Nostalgia for YIJC: How did you originally get into the show?

Matinee Idyll

New member
We'll have to agree to disagree there Adam! :)

Make sure you check out 'The Singing Detective' especially, it'll blow your mind. The pinnacle of televisual drama, without question.
 

phantom train

New member
Matinee Idyll, thanks for posting the info. about the TV dramas, "Pennies from Heaven", "The Singing Detective", and "Against the Wind" - I haven't seen any of these shows, but I'm always looking for quality TV shows to watch, and if they're on DVD (Region 1) I will check them out.

I did want to address the comparison of YIJC to "Twin Peaks" however. I am a huge "Peaks" fan - I watched the show religiously in the early '90's, saw the film "TP: Fire Walk with Me" in the theatre in 1992, and last Fall I bought the entire boxed set of the series on DVD (this boxed set included the pilot, the first time the pilot was available on Region 1 DVD). Excellent show, and it's too bad it didn't last longer.

That being said, I will have to say that YIJC was a better show that "Peaks", because, in my opinion, YIJC was consistently very well-done - almost every episode/tele-film was exceptionally good.
"Peaks", on the other hand, had a very strong first season and first-half second season, but the show sometimes floundered in the last portion of the second season (with the exception of the superb final episode). Anyway, just my .02.....
 

Adamwankenobi

New member
phantom train said:
and last Fall I bought the entire boxed set of the series on DVD (this boxed set included the pilot, the first time the pilot was available on Region 1 DVD).

That was an awesome box set Lynch and company put together! Lucas could learn a thing or two from him. :D
 

tupogirl

New member
Hi, this is my first post here:).

I'm one of the few who got into Indiana Jones because of the tv show. I used to watch the New Mickey Mouse Club in the early 90's. They used to have little bits of movies on Mon, Wed, and Fri. They had a number of actors who went on to gain quite a bit of fame through different things. There was one actor who was in two movies, playing the villain. I couldn't stand him!!! He was even mean in the milk commercials he did!! Of course, this was Sean Patrick Flanery. I found out he was doing Young Indy through the teeny bopper magazines, and wasn't impressed. Then I started seeing the ads on tv and was very intrigued.

I definitely liked the show but became a huge SPF fan during the London 1916 episode. That one is still one of my all time favorites! I've remained a fan of his and have seen most of his work. Young Indy is definitely best followed by Boondock Saints and Powder.

I had to watch the movies after I got into the show, then had to read all the books I could get my hands on. I've enjoyed the novels immensely. I still have 5 of my Young Indy books and my complete set of trading cards. I'm not sure what happened to the incomplete set. I've become a huge WWI buff as well.

I'm so glad I found this place!
 

Flannery10

New member
Welcome to the Raven!! It's always great to see someone join the club, who likes "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles".
 

tupogirl

New member
I know, I'm an odd bird. And I get more excited about things like the Young Indy dvd's coming out than say Indy 4, even though I am excited for that. I missed all the other Indy movies in the theatre!
 

phantom train

New member
Happy Anniversary! YIJC will be 20 years old in Spring 2012

I wanted to resurrect this thread to acknowledge the forthcoming 20-year anniversary of the YIJC (and didn't want to start a new thread).

Anyway, it's extremely hard to believe it's been almost 20 years since this show first aired. It seems like only yesterday that I first saw Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal on US TV back in Spring '92. I really enjoyed this tele-film, and liked how it linked both the little Indy, the teen Indy, and the much older Indy. If memory serves, subsequent episodes that Spring featured some of the best episodes of the series: British East Africa - September 1909; London - May 1916; Verdun - September 1916; German East Africa - December 1916; and Congo - January 1917.

At that time, I had high hopes for the show and wanted it to be a big hit, so it would last for many years.

Even 20 years later, the YIJC is unquestionably one of the all-time best TV shows, period.
 

Attila the Professor

Moderator
Staff member
phantom train said:
Even 20 years later, the YIJC is unquestionably one of the all-time best TV shows, period.

Depends how long the list is. It is, however, a truly singular achievement, in conception, production value, and scope.

I believe my first encounter with the series was seeing Hollywood Follies when it aired on what would have been, I believe, the Family Channel at the time. Either that or Treasure of the Peacock's Eye, when it was attached to the final VHS boxed set. I acquired the other 11 that were available at that time as well, and managed to see My First Adventure, Demons of Deception, Travels with Father and the latter third or so of Journey of Radiance on television at various times, be that on the History Channel or Sci-Fi. My Indy fandom would have been starting more or less when the series, as it aired, was ending.
 

InexorableTash

Active member
I believe my parents had picked up the TV Guide announcing the premier of YIJC and we watched it live. (This was before DVRs, kids!) I remember being very confused at the Demetrios sub-plot, perhaps due to distractions. The only real memory of watching the rest of the series was the bookend of German East Africa, December 1916, explaining who young Barthelemy grew up to be.

That said, I know I must have seen several other episodes - London, 1916; British East Africa, 1909; Verdun, 1916; Barcelona, 1917; Mystery of the Blues; Phantom Train of Doom; Peking, 1910 - when re-watching the DVDs, I could tell I'd seen them before, and I'm pretty sure we didn't tape them for later viewing. I was quite busy with university classes at the time, and the broadcast schedule was erratic, so it was hard to keep up with them all. I may have seen more - it's hard to remember. Stoo might agree that some of the bookends are more memorable than the episodes, in some ways.

As might be guessed by my most active thread, I was into film scores at the time (portable CD player + long commute to school + disposable income = lots of music shopping!) and picked up the four OSTs, and listened to them quite a bit.

... and that was pretty much it until KOTCS started being marketed, Indy popped back into my consciousness, and I started googling around to see if a "volume 5" OST was released.
 

Raiders90

Well-known member
I got the 1999 or 2000 Indiana Jones collection, which had Treasure of the Peacock's Eye packed with the original trilogy. My interest in Indiana Jones had just begun around this time--I think I watched Temple of Doom on a VHS tape a few months before, which was taped off TV sometime before.

After that, I was utterly fascinated with the YIJC (and all things Indy, really). My parents also loved the YIJC as it combined Indiana Jones--which they liked--with historical characters. As such, we began at first renting the other movies from the local library, and then, as time went on, buying all the episodes available on VHS at the time. I think by 2001 we had all 12 of them.

I know by 2002/2003 I'd tape the then unreleased episodes whenever they came on TV--If I'm not mistaken, sometime around 2002/2003 or so SCIFI (I think) had a marathon of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, including some of the Corey Carrier episodes, which hadn't been released on VHS yet.

I was mesmizered by the show and how big it made the world seem. I still am. There's a certain beautiful grandness to the Corey Carrier episodes; the world of the early 1900s seems like this huge, wonderous place.
 

phantom train

New member
Raiders112390 said:
I was mesmizered by the show and how big it made the world seem. I still am. There's a certain beautiful grandness to the Corey Carrier episodes; the world of the early 1900s seems like this huge, wonderous place.

Yes, I completely agree with this; The Correy Carrier episodes are very underrated, and are very epic in scope, in part because you are seeing the world through the eyes of a small child; the China episode especially is a great example of this.
 

Violet

Moderator Emeritus
I can't believe I haven't posted here yet!

I watched the series when it originally aired when I was about 3 or 4, (around the time I first watched Last Crusade, when that was on TV). Some episodes were shown as midday movie timeslots and other eps (esp a couple of years later) as after school specials. I particularly remember the second half of Curse of the Jackal and Istanbul 1917. The show wasn't shown constantly, it was an on/off thing, and eventually disappeared save for the second half of Curse of the Jackal that at the time, I insisted to my Mum to let me record it on VHS.

Years, later in 2000, the VHS's came out, and I bought as many as I could over time, with the saved up pocket money I had, esp because I was trying to fill the promo Adventures of Indiana Jones map with the stickers each VHS came with. I never succeed in completing it as later batches of the VHS didn't come with the stickers. TV started to show select ep's again as weekend midday movies, (one of which was the original version of 'Travels with Father') which I recorded as they weren't avaliable on the videos that were out.

Then I went to Supanova a few years later, and found Young Indy comics at one of the vintage comic stands, and started collecting those. I'm nearly complete there. So we'll see what happens next Supanova. I also have borrowed out and read a number of Young Indy books, particularly those by Les Martin, as I thought he was the best writer for Young Indy.
 

Stoo

Well-known member
Violet said:
I can't believe I haven't posted here yet!
Same here!

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.

Aaah, nostalgia.:)
 

Montana Smith

Active member
I have zero nostalgia for the series, though I have vague memories of it being on TV. It didn't interest me as it was so different to film-version Indy that it looked like it was just using his name to sell itself.

My interest only developed during my post-KOTCS reawakening.

The series still looks like a separate entity, apart from a few references. It stands alone as a quality product, but it lacks the influence of Fedora. That aspect was lying dormant throughout the Great War and into 1920. The series ended just when things might be getting more interesting for Indy. The next 15 years would probably have featured more of the character we'd recognize.
 

Henry W Jones

New member
Montana Smith said:
I have zero nostalgia for the series, though I have vague memories of it being on TV. It didn't interest me as it was so different to film-version Indy that it looked like it was just using his name to sell itself.

My interest only developed during my post-KOTCS reawakening.

The series still looks like a separate entity, apart from a few references. It stands alone as a quality product, but it lacks the influence of Fedora. That aspect was lying dormant throughout the Great War and into 1920. The series ended just when things might be getting more interesting for Indy. The next 15 years would probably have featured more of the character we'd recognize.

I tried getting into the series when it aired but I was in my teens and it did not do it for me when it came out. I like the show now but I barely feel like I'm watching Indy still. The show was filmed well but as far as capturing the character of Indiana Jones the show fails on that note in my opinion. I just watched LC and River pulled off young Indy and its a shame the show wasn't handled character wise the same way. River had the Ford facial expressions and general Indy attitude that SPF in my opinion never achieved during the show. The only nostalgia it provides me is the disappointment I felt originally watching it
 
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