The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones is the name given to The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles in 1999 for airing on television and release on VHS and DVD. While the original television show was primarily one-hour programs with the occasional two-hour special, able to be divided into forty-four one-hour episodes, the episodes were re-edited into twenty-two feature length chapters for the video release.

In 1999, several of the chapters of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones were released on VHS. The remaining chapters were aired on ABC in 2001. In 2007-2008, all the chapters were re-released in DVD box sets, with companion historical documentaries.

Differences between The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones
A notable difference from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones is the removal of nearly all the bookend segments from the original episodes, in which George Hall portrayed a nonagenarian Indiana Jones who recounts the adventures of the episode. The only bookend segment that was retained is found in Chapter 20, which has Harrison Ford portraying Indy in 1950 in the bookend segments.

All episodes had their original opening titles removed. The episodes were edited into 22 feature-length episodes, with two original episodes that were chronologically connected (or in some cases, connected by theme) edited together. The exceptions are "Daredevils of the Desert", which was simply expanded for its chapter version, and "Winds of Change", which was edited from three separate episode, with part of one episode originally airing as the bookends to Young Indiana Jones: Travels with Father. New titles were created for each chapter, often based on the them of one of the chapter's halves.

In addition to the removal of the bookend segments, some chapters included new material to help connect the separated storylines of the two episodes being edited into one story. While much of this bridge material had been filmed at the time of the episode's filming, some additional scenes were filmed after the show had aired.

To tell the story of Indiana Jones' life as a more continuous saga, several episodes The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles were moved from their original place in the timeline presented in the episode titles. For instance, Chapter 3:The Perils of Cupid has the events of "Vienna, November 1908" take place before the events of "Florence, May 1908".

Other minor changes were made. In some instances, characters were re-dubbed&mdash;sometimes with completely new voice actors. Rather than fading quickly to the end credits, most of the chapters slowly transition from the series' color footage to a version of the footage rendered to look like old black and white film reels. The credits themselves were also changed in many instances. The Lucasfilm logo at the end of each episode was replaced with the new Lucasilm logo at the beginning.

VHS set
The VHS release of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones was in 1999. Each chapter was released on its own videotape, with its chapter number as being part of The Complete Adventures of Indiana Jones, which combined the Young Indy episodes with the three existing films. However, not every chapter was actually released for public sale. The chapters that were not released on VHS were later aired on ABC in 2001.

In 1999, re-edited versions of the series were released on VHS. However, only twelve of the planned twenty-two tapes were produced. In April 2007, producer Rick McCallum announced that the complete series was being prepared for DVD release; the first set of episodes would be available by Christmas 2007.

The revised and updated edition of the book George Lucas: The Creative Impulse, by Charles Champlin, explains how The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles series would be re-edited into the new structure of twenty-two "Chapter" TV films, for the 1999 VHS release. New footage was shot in 1996 to be incorporated with the newly re-edited and re-titled "chapters" to better help it chronologically and provide supposedly smooth transitions. The newly shot "Tangiers, 1908" was joined with "Egypt, 1908" from the original pilot episode Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal to form My First Adventure, and "Morocco, 1917" was joined with "Northern Italy, 1918" (now re-dated as 1917) to form Tales of Innocence. The "Mexico, March 1916" segment from Curse of the Jackal has been joined with "Princeton, 1916" to form Spring Break Adventure. Also included in the home video release were four unaired episodes made for the ABC network, "Florence, May 1908", "Prague, 1917", "Transylvania, 1918", and "Palestine, 1917".

The 93-year-old Indy bookends for the original series were removed, as well as Sean Patrick Flanery's bookend for Travels With Father (It would seem that bookend was dropped so that it could be expanded into the second half of Winds Of Change). However, the Harrison Ford bookend, set in 50s, from The Mystery of The Blues was not cut.

The 1999 collection also included the four episodes that were made for the ABC network that never aired. Including Florence, May 1908, Prague, Aug. 1917, Transylvania, Jan. 1918, and Palestine, 1917 (note that the dates of these episodes have changed to be a part of the collection). Palestine may end up as the most interesting as it has been made into a film of its own, versus the one-hour version that aired in Europe. As stated above Tangiers, 1908 and Morocco, 1917 were filmed just for this collection. Finally, the little bit of Princeton, 1919 that was shown in the Family Channel's airing of Young Indiana Jones Travels With Father, was actually a part of its own one-hour story now combined with Paris, May 1919.

VHS and Laserdisc
The series received its first home video release on April 21, 1993, when a Laserdisc box set was released in Japan containing fifteen of the earlier episodes and a short documentary on the making of the series. The discs were formatted in NTSC and presented with English audio in Dolby surround with Japanese subtitles. In 1994, eight NTSC format VHS tapes with a total of fifteen episodes from the first two seasons were released in Japan.

In 1993, six volumes of episodes were released by Paramount Home entertainment and CIC Video on VHS in PAL format in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands and Finland. The first three volumes were released on November 8, 1993, and the final three volumes were released on November 22, 1993.
 * Vol. 1 "Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal"
 * Vol. 2 "London 1916" & "Vienna 1908"
 * Vol. 3 "Verdun 1916" & "Austria 1917"
 * Vol. 4 "German East Africa 1916" & "Congo 1917"
 * Vol. 5 "The Somme 1916" & "Germany 1916"
 * Vol. 6 "Barcelona 1917" & "British East Africa 1909"

On October 26, 1999, half of the series was released on VHS in the United States for $14.99 each, along with a box set of the feature films making up The Complete Adventures of Indiana Jones. The series was labeled as Chapters 1-22, while the films were labeled as Chapters 23-25. In an effort to promote the series, Treasure of the Peacock's Eye was included with the purchase of the film trilogy box set in the US, and Oganga, the Giver and Taker of Life was included internationally. As a result, while the other videos are often expensive and difficult to find, multiple copies of Peacock and Oganga could often be found at many thrift stores for low prices. Each VHS tape included a "Passport to Adventure" booklet with rebate offers, a scratch-off chance to win a vacation, and a sticker that could be applied to a special map of Indy's adventures. The videogame Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine was advertised along with the release.

The twelve VHS releases were released worldwide over the course of the year 2000, including the U.K., Netherlands, Hungary, Germany, Mexico, France, and Japan. The UK and Netherlands tapes were in PAL format, while the tapes released in the rest of the countries were in NTSC format. As late as September 2000, Paramount was undecided about releasing the remaining 11 VHS tapes,, but ultimately decided to not release any more.

DVD set
The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones was released as a series of DVD box sets, containing the complete series of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, presented as a set of 22 feature-length episodes. It is divided into three volumes:


 * Volume One: The Early Years was released in the United States on October 23, 2007 and contains 12 discs, including chapters 1-7, as well thirty-eight in-depth companion documentaries, interactive game & timeline, and an historical overview. It contains all the episodes with Corey Carrier as Indiana Jones (ages 8-10), as well as some episodes with Sean Patrick Flanery as sixteen-year-old Indiana Jones.


 * Volume Two: The War Years was released on December 18, 2007. It contains 9 discs, including Chapters 8-15, as well twenty-six in-depth companion documentaries, interactive game & timeline, and an historical lecture.


 * Volume Three: The Years of Change is scheduled for release on April 29, 2008. It will contain Chapters 16-22 and about thirty documentaries.

Besides the chapters of the series, the DVD set included ninety-four companion historical documentaries related to the chapters, and one disc in each volume included an interactive timeline, interactive game, and a historical overview lecture.