Of all 22 episodes currently streaming under the Indiana Jones category on Disney+, these are the episodes of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones worth watching. Created and written by George Lucas, twenty-eight episodes were originally a t venture from Lucasfilm and Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, and aired on ABC under the title The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles from 1992-1993, with a few episodes that never saw regular syndication, and four TV movies that debuted afterward in the mid-'90s. In 1996, Lucas teamed up with T.M. Christopher and reassembled all twenty-eight episodes, along with the TV films, into twenty-two episodes of about 90 minutes each.
Each episode contains two adventures arranged in chronological order from the earliest days of Indy traveling the world as a boy with his father, Professor Henry Jones Sr., to when he becomes embroiled in WWI as a teenager. As he travels from East Africa and Istanbul to and Paris and everywhere in between, Indy is swept up in the excitement and the icons of the era's historical events, including the political plight of Lawrence of Arabia in Egypt, Al Capone's Prohibition-era Chicago, Paris's art scene with Pablo Picasso, and of course, Nazi . The best episodes have the right blend of adventure, excitement, historical trivia, and life lessons.
8 My First Adventure
Fans of Indy's adventures in Egypt in Raiders of the Lost Ark will adore the first episode of Young Indiana Jones, which follows nine-year-old Indy (Corey Carrier) as he accompanies his father (Lloyd Owen) on a worldwide lecture tour that includes the Valley of the Kings and excavation of Ka's tomb, the resting place of a mysterious jackal headpiece. Indy gets to pal around with T. E. Lawrence and a young Howard Carter before he discovered King Tut's tomb. After the headpiece is stolen, Indy and Lawrence must try to determine the perpetrator, but along the way, Indy gets abducted and taken across the Sahara by slave traders.
Not only does this episode include backstory with Indy's father and a cameo by Indiana, the family dog, it also establishes the rage he has for the Thuggee cult in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom after being kidnapped as a child. When the episode originally aired, an older Indy recognized the man responsible for the headpiece's disappearance during the Mexican Revolutionary War in 1916. Much like he tracked down the Cross of Coronado after an incident in his childhood in The Last Crusade, he was able to bring the artifact's mystery full circle, but this is accomplished in another episode.
7 Travels With My Father
In Travels With My Father, young Indy (Corey Carrier) accompanies his father to the monasteries of Meteora in Greece during flashbacks while an older Indy (Sean Patrick Flanery) returns to Princeton after being swept up in WWI. The flashbacks in the episode juxtapose the last time Indy and his father got along with their current relationship filled with animosity, and Rings of Powers' Lloyd Owen really shines as a younger version of Sean Connery in a tense table scene, where a teenage Indy tries to convince his father of the realities of war but gets completely shut down in a battle of intellects.
Fans who have been curious about Indy's rocky relationship with his father ever since The Last Crusade will enjoy how Young Indiana Jones expands the canon and reveals the backstory of their feud, which doesn't have as much to do with Dr. Jones' obsession with the Holy Grail diary as they'd think. Indy and his father each have a stubborn streak, and because both of them are unable to see each other's points of view, they don't know how to communicate. But there is a real pain in Henry's eyes when Indy sets off on another adventure rather than waste any more time trying to convince his father of his convictions.
6 ions For Life
This episode of The Young Adventures of Indiana Jones is a rollicking adventure that takes Indy from British East Africa all the way to Bohemian Paris. Still accompanying his father on his worldwide lecture tour, Indy (Corey Carrier) gets invited to a coffee plantation in Africa where he meets, of all people, President Theodore Roosevelt, who instantly takes a shine to him and enlists him to help gather artifacts for the Smithsonian Museum. Later, older Indy (Sean Patrick Flanery) travels to Paris and becomes absorbed in its many art subcultures, befriending two distinctly different painters; Norman Rockwell and Pablo Picasso.
While it can be hard to imagine Indy having so many interactions with so many historical figures over the course of his childhood, Indy spoke 27 languages at 19, and his voracious intellect made him as attractive to others as his skill with a bullwhip or rugged good looks. Not only that, but the series infuses these encounters with a sense of whimsy, reinforcing the notion that there's a large world out there to explore for anyone as bold as Indy. James Gammon's performance as Teddy Roosevelt is one of the top portrayals of historical figures in the Young Indiana Jones series.
5 Treasure of the Peacock's Eye
Treasure of the Peacock's Eye has all the ingredients of a classic Indy adventure with brawling bad guys, globe-trotting adventures, and a mystical artifact. When a dying soldier reveals to older Indy (Sean Patrick Flanery) and his friend Remy the location of the Peacock's Eye, a rare and priceless diamond, the dynamic duo treks all over the world until they get to New Guinea. Meanwhile, a One-Eyed Man dogs their every step, from Egypt to the South Pacific.
Originally one of the made-for-TV films that aired in the mid-'90s, this episode of The Young Adventures of Indiana Jones feels the most like one of Lucas and Spielberg's films. It has high production values and quality special effects and art direction. Not only does it feature Indy and Remy getting captured by headhunters and outsmarting Chinese pirates, but they also meet famous anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski.
4 The Trenches Of Hell
As its name implies, this episode plunges Indy and his friend Remy into trench warfare after they become attached to a Belgian company fighting the Germans in WWI. Their unit suffers unimaginable losses, and with all the officers dead, an interim French commander orders the remaining survivors to take a château, which leads to the Germans capturing Indy and Remy being left for dead. The rest of the episode takes place in a prison camp, where Indy plots a prison break with Charles De Gaulle.
The Trenches of Hell is part of a section of episodes nicknamed "The War Years" that chronicle Indy and Remy's adventures during WWI. They convey an unflinching look at wartime chaos and violence and are part of what mold Indy into the righteous protector he is in the films, not to mention cement his hatred of Nazis. The Phantom Train of Doom is another notable episode during this time period that features an exciting high-speed adventure on a German train.
3 Demons Of Deception
In another episode in "The War Years," Demons of Deception follows Indy as he makes some very difficult decisions during WWI, particularly when it comes to officers sending the men under their command to their deaths with no territorial gain. Indy reunites with Remy and after his father's influential friend pulls some strings, they're able to get leave in Paris. Indy falls in love with the famous German spy Mata Hari despite knowing he can't trust her and eventually gets arrested and interrogated by the French police.
This episode skillfully combines the horrors of war with the intrigue of espionage and wartime spying. Since these episodes focus solely on Sean Patrick Flanery playing Indiana Jones as a teenager, they deal with more mature themes and feel more adult in tone than the adventures featuring Corey Carrier. Indy is forced to confront his naive perceptions of the way the world works, and the delusions of youth gradually give way to the wisdom of growing life experience.
2 Mystery Of The Blues
Indy arrives in the Roaring '20s in Mystery of the Blues with a raucous crime adventure featuring the murder of a restaurateur amidst the Chicago jazz scene. Between working at a speakeasy and learning to play the blues with Sidney Bechet, he teams up with famous FBI agent Eliot Ness and author Ernest Hemingway to solve the crime. As he navigates the twisted alleyways of the criminal underworld, he crosses paths with Al Capone and other notable gangsters from the Prohibition Era.
This episode is noteworthy for being the only one to include the original Indiana Jones himself, Harrison Ford in a Young Indiana Jones cameo. Snowbound in a cabin in Wyoming, a 50-year-old Indy recalls his time in Chicago with that trademark glint in his eye. Ford was filming The Fugitive at the time and agreed to film the cameo in his own home, sporting a salt-and-pepper beard seven years before the events of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
1 Masks Of Evil
Masks of Evil is one of the few episodes in the series to feature a supernatural element when Indy encounters General Mattias Targo, said to be a reincarnation of Vlad the Impaler. Posing as a journalist, Indy travels from Venice to find out what happened to three men investigating Targo's origins, and is shocked to discover he may be going up against Count Dracula. At the same time, he's attempting to convince the Turkish general Mustaga Kemal to agree to peace with the Allied Forces instead of the Germans.
While this episode is more fantastical than others in The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, it deserves inclusion for its connectivity to the parts of Indy films that walk the line between truth and fiction. Also, worthy of note is Bob Peck's performance as General Targo the same year he played game warden Robert Muldoon in Jurassic Park. He's a larger-than-life villain that almost gives the Indiana Jones franchise a Bond-like nemesis.