Indiana Jonesis coming back in a big way in 2023, with Harrison Ford reprising the iconic role in the new filmIndiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny.Slated for release on June 30 and directed by James Mangold (Logan) the news of a new entry has people reflecting on the previous entries in the franchise and what has and hasn’t worked over the years.
However, there is oneIndiana Jonesstory that is frequently overlooked. In 1992The Young Indiana Jones Chroniclestold the story of the boy that would becomethe most extraordinary archaeologistthe world had ever seen. Let’s look back at this forgotten series and the story of young Indy ahead of another new adventure.
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The action-adventure series was, like the film series, created by George Lucas and was produced in a collaboration between Lucasfilm LTD and Amblin Entertainment, Steven Spielberg’s production company. Spielberg also directed every entry in the film series up until the upcomingDial of Destinywhere Mangold has taken over the reins. The show told the story of Indy’s younger years, from the age of 8 to 21, with 8-year-old Indy played by Corey Carrier and Sean Patrick Flannery (Boondock Saints) as Indy from age 16 onwards.
As a young boy, the episodes would follow Indy ashe traveled the world with his father Henry Sr. (Lloyd Owen) giving lectures and teaching history across the globe. The episodes featuring young Indy served to set up the tense relationship between him and his father which was explored further as Indy became a teen and also features in the main film series. As a teenager, the show saw Indy go into rebellion and run off to join the Belgian army using a fake identity as well as becoming a spy, solving murders, and working in the theater.
The show itself was designed to be an educational show for young viewers, as well as an engrossing adventure. Episodes would often feature Indy teaming up with historical figures to help them.All manner of historical celebrities appearedover the shows' short run with appearances from Winston Churchill, Al Capone, Picasso, and Ernest Hemingway to name just a few. Along with history’s greatest characters, the show featured an abundance of famous or soon-to-be-famous guest stars including Daniel Craig, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Christopher Lee.
Craig played a German officer stationed in Palestine during World War I who attempts to destroy the city’s water supply, Zeta-Jones played an Arab spy named Maya in the same episode. Christopher Lee played Count Ottokar Graf Czerin in an episode centered on Indy’s efforts to stop the Sixtus Affair. While these episodes featured plenty of early action-packed adventures for the heroic history buff, they also put the spotlight on actual historical events and allowed young viewers to learn without necessarily realizing it.
While the plan for the show was to have an equal focus on young Indy and teen Indy, the show ultimately became more focused on the older iteration of the character. Flannerys' version was able to have moredramatic and dangerous adventuresand wasn’t confined by the travel plans of his family. Striking out on his own, teen Indy was able to develop his skills independently and learn to incorporate his own less conventional methods of archaeology with the lessons from his father,
As well as featuring the adventures of the past, the episodes would be bookended by 93-year-old Indy who acted as the storyteller. Played by George Hall, older Indy would often be the catalyst for the episode, regaling strangers he meets with tales of his adventures and wrapping things up at the end. Does this make for an unreliable narrator? Yes, but that is part of the fun of the show. Considering what we know about Ford’s Indiana Jones, it could absolutely all be true, or it could equally be massively embellished. These episode bookends also revealed that Jones had a daughter and grandchildren, but there is no mention of Mutt Williams, Indy’s son with Marion Ravenwood, discovered inIndiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Fans were also treated to an unexpected appearance fromHarrison Ford playing 50-year-old Indyin one episode. In this episode, Ford’s Indiana is the one who bookends the story. In this feature-length episode, young Indy is working as a waiter, rooming with Eliot Ness, and encountering Ernest Hemingway working as a reporter all while trying to solve a murder. From this episode alone, it’s easy to see why Indy could be seen as an unreliable narrator, the circumstances and people he encounters are almost too fantastical.
The show was canceled with four episodes left unaired, although these episodes would be released as joined-together feature-length episodes later. Ultimately the show’s large budget and low viewership would lead to the cancelation of the series, although it was often repeated throughout the early to mid-nineties. In 1999 the show was turned into 22 television movies and renamedThe Adventures of Young Indiana Jones.The popularity of Indiana Jones as a character and a franchise has never waned, despite the lackluster 2008Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
George Lucas always had a timelineof Indiana Jone’s life and had a plan for at least 70 episodes that would lead up to the events in the feature films. It was during the planning for the series that Lucas discovered the fabled crystal skulls that would eventually become the basis for the fourth feature film. The show may not have lasted the 70 episodes Lucas had planned, but it did have a strong run and had an excellent source to draw from. A fun romp through history for kids and teens, it may not hold much interest for older viewers, but it was an interesting way to expand the story of Indiana Jones and keep him alive on screen and in the audience’s minds until the next silver screen adventure.
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