set videos from Dial of Destiny.

Overall, So, I can’t really say for sure if I can recommend this. Your mileage may vary on this, but, if you’re still want something to hold you over until Dial of Destiny comes out, give this a view.

Rank: 3 out of 5