Did anyone watch the series as it aired? What was your reaction then?

Raiders90

Well-known member
I imagine most everyone in 1989/1990/1991 thought that LC would be the last we ever saw of Indy. For those who were old enough in 1992, did anyone here remember how they heard about the YIJC? Did anyone watch them when they originally aired?

What was your reaction back then, first to hearing that we were getting a series about Indy's youthful pre-TOD adventures, and then, your first reaction when you watched the series?
 

Goodeknight

New member
Yes, I was thrilled about it coming out, and waited anxiously for the first episode. Loved the teasers leading up to it, and loved the intro.

My very first reaction was hating Old Indy passionately. Early in my 20s and fresh back from a year abroad in Cairo, I fancied myself an up and coming Indy. So I didn't like the fact that Old Indy seemed like a washed up, ignored old man spinning tales no one believed or wanted to hear. He seemed far too decrepit for the adventurer I was used to. Didn't seem a fitting end to his life story.

At the same time, the youngest Indy (Corey Carrier) went a little too far back for me. So I'm in my 20s and facing Indy either as an ancient old man or a little kid. But in time, I tended to like those episodes far better than the wartime ones with Sean Patrick Flannery. Outside of the war, some good episodes with him, though. I just thought all of the war episodes seemed about as dull as a boring lecture. For the most part they just didn't grab me. So by comparison I preferred Especially Young Indy (Corey), and particularly that first adventure in Egypt, since I'd just gotten home from Egypt myself.

Thanks to Lucas, the production standards were out of this world for the time.

And I was blown away the first time I saw the end credits and the b/w treatment of the show footage. Dust scratches and all. Thought that was incredible and waited for it at the end of each episode. Still think it's incredible.

Seeing them now, I really miss Old Indy. Luckily, I can catch Old Indy on StooTV...

And now that I'm in my 40s and still fancy myself adventurous....Old Indy, here I come...
 

Demitasse

Member
I was about 12 years old when they started airing on ABC. My dad was a big fan of the trilogy which I had never seen and was really pumped about the show. My first exposure to the Indy character was through the Chronicles. I later loved the trilogy too, but Young Indy has a special place in my heart, as I remember tuning in each week with my dad and then having him lecture me about who all the famous people were at the end. (y)
I remember many of the original airings vividly, especially the pilot, east Africa, Austria, Russia and Italy. I LOVED how sometimes it was the lead-in to the Wonder Years or Doogie Howser... man talk about some good tv. I rediscovered the Chronicles again in 1999 on VHS when I was about 19 and saw a few more that I hadn't seen before.
Can't wait to show them to my son when he's old enough! :gun:
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Raiders112390, remember posting in this similar thread?;)
Nostalgia for YIJC: How did you originally get into the show?

Instead of writing everything all over again, I'll just transplant my post from there:

---
I had been and Indy fan since 1981 so when news of the TV show came about, I was super excited and the premiere of, "Curse of the Jackal", did not disappoint at all. The next day, many people at work said that they watched and enjoyed it. This was pleasant to hear.

The 1st regular episode in London had almost no action so the shift in tone came as a surprise but I was still compelled and moved by the love story. The next one, with Teddy Roosevelt was right up my alley because I had developed a deep interest in colonial Africa just a few years earlier.

Then along came "Verdun". WOW! This one absolutely blew me away. Our main TV was hooked up to the stereo and we had 4 speakers around the room so the bullet sounds were flying all around! To top it all off, it had a preview for next week with the "German East Africa" episode. This kicked my excitement into OVERDRIVE!

About an hour before that episode started, I ran out to buy a blank videocasette and bumped into 2 friends who were going out to a bar. They wanted me to join them and I said, "N-o-o-o WAY!" There was nothing in the world that was going to stop me from watching & recording that one. It still remains one of my favourite episodes to this day.

I recorded every episode (all on the SP speed for maximum quality). Even when the show later moved to Saturday nights, my VCR was set to tape it while I was out partying. In the remaining space at the end of each tape, I would record bits of documentaries that pertained to those stories (just like how the DVDs are). For a uniform look, I had them all on Kodak tapes and kept them in 3 VHS library boxes. The boxes were brown and opened like books so they resembled Young Indy's diary. Still have my collection, too.

Thanks to the internet in 1996, I discovered that there were more episodes that weren't aired on ABC*, plus, 4 movies from the Family Channel. The news floored me! Luckily, I found 2 people on-line who were more than willing to do a trade and within a month, I had all the missing shows and the U.K. bookends for "Mystery of the Blues" with George Hall. Then I bought the VHS releases in 1999 and the DVDs in 2007-08.

*I recorded the "Florence" episode from a French TV channel in 1994 and was puzzled why I had never seen it before.
Goodeknight said:
Seeing them now, I really miss Old Indy. Luckily, I can catch Old Indy on StooTV...
(y)
 

Goodeknight

New member
Demitasse said:
My first exposure to the Indy character was through the Chronicles.

I've always been curious about this sort of thing. So, now when you think "Indy," do you consider YIJC as "main" Indy, and the rest building off of it? Or do you think of the trilogy, with YIJC and CS as the spinoffs?

I'm fascinated by the way my son views the Clone Wars cartoon series as his true "Star Wars." For him, the original trilogy is "more" or "other" Star Wars stuff.

Anyone following me on this? Primary exposure forming the basis for your definition of a character or series. Maybe I'm the only one who finds this interesting.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Goodeknight said:
I've always been curious about this sort of thing.

...

Anyone following me on this? Primary exposure forming the basis for your definition of a character or series. Maybe I'm the only one who finds this interesting.

You're certainly not alone, Goodeknight.


Smiffy said:
My image of Indy is coloured...by my first contact with him through the Raiders novel. From the beginning he was up to no good, and the moment he turns the tables on Barranca he became like that other anti-hero, the Man With No Name, whom Lucas noted as another character inspiration.

Campbell's writing was very reminiscent of Frank Chandler or Forrest Carter:

...

So I never thought of him as a hero in the modern sense, which made him all the more interesting.

Whenever Young Indy was on TV I had very little inclination to watch it. Catching snippets of it nothing felt reminiscent of the Indiana Jones trilogy.

It looked very much like a spin-off that had spun a long way off course.

While it was well made I still think it's a stand alone series that bears very little relation to the Harrison Ford adventures.

That the Clone Wars may be the true Star Wars for youngsters nowadays is akin to KOTCS coming top in the list of Indy films! ROTLA must look very antiquated now - the young guy never even rode a fridge through an atomic explosion, and yet people in the 'olden days' still thought he was heroic!
 

Demitasse

Member
Goodeknight said:
So, now when you think "Indy," do you consider YIJC as "main" Indy, and the rest building off of it? Or do you think of the trilogy, with YIJC and CS as the spinoffs?

Haha, no way. You say "Indy" and I'm thinking Harrison Ford, bull whips and Nazis. I loved the Young Indy character, but even when I watched the trilogy for the first time as a young teenager, I kind of went into it knowing that it was its own thing and sort of forced a mental divorce from the Indy of the Chronicles.

After multiple viewings of the trilogy and KCS over the years, its sometimes fun to look for those echoes of the SPF Young Indy (which you sometimes have to work hard to project). Say what you will about KCS, god blessum for the huge bone they threw to Young Indy fans!
 

Goodeknight

New member
Demitasse said:
Say what you will about KCS, god blessum for the huge bone they threw to Young Indy fans!

The 'Yeah, I rode with Pancho Villa' line is one of my favorite parts of CS.
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Raiders112390 said:
I imagine most everyone in 1989/1990/1991 thought that LC would be the last we ever saw of Indy.
Quoting Princess Leia to Han Solo:
"I don't know where you get your delusions, laserbrain.":rolleyes:
Goodeknight said:
Maybe I'm the only one who finds this interesting.
As Monty Smiff said, you're not alone.
Demitasse said:
I LOVED how sometimes it was the lead-in to the Wonder Years or Doogie Howser... man talk about some good tv.
Halfcup! If I stayed home to record Young Indy manually, each time it was over, I left the house! In my world, 1992/93 was ♫♪♪ "Party-all-the-time, Party-all-the-time, Party-all-the-ti-i-i-i-ime!"♫♫♪:D (Can't remember who sang that annoying but memorable dance song.)

I've heard that "Wonder Years" and "Doogie Howser" were good but have never seen them.
Montana Smith said:
Whenever Young Indy was on TV I had very little inclination to watch it. Catching snippets of it nothing felt reminiscent of the Indiana Jones trilogy.
"Curse of the Jackal" as the premiere was very reminiscent of the films (not just for me but for everyone I knew who tuned in. It was the later episodes that turned them off).:p
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Goodeknight said:
The 'Yeah, I rode with Pancho Villa' line is one of my favorite parts of CS.

If the YIJC were a series of Old Indy's tall-tales, then the mention of Pancho Villa in KOTCS indicates that this film is itself the final episode of the YIJC (for which bookends were never filmed).

This neatly explains fridges, atom bombs, aliens, rubber trees, monkeys, Marion, Mutt, Oxley, Mac, and Old Indy's inability to imagine his beloved Irina doing anything really evil.

Come to think of it, maybe Indy never even found the Ark (the evidence conveniently disappeared into a secure location); never escaped from an aeroplane by means of a rubber raft, never invoked a god, met Hitler or an ancient knight. :eek:

Stoo said:
"Curse of the Jackal" as the premiere was very reminiscent of the films (not just for me but for everyone I knew who tuned in. It was the later episodes that turned them off).:p

The snippets I happened to catch were un-Indy-like! They were the later episodes with SPF as a sugary sweet un-Harrison-like character.

Having since watched all the series I know SPF had his tougher moments, but as a whole it's a little bit too much Forrest Gump. Learning Lucas' reason for making the YIJC explains why.
 
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Raiders90

Well-known member
I personally see a lot of a future Indy in both the SPF and Corey Carrier versions. Corey Carrier plays Indy as the perfect misfit, trouble maker kid in search of adventure...I can't imagine a young Indy any different. SPF plays all sides of Indy--as a fully 3D character--but when he has to be, he is cynical, jaded, nasty and sarcastic, and we can see shades of the character that would develop over the next 15 years off-screen. The Bantam novels conveniently start with an SPF-like Indy in the early 1920s and end with the Indy we meet in TOD in 1934.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Raiders112390 said:
SPF plays all sides of Indy--as a fully 3D character--but when he has to be, he is cynical, jaded, nasty and sarcastic...

Can you highlight instances ?

The only time I can remember is when Indy pushed Remy into giving him a whack.

However, what separates Young Indy from the trilogy is its raison d'être.

The trilogy existed primarily to showcase cliffhanger-style adventure.

Young Indy existed primarily for edutainment.

As such they couldn't be further apart, since education is the last thing you would associate with the trilogy.
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
Montana Smith said:
Can you highlight instances ?

The only time I can remember is when Indy pushed Remy into giving him a whack.

However, what separates Young Indy from the trilogy is its raison d'être.

The trilogy existed primarily to showcase cliffhanger-style adventure.

Young Indy existed primarily for edutainment.

As such they couldn't be further apart, since education is the last thing you would associate with the trilogy.

Indiana Jones: [holding a gun to his commanding officer's head] You're being irrational. Emotions are clouding your judgement. You're endangering the men and putting our mission at risk.
Major Boucher: This is mutiny, Captain.
Indiana Jones: I disagree. Now drop your weapon. It's not a request.
Major Boucher: I'll have you before a firing squad. All of you.

Prince Sixtus of Bourbon-Parma: That's the trick cyclist we passed on the way in. We thought he was an errant boy.
Indiana Jones: That's captain errant boy to you, second lieutenant. And unless you're dressed for a masquerade I fully expect to be saluted.

Indiana Jones: German spies don't concern me so much. All they do is shoot us. Its the Austrian secret police that worries me more.
Prince Sixtus of Bourbon-Parma: And what would they do?
Indiana Jones: Poke our eyes out, strip our flesh, feed us our innerts, for starters.

Indiana Jones: Have you ever known me to lose a bet?
Stefan: Ankara. But you would never admit it.

Stefan: Henry, be careful.
Indiana Jones: Aren't I always?
Stefan: No. I would say... not always.
[Indy opens the door, only to catch their assistant eavesdropping]

There's more quotes but I can't find them on any site. Sarcastic quotes by Indy--for example about how he has no tolerance for the frivolous; In another episode, he sarcastically tells another guy how "at least you got some sleep." You'd have to see it in context, but put the deeper voice of Harrison Ford in some of these lines and it'd fit.

As for their reasons for existing, that doesn't matter to me. They're all just different parts of the story of the same character. It makes the character much more than just a 2D archetype.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
I still can't associate either Young Indy or Davros-with-an-eyepatch with Harrison Ford.

images


OldIndy.jpg



Lucas half corrected the problem by erasing Davros, but Young Indy is, and forever will be in my mind, Lucas' own fan-made expanded universe.
 

Goodeknight

New member
Raiders112390 said:
Corey Carrier plays Indy as the perfect misfit, trouble maker kid in search of adventure...I can't imagine a young Indy any different.

I agree Corey Carrier is more Indyesque than SPF. Think about it. Corey at 7 (or whatever), was way tougher than SPF at 18-19-20. SPF did more whining, wincing, and crying than Corey Carrier ever did at less than half the age.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Goodeknight said:
I agree Corey Carrier is more Indyesque than SPF. Think about it. Corey at 7 (or whatever), was way tougher than SPF at 18-19-20. SPF did more whining, wincing, and crying than Corey Carrier ever did at less than half the age.

You put your finger on the issue.

It was no wonder young Belloq stole young Indy's college work. He just wanted to make him cry again. Tried to repeat the game in Peru '36, but for some mysterious reason he failed!
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
I honestly don't remember much "wincing, crying or whining" on Indy's part in the YIJ. Yeah, he cried--when Molly, his fiancee, died in his arms. But I don't remember him whining. He was a Captain in WWI and a spy. The character became tough over the course of the series. Re-watch the series one day, it's a really good backstory for Indy.
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Raiders112390 said:
Did anyone watch the series as it aired? / Did anyone watch them when they originally aired?
Hey, Raiders112390, you KNOW that some people here watched the show when it aired so why ask if "anyone" did?:confused:
Raiders112390 said:
Prince Sixtus of Bourbon-Parma: That's the trick cyclist we passed on the way in. We thought he was an errant boy.
Indiana Jones: That's captain errant boy to you, second lieutenant. And unless you're dressed for a masquerade I fully expect to be saluted.
Just so you're aware, it's "errand boy" (such as a young messenger).
Raiders112390 said:
Indiana Jones: Poke our eyes out, strip our flesh, feed us our innerts, for starters.
Likewise, the actual word here is, "innards".
Raiders112390 said:
Sarcastic quotes by Indy--for example about how he has no tolerance for the frivolous; In another episode, he sarcastically tells another guy how "at least you got some sleep."
Those are not examples of Young Indy being sarcastic. (If you don't know what sarcasm is, then look no further than you own post here.);)
 

phantom train

New member
Re-posting an edited version of a post I made on the other thread:

Way back in late December 1991, I remember seeing the first trailer for "YIJC" on network TV (U.S.), at the tail end of a broadcast of one of the IJ films. Based on this trailer, I was immediately pulled in and got very pumped about seeing the show. Since this was pre-Internet, all the news/info. I got was in the then-sporadic "Lucasfilm Insider" magazine, which was the pre-cursor to the current "SW Insider". Since there wasn't a lot of new SW news to report at that time, Lucasfilm would devote a lot of space in the mag. to the YIJC.

Flash-forward to Spring 1992 - "Curse of the Jackal" was broadcast on TV, and I was blown away. Though this wasn't the IJ that I was used to, I liked the unusual approach that Lucas took, and enjoyed seeing early 20th century history through YIJ's eyes. It was also obvious that the show had a large budget, since everything seemed to be filmed on location in many foreign countries, something that is almost unheard of for a network T.V. show.

I remember this was one of the few shows I watched where all of the episodes were excellent. I remember especially enjoying the WW I episodes. In fact, I was in college at this time, and the excellent WW I episode where Indy met Siegfried Sassoon and other British soldiers inspired me to write an English paper on World War I soldier poets.

I also enjoyed the very young Indy episodes, especially "British East Africa 1909", where little Indy met T. Roosevelt.

Anyway, I continued watching the show religiously throughout 1992 and 1993, and was frustrated at the constant cancellations and/or time/day changes that it was subjected to. It was especially disappointing since YIJC was definitely better than a lot of other network TV shows, yet it never really found an audience while on TV.

In 1994/1995, since I didn't have cable, I had a friend tape the Family channel broadcasts of "Peacock's Eye", "Attack of the Hawkmen", "Travels with Father", and "Hollywood Follies". Though these were great, I was dissapointed that these tele-films were the end of the series.

In the late 1990's/early 2000's, I became aware of the VHS tapes of some of the tele-films, and saw a couple of them. However, when I found out that they would not release the whole series on VHS, I lost interest and didn't watch any more.

Flash-forward to Summer 2007 - it was announced that the entire series would be released on DVD, starting in Fall 2007. Excellent news, especially since I had thought the show would never be released on disc (I credit the release of the new IJ film this May as being the primary reason the YIJC was released on DVD).

When I first saw the DVD's, it brought back memories of seeing the shows for the first time. Especially cool was that some of these episodes were never broadcast in the U.S. (i.e. the Franz Kafka episode, etc.), so I was seeing them for the first time.
 

Lance Quazar

Well-known member
I watched the show during its initial airings and found it a bit...lacking.

After one or two appearances, I started skipping the Corey Carrier episodes entirely. Too kiddie for me. I had no interest in watching them.

As for SPF....well, I really *wanted* to like those episodes. And some of them were fun. But even the episodes with the most interesting plots suffering from lax pacing and uneven writing.

And then there's SPF himself. My first reaction was that he was too soft and insecure to really feel like Indy. He just didn't have enough presence or charisma.

Contrast it to River Phoenix's performance. He nailed Indy's cocky swagger and (over) confidence.

SPF felt like an entirely different person. There was very little of Indy's DNA in that performance.
 
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