Rewatch Adventures of Indiana Jones Part XI

Young Indy is back in America and exploring the world of the arts in the final three episodes of the show. Each episode covers a different part of the creative arts world: jazz, broadway, film, respectively.
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Image credit: indianajones.fandom.com

Mystery of the Blues - Chicago, 1920
The first episode of the entertainment world triad focuses on Indy's early time at the University of Chicago. He is waiting tables at a nightclub where Sidney Bechet regularly plays with his band and quickly becomes enamored with jazz music. Bechet gives Indy a soprano sax to mess around with and by the end of the episode he has found a groove. Of course, mixed in with all of this, Indy's roommate (Eliot Ness, obviously) gets involved with helping Indy solve a murder at the nightclub, perpetrated by none other than Al Capone. All of that sounds awesome, and it was, but the cake topper in this episode was Harrison Ford's first appearance as Indiana Jones since Last Crusade in the prologue and epilogue of the episode. I remember how huge an event it was when I heard he was going to be reprising the role on the show. This episode also heavily influenced some of my own life choices almost as much as the pilot of the show. I decided to play the saxophone because of this episode, and for a while I really wanted to attend the University of Chicago to study archaeology. Looking back, that might be a little weird, but what can I say, Indiana Jones is a defining character in my life.

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Scandal of 1920 - New York, 1920
In this episode, Indy gets a job on a Broadway production as part of the stage crew and (shocker!) juggles relationships with three different young women at the same time. I am over the revolving door of relationships aspect of this show, which tarnished my opinion of the episode overall. One standout, however, was the addition of George Gershwin as a friend for Indy. The music throughout the episode added little touches of Gershwin's music, an enjoyable easter egg, for sure.

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Hollywood Follies - Hollywood, 1920
In the final episode of the show chronologically, Indy spends the summer working in Hollywood as an industry exec and then director assistant. The episode was fine and not particularly memorable, but I could tell that George Lucas enjoyed getting a little meta with the process of making movies in Hollywood. The end of the episode had an excellent reference to the classic Raiders truck chase sequence when Indy conducts a stunt on a western film by pulling himself along the underside of a carriage.
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Now that I have completed my rewatch of the entire show, here are a few thoughts:

• I understand that Indiana Jones is partially based on James Bond and his various love affairs, but I quickly tired of the repetitive love interest plot in a majority of the episodes.
• The World War I episodes were excellent television and I imagine groundbreaking for the early 90s.
• Despite its several flaws, this show was monumentally important to my development as a young kid. I do not know whether I would have the love I do for the ancient world without this show.
• I am grateful this show existed because it showed me that a life studying the humanities might be kind of cool.