(Volume 1, episode 2 of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones)
View on Amazon Prime
Indy in the Classroom Link
Setting: British East Africa (now Kenya), and Paris, France
Topics: hunting in Africa, early 1900s art scene in Paris
Historical characters this episode: Teddy Roosevelt, Norman Rockwell, Pablo Picasso, Edgar Degas, George Braque, Henri Rousseau
This episode was a wonderful adventure in the wilds of East Africa, complete with all the animals and tribal people you would expect. Indy’s friendship with a little tribal boy is very sweet.
Indy’s family is hanging out with President Roosevelt on a hunting expedition in Africa, and Indy has free roam of the African savanna, along with his native guide.
Scenes to watch out for in the first half:
- Sensitive children may have a hard time with the hunting scenes (lots of dead animals being carried on sticks through camp), and there is an extremely emotional scene where Indy leads President Roosevelt and crew to the location of an animal that is admittedly endangered (they are killing specimens to be stuffed and displayed in museums around the world.) …knowing they would be killed. Heartwrenching, that scene.
Next they are off to Paris and while touring the Louvre, Indy meets a young Norman Rockwell! (I immediately recognized a young teen Lukas Haas!! Adorable!!) and roams the Paris art scene with his new friend. Along the way he gets into some misadventures with none other than Pablo Picasso and learns a bit about the depth of an artist’s experience.
Scenes to watch out for in the second half:
- There is a bit of a bawdy feel to the scenes with Picasso, complete with prostitutes and flirting, but nothing I felt went too far. (It will just go over my kids’ heads.)
- There’s also a lot of drinking, and drunkenness…as well as some bar brawls.
