The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones
Television show? Movie series? Uhhh... both? They took the episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, re-edited, reformatted, added new content... basically George Lucased the thing... and ended up with a series of movie-length releases under this name which is how the series is available today.
SPOILERS TOTAL. You've been warned.
X01: My First Adventure
(First watched 2023-06-09, -) Before making this page I discussed this one a bit elsewhere, so I'll paste that in:
Started up Young Indy on D+. Very early on, but some immediate things: I should've been expecting this, but the show is in SD. Also, it's not quite in its original form. In the later 90s they reedited them into the form of "movies" in a pretty complicated way. Episodes that originally had parts with both the younger and older actor were split up and then those parts would be put together to form near-feature-length adventures for one or the other. Looking at Wikipedia now, some things surprise me... but maybe I should've expected it from George Lucas. Like, the show was originally aired in '92 and '93, but some new stuff was filmed for the new versions in '96 and '97.
"Wahoo!" "Jeepers creepers!" "Holy smokes!" - Henry Jones before the half hour mark.
I've reached the midway of this moviesode of Young Indy and oh my this is weird. I could tell they moved to a new episode, because Indy's actor was very visibly older. Looking at it now, this is one of those parts produced later that was intended for a third season but instead got placed with the older content and so the intended timeframe for it was moved from July 1909 to May 1908 to match the other episode, though the halves were filmed something like 4 years apart. Which is VERY OBVIOUS when your lead actor goes from something like age 11 to age 15.
OK, now some non-pasted stuff: As far as a concept for very young Indiana Jones, "goes on a world tour with his scholar father who is giving presentations" is probably about as good as you could get, even if watching baby Indiana Jones in baby adventures isn't really something exciting to watch. Kind of funny that it starts out introducing his dog namesake and then is immediately like "...aaaand he got left home while we went around the world!"
X02: Passion for Life
(First watched 2023-07-05, -07) I don't see how this kid is going to have many more adventures. Everywhere they go he runs off, gets lost, or gets kidnapped. They're going to start immediately chaining him up at the hotels.
This kid runs into more historical figures per episode than The Doctor.
Creaky gate sound effect 1:13:28.
X03: The Perils of Cupid
(First watched 2023-07-08) Indy falls in love with... the daughter of Franz Ferdinand. I was really feeling bad for these folks, knowing this kid of 8 or 9 was beating their security when clearly there were dangerous people wanting them dead.
Second part very abnormal for this show. Less about Young Indiana Jones himself, more about famous opera writer Puccini trying to seduce Young Indiana Jones's mother.
X04: Travels With Father
(First watched 2023-07-10) Both halves fairly interesting, though the naming doesn't really fit both. I mean, the first half has Indy running away from his family. It's about as far from traveling with his father as he gets in these years of traveling with his father. BUT the road teamup of Indy + Tolstoy worked unexpectedly well.
For a change there's actually some death-defying going on in the second half, with the rope elevator malfunction. Seemed to bring Henry and Henry closer together, though that seems to have only lasted about two minutes since they're back to bickering immediately as the timeline continues.
X05: Journey of Radiance
(First watched 2023-07-11) The first half was more straightforward informative than most, without being too boring about it. Indy learning about comparative religion from a rising star, while his teacher deals with the fact that rising star's benefactors are full of shit.
Second half... well, it's just people getting sick in China. And most of the action takes place in a really poor family's house that they take over. *shrug* If you ever wondered if Indiana Jones canonically had diarrhea? This provides the answer.
No offense to Corey Carrier, but I am glad to be past this Youngest Indy phase.
X06: Spring Break Adventure
(First watched 2023-07-12, -14) A lot more action and fun than the Youngest Indy time period, but still awkwardly slapped together halves and as a setup for continuing adventures maybe rougher than the "touring the world" setup Youngest Indy had.
First half, Indy has an adventure with his also-adventurous girlfriend, helping out Edison with the theft of plans for an electric car. Young Clark Gregg helps out a little, even. Then... he goes on vacation, and tries to go to a bordello. Time for love, Dr. Jones?
He instead gets caught up with Mexican revolutionaries and briefly joins them before deciding that's not his war, but he's pretty sure there IS a war for him out there, and he'll head to Europe to find it. Kids running away from home is common, but it's not as often you hear about kids running away from vacation. The last Indy's cousin saw of him was chasing after the revolutionaries, so what DOES his family think? Presumed dead? At one point we see Indy trying to write a letter to his father explaining that he's joined the revolutionaries, but it never gets finished. Maybe he'll get around to that sometime so his family at least knows he's alive?
I also wasn't quite expecting "high school dropout" from a future professor. I'm curious how his education plays out from this point.
X07: Love's Sweet Song
(First watched 2023-07-15) The Adventures of Horny Indiana Jones! Last movie he had a girlfriend for the first half. Second half he tried to get to a bordello. First half of this one he's in Ireland for a few weeks and has a girlfriend there. Second half of this one he's in London for a few weeks and gets another girlfriend, and even wants to get married.
So he DID get a message off to his father about joining the Mexicans, but it's quickly out of date since he ended up joining the Belgians.
One thing I don't think I've mentioned yet that I do like about these edited versions: the ending credits that plays over clips from the "movie", but filtered to look more like footage recorded in the early 20th century.
X08: Trenches of Hell
(First watched 2023-07-17) A rarity--it actually felt like it flowed from one half to another rather than being completely disparate halves. Trench warfare -> POW.
A few "movies" ago Indy fought a guy whose house blew up, killing him. But this time he's straight up in war and stabbed a guy to death.
X09: Demons of Deception
(First watched 2023-07-26) Watching this show out of chronological order must've presented some big tonal whiplash, especially with the Youngest Indy episodes mixed in. Watch Indy crawl among corpses with rats! Watch younger Indy party with Picasso! Watch 17-year-old Indy lose his virginity to 40-year-old Mata Hari!
X10: Phantom Train of Doom
(First watched 2023-07-29) Hey, they used fancy schmancy effects on the title this time.
This one was apparently made when the show was still hourly episodes, but this was a special two hour episode so the parts weren't as disparate. Still, the titular train was only present in the first half so the title still seems off. This "movie" had quite a bit of fun action. The stuff with the balloon in the second half was probably my favorite.
The Texan in this episode seemed really familiar, and looking it up it was Mac McDonald, who I best know as Captain Hollister from Red Dwarf.
X11: Oganga, the Giver and Taker of Life
(First watched 2023-??-??) This show is blatantly historical edutainment, but especially this part of the series has a strong "war is stupid" message, too. Here we see men die needlessly when they decide to pass up a hospital because it's run by a German. And even once the mission is complete with few of the men surviving... turns out their mission objective no longer mattered, so it was all in vain.
X12: Attack of the Hawkmen
(First watched 2023-11-early) Indy must be captured and escape from Germans more than any other fictional character. Except maybe the guys from Hogan's Heroes, if that counts? Actually, "Indy fighting off Germans in a series of vehicles" is probably one of the movie things that this series manages to occasionally come closest to.
So Indy and Remy get new jobs with French intelligence, and go their separate ways. The last we see of Remy, I wonder?
Jon Pertwee as a German general in this one.
X13: Adventures in the Secret Service YYYY MMMM D
(First watched 2023-11-mid) First half, pretty fun example of Indy in believable action, using his quick thinking skills to get in and out of trouble on a secret mission. The bit with the train on the Swiss border I found particularly amusing. Also, Christopher Lee as Count not-Dooku.
The second half... reminds us that these are not really movies. Just in that it all of a sudden time skips and he's talking about his good friends in the area that we've never seen before. A character piece I did find very believable, given what we know from the movies: Indy is disappointed to have basically an intelligence analyst desk job rather than field work, but they say his skills in languages and decoding puzzles make him invaluable. I bought it.
X14: Espionage Escapades
(First watched 2023-11-mid-late) The first half is one of the series high points so far, I think. Directed by and guest starring Terry Jones, it's Indy and a few other somewhat bumbling undercover agents trying to sway the war and almost making a big mess of things for reasons outside of their control. Pretty funny.
The second half... similar concept of spy work + comedy, but I think went too far in the farce, to where I no longer believed it. And having Franz Kafka's parting words being "What a trial!" Oy!
X15: Daredevils of the Desert
(First watched 2023-11-late) This one interests me more from a behind-the-scenes point of view. The director of a movie about a historical event returns to do a Young Indy episode about the same historical event. Then for this "movie" version of the episode, footage from his earlier movie is spliced in. But I must say it was done well. I was expecting it to feel like an episode padded out with lots of unrelated footage, but that wasn't really the case. They must've had a lot of footage left to work with that didn't make it into the original episode-length cut.
Also guest-starring pre-big-fame Catherine Zeta-Jones, Daniel Draig, and post-Doctor Who Colin Baker.