When THE YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES debuted on the ABC TV network in March, 1992, it had a huge amount of hype attached to it. One must remember that the early 1990s were the "In-between years" for Lucasfilm--the early Star Wars and Indy theatrical films had come and gone, and at this point no one was expecting any more of them in the future. George Lucas fans were excited to see what he could do with a weekly TV series.
By the end of the 1993 TV season, however, ABC decided to not renew the series. The hype had considerably died down, and as I remember there wasn't much of an outcry over the series going away. (Actually, the series did continue--four TV movies would be released later on The Family Channel. Does anyone even remember The Family Channel??) So why did one of the most heavily anticipated TV shows of all time come to such a quick end? And why has it seemingly barely made an impact?
I was a regular viewer of the Young Indy show at the beginning....but I soon began to realize that this show had very little to do with THE Indiana Jones that we watched on the big screen. The Young Indy show was more George Lucas' attempt at a history lesson than a venue for fantastic adventure.
Lucas wanted to use the Young Indy character as a way to get younger folks interested in history and social studies. That's a noble idea....but viewers (like me) wanted to see young Indiana Jones do, well, Indiana Jones type of stuff. They didn't want to be given a lesson in early 20th Century world affairs.
The show provided stories from two periods of Indy's life: a 10 year-old Indy (played by Corey Carrier) and a teenage Indy (played by Sean Patrick Flanery). The preteen Indy only featured in a handful of episodes--I think George Lucas realized there were only so many stories you could build around a 10 year-old kid. (Watching one of the Young Indy episodes starring Corey Carrier on Disney+, I came to the realization that he kind of reminded me a bit of Jake Lloyd--which explains a lot about how THE PHANTOM MENACE turned out.)
The original TV episodes also had introductions and endings featuring a 90 year-old Indy (played by George Hall). Old Indy would tell a story relating to his youth, which would lead into the actual episode. The joke was that Old Indy was invariably looked upon as a crazy old coot, and no one really wanted to listen to him. I never liked the "Old Indy" idea--I thought it lessened the larger-than-life quality of the character. (Apparently Lucasfilm agreed--I'll get to that later.)
I thought Sean Patrick Flanery did a decent job as the teenage Indy. He was certainly handsome and earnest enough--but his Indy is just too poised, too clean-cut. Harrison Ford's Indy had plenty of rough edges, and a mercenary streak. The teenage Indy just seems too decent at times. I realize the Young Indy TV show was aimed at younger viewers, and George Lucas certainly didn't want to show the character doing anything nefarious....but I never felt that Sean Patrick Flanery was playing the real Indiana Jones.
One big problem Flanery had was that he wasn't competing against Harrison Ford--he was competing against River Phoenix. Phoenix had of course played the teenage Indy in the opening sequence in INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE, and he absolutely nailed Harrison Ford's body language and speaking pattern.
Phoenix also played, in my opinion, a much more believable Young Indy. In LAST CRUSADE, we are shown that Indy lives with his father in a run-down house at the edge of the desert in the American Southwest, and it doesn't appear to be much of a life. In the Young Indy TV series, the character travels all over the world, meeting all sorts of famous people. Obviously, George Lucas wasn't going to build a whole TV series around a teenager and his uncommunicative dad sitting around a bleak landscape, but the movie Young Indy and the TV Young Indy feel like two different people.
George Lucas was determined to get as many famous historical events--and as many famous historical personalities--into the Young Indy show as possible. Among just some of the renowned people that Young Indy meets and interacts with are Winston Churchill, John Ford, Thomas Edison, Sigmund Freud, Paul Robeson, Pancho Villa, Woodrow Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia, Emperor Karl of Austria, Ernest Hemingway, Leo Tolstoy, Ho Chi Minh....and that's just a partial list. If Indy had met a historical figure or two every other episode, I could accept that. But he meets multiple famous figures in every episode, and he even becomes personal friends with some of them. The amount of world celebrities shoehorned into the Young Indy show got to be ridiculous.
The same could also be said about the various historical events Indy winds up witnessing. I realize this was just a TV show, but.....what are the odds of one person experiencing all these happenings?? In most of the shows, there are so many historical figures, and so many important events going on, that Indy is reduced to being more of an observer than an actual participant.
I've only re-watched a few Young Indy episodes on Disney+, but what I did see didn't change my original thoughts on the series. The shows are very dialogue-laden, and they even feel stuffy at times. Lucasfilm used the Young Indy show as a test platform for CGI, which was in its infancy at the time. The early CGI used on Young Indy looks terrible now--reinforcing my belief that practical effects age much, much better than anything created digitally.
While doing internet research on the show I found out that the entire series was filmed in 16mm. I was taken aback by this--I vividly remember the publicity for the show going on and on about how its was filmed all over the world, and how Lucasfilm spent so much money, time, and energy on it. I don't know if the episodes being presented on Disney+ have been remastered or restored in any way, but the shows I watched have a dark, murky look to them.
Something else about the Young Indy show being available on Disney+. These are not the original broadcast versions of the show. When the show was being prepped for home video release, Lucasfilm took the original 28 episodes and 4 TV movies and reorganized and re-edited them into 22 "chapters" (new linking material was provided for some of the episodes as well). The Old Indy wraparounds were jettisoned also. These 22 chapters are what you see when you currently watch the show on Disney+. I certainly don't miss the Old Indy segments, but once again Lucasfilm has taken one of their products and made it impossible to see the original version of it. I think there's something disconcerting about that.
I'm kind of surprised that Disney+ decided to carry the Young Indy show--for years and years it seemed as if Lucasfilm didn't even want to admit it existed. Obviously the hype over the new Indy movie is the main reason for Disney's action. I wonder how folks who weren't even born when the Young Indy show debuted would react to it now. Considering that most people didn't get too excited about it in the early 1990s, I highly doubt that the iPhone touting masses of today would be very impressed with it. You can't fault George Lucas for wanting to get viewers interested in history, but a TV show based on one of the most famous characters in filmed entertainment should have been much more successful.
One more thing--Harrison Ford did make a cameo appearance in one of the Young Indy episodes. He appears as Indy in the introduction and climax of "The Mystery of the Blues". You might be able to win some bets with that information.
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