Indy's full, proper name is Henry Walton Jones, Jr. "Walton" is also the middle name of creator George Lucas and Lucas is also a junior, named after his father.

Henry Jones, Sr. wrote a book about chivalry (presumably its medieval connotations). Presumably, it is this book that was such a success that he was invited on a worldwide lecture tour, which is what begins Indy's international adventures here.

    The Jones family dog, Indiana, was obtained as a puppy by Mr. and Mrs. Jones when their son was still in a crib. The dog appears to be an Alaskan Malamute. Little Indy comes to consider Indiana his best friend.

    Indy seems too young here to have named the dog himself. So, who named the dog "Indiana" and why? Neither of his parents are from the U.S. state of Indiana (his father is from Scotland and his mother is said to be from a respected Virginia family in "The Perils of Cupid").

    There have been conflicting representations of the dog as male and female. Indiana is referred to as "he" in this episode and in the books The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones, Young Indiana Jones and The Phantom of the Klondike, Young Indiana Jones and the Secret City, Young Indiana Jones and the Radioactive Light Bulb, and Indiana Jones and the Dinosaur Eggs, but is referred to as "she" in the Travels With Father TV movie. Since most of the references use "he", one might think that we can assume the dog is male. But the name "Indiana" was borrowed by George Lucas from that of his own Alaskan Malamute dog in the 1970s and this dog was female! For now though, PopApostle will assume the Jones dog is a male.

At 2:28 on the DVD, Indiana (the dog) is seated on Indy's handcar contraption next to a product sign that reads "Wood, Taber & Morse's". The Wood, Taber & Morse Co. was a manufacturer of machinery for mills and farms from 1848 to around 1910.

    At 2:39 on the DVD, Indy seems to be trying to generate electricity through a crate of wired-up potatoes attached to a stationary bicycle he is furiously pedaling in some kind of experiment. A well-known children's experiment is the generation of small amounts of electricity by inserting two wired electrodes into a potato. Seemingly, Indy is trying to increase the amount of electricity through pedaling the bicycle. Indiana (the dog) causes the experiment to backfire wildly when he drops a wrench across the copper wires.

    The potatoes are in a Rubi tomato crate. I've been unable to determine if Rubi was a real world brand of tomatoes at the time.

Little Indy seemed to have several friends his age in Princeton who would help him build dangerous contraptions and generally get into innocent trouble.

In April 1908, Henry Jones, Sr. is invited for a lecture tour at universities around the world and his able to bring his wife and 8-year old son along. This begins Indy's love for globetrotting.

The Princeton, New Jersey house Little Indy lived in was filmed at 117 South 4th Street, Wilmington, NC.

    When the Jones family drives away from the Princeton house to head out on their international tour, Little Indy shouts to his gathered friends/relatives, "Take care of Indy!" So, it seems the dog Indiana also went by the nickname "Indy".

    The car the family drives off in is a 1915 Ford Model T, which did not yet exist in 1908! Not only is the year wrong, but the first ever Model T was not made until October 1908.

The Jones family boards a giant steamship to sail across the Atlantic Ocean. Notice that two distinctly different steamships are depicted during the boarding and exodus! The first has three red and black smokestacks, the second just two black and white smokestacks. From the design and paint scheme, the first ship seen is possibly a stock shot of the famous Queen Mary (though that ship's construction did not begin until 1930). The ship seen just a bit later, as the Jones' and Miss Seymour sail through the Mediterranean Sea may also be stock film of the Queen Mary, though the ship did not sail that part of the world during her commercial passenger liner days.

The family's first stops are in England, first London, then Oxford, where Henry Jones, Sr. had gone to university (presumably the University of Oxford, the oldest English-speaking university in the world and the second-longest continuously-operational university).

After Oxford, the family takes another steamship to Alexandria, Egypt, then a boat up the Nile River to Cairo, where Indy's father begins a series of lectures at Cairo University. However, Cairo University was not founded until December of that year and it was known as Egyptian University from it's founding until 1940 and then was King Fuad I University until 1952 when it became Cairo University. So, Henry Jones, Sr. could not have lectured there in May 1908!

    Indy's tutor throughout the lecture tour, Helen Margaret Seymour, was also a tutor for his father when he was at Oxford.

    Most likely, Miss Seymour's middle name of "Margaret" is borrowed from the first name of the actress who portrays her, Margaret Tyzack (1931-2011).

When Miss Seymour asks Indy his age, he tells her he's 9 years old. But, as mentioned above, since it's May of 1908, he's won't be 9 for another couple of months. It's fairly easy to imagine that Indy has simply intentionally stretched his age here, as boys at that stage of maturity generally yearn to be older than they are.

Henry, Sr. entices Miss Seymour to join the family as Indy's tutor with the thoughts of seeing the Great Wall of China, the gardens of Kyoto (the city of Kyoto, Japan is known for its many beautiful gardens), the Taj Mahal, and the pyramids. The Pyramids of Giza, Egypt will be seen by Miss Seymour and the Jones' in this very episode. They will see the Great Wall in "The Yin-Yang Principle" and the Taj Mahal in "Journey of Radiance". Presumably they also visited Kyoto in an unrecorded stopover.

When the ship is being rocked by waves at 6:00 on the DVD, it is in the Bay of Biscay (the gulf that lies along the Atlantic side of France and Spain) according to the junior novelization of this episode. But the map overlay of the ship's journey seen just seconds earlier implies the ship is already in the Mediterranean Sea at this point.

    At 6:03 on the DVD, Miss Seymour is writing on a chalk board for Indy's lessons. She has written the dates of the kingdoms of Ancient Egypt: Old Kingdom 2686-2181 BC, Middle Kingdom 2133-1633 BC, and New Kingdom 1567-1085 BC. These are roughly accurate. The range of years has tended to fluctuate over the decades as archaeologists make new discoveries about Ancient Egypt.

    A few seconds later, the writing on the board has changed slightly, with the "1085" year not completely written.

The bishop who shares dinner with the ship's captain is named as Bishop Dollope in the junior novelization of the episode (The Mummy's Curse).

During the dinner, notice that Henry, Sr. is reading a book at the table while he eats instead of participating in the conversation! A man after my own heart!

Indy's description at dinner of the organ removal and storage in four jars for the Ancient Egyptian preparation for mummification is accurate.

At 9:19 on the DVD, Henry, Sr. appears to be giving a lecture involving Conway Castle, a medieval castle in North Wales. The diagram of the castle layout is roughly accurate of the actual castle.

At times, Indy occasionally refers to Miss Seymour as "the Wicked Witch". This is likely a reference to the Wicked Witches of the Land of Oz books by L. Frank Baum from 1900-1920, particularly the Wicked Witch of the West, the main villain of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900).

When Indy and Miss Seymour visit the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids of Giza, she relates that the Sphinx was built around 2500 BC. Though there are conflicting viewpoints on this date based on the evidence, modern Egyptologists generally agree on this approximate date.

Miss Seymour pays the Egyptian camel driver 10 piastres for a ride for her and Indy to the pyramids when the man wanted 30. A piastre is generic term for a unit of currency.

Indy's knowledge of the largest of the pyramids at Giza, the pyramid of Cheops, is accurate.

Though not named here, Indy and Miss Seymour appear to climb the smallest of the three Great Pyramids. It is the pyramid of Menkaure. In 1908, it was probably relatively permissible to climb the pyramids. It has become steadily more difficult since, with an actual law against it (without a permit) enacted in 2019.

The camel driver leaves Miss Seymour and Indy stranded at the Giza pyramid complex and the pair don't feel they can walk back to Cairo. Cairo is about 11 miles away from the complex.

Lawrence of Arabia (Thomas Edward [T.E.] Lawrence, 1888-1935) appears to be familiar with Miss Seymour from her time tutoring in Oxford when he attended college there.

Encountering Miss Seymour and Indy at the base of the pyramids, Lawrence of Arabia tells them he had been on a tour of Crusader castles in Syria and decided to see Egypt. Lawrence of Arabia was a British army officer, diplomat, and writer known for split loyalty to the British empire and the Middle Eastern Islamic world. His reference to a tour of Syrian castles is presumably to one the actual historical figure took in the summer of 1909, not 1908 as would be the case here. (It is interesting to note that the episodes, junior novelizations, and comic book adaptations of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles episodes have a disclaimer on the publishing history page, "This is a work of fiction. While Young Indiana Jones is portrayed as taking part in historical events and meeting real figures in history, many of the characters in the story as well as the situations and scenes have been invented. In addition, where real historical figures and events are described, in some cases the chronology and historical facts have been altered for dramatic effect.")

Miss Seymour informs Indy that Lawrence attended Jesus College, Oxford. This is true. Jesus College is one of the colleges making up the University of Oxford.

Lawrence tells Indy to call him Ned. "Ned" was a nickname for him used by his family and friends.

Lawrence says that Indy's father's books are brilliant.

Lawrence suggests that he, Miss Seymour, and Indy "gather up some camel dung and make jolly sure we don't catch cold." Dry camel dung is often used as fuel for campfires in the Arab world, much as dry cow dung is used in the American west.

In this episode, Indy states for the first time (to Lawrence and Miss Seymour) that he'd like to be an archaeologist.

Lawrence's description of the Muslim and Hindu religions' versions of the afterlife is basically accurate.

   Lawrence tells Indy and Miss Seymour that he is heading upriver to the Valley of the Kings to a dig of Howard Carter's. The Valley of the Kings was a location of tombs for the pharaohs and nobles of the New Kingdom era of ancient Egypt on the west bank of the Nile from Thebes (now Luxor). The site is still undergoing archaeological exploration and is a popular tourist site. Howard Carter (1874-1939) is best known for his discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922.

   In Tomb of Terror in 1913, the German archaeologist/spy Gustav von Trappen will discover the tomb of Tutankhamen a decade before Carter officially discovered it in 1922. This is because, in that same story, the actions of young Indy and his friend Sallah end the German plans for the site and bring about its obscurement until Carter resdiscoers it in 1922.

According to the junior novelization, it is close to midnight and Indy is not even sleepy, as he listens to Lawrence's stories by the campfire next to the pyramids. 

In this episode, Indy's father gives Indy a journal book in which to record his experiences. We see this journal throughout the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles series. It has an ibis design (the symbol of the ibis-headed Egyptian god Thoth, the god of the dead, wisdom, writing, science, magic, and art) on the cover. There is some debate as to whether this journal is the same one Indy carries throughout most of his life and adventures. He appears to use a different journal in Raiders of the Lost Ark (as the journal seen in this episode is thicker) and it was also reportedly in the hands of the Soviet KGB in 1957 and not returned by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation until the early 2000s (in The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones), yet was seen in Old Indy's possession in 1992.    The journal is given to Indy in May 1908 while he and his family are in Egypt. The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones publication (from 2008) purports to be Indy's journal, but it has Indy's father giving him the journal a month earlier, in April.    The journal seen in Raiders of the Lost Ark has a different cover on it. The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones publication explains that the original ibis cover was damaged with age and was replaced. Indy apparently then taped the ibis cover inside the journal.

The boat Lawrence takes Indy and Miss Seymour on to the Valley of Kings is a dhow.

On the boat, Indy is reading a book assigned by Miss Seymour about Napoleon. Napoleon Bonaparte was the high general, First Consul, and Emperor of France from 1799-1814 after a military coup. Indy's description of Napoleon's march into Egypt is essentially true.

Lawrence counsels Indy that he should learn the language of any place he travels to, as it is the key that unlocks everything.

The actor who plays the fiendish Demetrios, Vic Tablian, also played two roles in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Barranca and "Monkey Man".

According to the junior novelization, the dig photographer is named Pierre Duclos.

    Howard Carter shows Lawrence and his friends a recently unearthed clay seal bearing the name Tutankhamen, pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty. As stated earlier in this study, Carter will discover Tutankhamen's tomb itself in 1922. Answering Indy's question about the boy pharaoh's age, Carter tells him he was about Indy's age when he became pharaoh. This is true.

   Carter tells them the tomb found by his operation the day before was that of Kha, whom he believes to have been an architect or engineer. This appears to be a fictitious discovery by Carter.

As they enter Kha's tomb, Carter warns his entourage that sealed chambers in the tombs can have poison gas in them caused by the deteriorating artifacts left within for thousands of years. There is some truth to this.

The huge spider that startles Indy at the edge of Kha's empty sarcophagus at 33:53 on the DVD is a tarantula.

The sketch Lawrence makes of the stolen jackal ornament can also be seen taped into Indy's journal in The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones.

At 37:10 on the DVD, when Indy emerges from his tent with Lawrence in the morning to guard against the return of the dig photographer while Lawrence searches the photographer's tent, notice that Indy is still wearing his baggy nightshirt...apparently, he just pulled on pants and suspenders over it so he could rush to help Lawrence with his spot of sleuthing!

The pistol Lawrence keeps for protection as he goes to search the photographer's tent is a Mauser C-96.

When Indy follows the photographer into Kha's tomb, he falls through a hidden panel in the stone wall and the missing mummy falls on top of him, causing him to scream in horror. This is similar what will happen to Marion Ravenwood in the Well of Souls in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

After they all realize that Demetrios must be Rasheed's killer and thief of the jackal standard, Pierre glumly pronounces the man must be at Port Said by now, ready to board a ship. Port Said is a city in Egypt on the Mediterranean coast, at the northern end of the Suez Canal.

The scene of Lawrence tackling Demetrios from off his donkey at the end of the episode was shot much later, in 1997, to act as a bridging sequence between Little Indy's Valley of the Kings adventure and his experiences in Tangiers (shot in 1996 for the Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: My First Adventure TV movie). The scene was shot in the dunes of Tunisia during George Lucas' filming of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace! Actors Joseph Bennett and Vic Tablian returned for the 1-day shoot to play their characters Lawrence and Demetrios, respectively. Doubles for Little Indy, Miss Seymour, and Pierre are used for the scene and they are seen only at a distance. Still, if you pause the shot of the trio on top of a sand dune, it's fairly obvious that the actors playing Indy and Miss Seymour are different, especially Indy, who is much too tall and has a thicker mass of hair on his head!

This episode ends with the jackal standard of Kha still missing, hidden by Demetrios. Indy will finally catch up with it when he's 16 in Mexico in "Spring Break Adventure".  

Notes from the junior novelization of this episode, The Mummy's Curse by Megan Stine and H. William Stine (The page numbers come from the 1st printing, 1992)

Additional characters appearing in the novelization, not in the episode

cabdriver

one-eyed man 

Didja Notice?

On page 4, Henry, Sr. lectures his son that Oxford University was founded in 1163 when Henry II was King of England. The actual founding date is unknown, but it was in existence at least since 1167. Henry II was King of England 1154-1189.

On page 5, Henry, Sr. says he graduated from Oxford in 1893.

On page 13, Miss Seymour tells Indy that Egypt's history can be traced back to 3000 BC. Actually, even further than that!

In the book, a Mr. and Mrs. Smythe join the captain of the ship for dinner along with the Jones' and Bishop Dollope. In the book, it is Mrs. Smythe who is the first to leave the table after growing queasy from Indy's description of the Egyptian mummification process.

On page 25, Indy reflects that King Cheops was actually named Khufu, "Cheops" being the Greek name assigned to him later. This is true.

Indy's musings on the history of the Great Pyramids are largely accurate.

On page 26, Indy is very impressed with the Great Sphinx of Giza and Miss Seymour tells him there is a whole row of sphinxes in another part of Egypt. She is certainly referring to the row of them at the Karnak Temple Complex, about 435 miles south of Giza.

On page 29, Miss Seymour tells Indy that Pharaoh Rameses II was over 90 when he died. This is believed to be correct by Egyptologists.

On page 37, Indy thinks he's never met anyone as exciting as Lawrence of Arabia.

On page 40, Lawrence mentions the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Mohammed (570-632) was the founder of the Islamic religion.

Page 49 reveals that the boat up the Nile takes Lawrence and his new friends first to Luxor, the home of the ruins of the ancient city of Thebes which is just a short distance from the Valley of Kings. Thebes was the Greek name of the ancient city; the Ancient Egyptians knew it as Waset or Nut.

Page 50 reveals that Lawrence first tried to book passage upriver on a steamer, but the next one, the Aquard, wouldn't leave until Thursday, three days away, so he books the dhow for immediate passage instead. The Ticketmaster at the docks warns him that the trip to Luxor is nearly 400 miles. This is true.

The Arabic statements made by Lawrence and the Arab crewman on pages 53-54 are roughly accurate to the translation Lawrence makes to Indy.

    On pages 57-59, Indy gets his first lesson in reading Egyptian hieroglyphs from Lawrence and Miss Seymour while on the boat headed up the Nile to the Valley of the Kings. A mention of this is also seen in the comic book adaptation. Ned's description of the hieroglyphs ankh, wedja, seneb written together as an Egyptian charm is essentially correct. This three-glyph combination is often found after the names of pharaohs or at the end of a letter.

   Lawrence unrolls a 3,000-year old hieroglyphic scroll to show Indy. He tells the boy the scroll describes the funeral ceremonies of a dead king. It sounds like the scroll is one of the real world manuscripts often referred to in modern times as the Egyptian Book of the Dead but are actually varying scrolls of funerary rites which the Ancient Egyptians referred to as the Book of Coming Forth by Day; these "books" are meant to tell the soul of the deceased the proper procedures and incantations for proceeding to the afterlife.

Page 60 states that Thutmose I was the first king to place his tomb in what would become known as the Valley of the Kings. This is generally believed to be true.

On page 66, Bassam Ghaly is said to wear a small red hat called a tarboosh. A tarboosh is more familiarly known as a fez in the western world (we see him wearing it in the televised episode).

The book features an additional scene in which Indy is awakened by some noise he hears outside at night and, investigating, he finds a number of the dig workers fleeing the site in fear of the supposed curse of Kha's tomb. These workers try to kidnap Indy so he won't report them, but he escapes.

On page 92, when explaining to Indy his tendency to tell stories and exaggerate in order to make things more exciting and make life seem more worthwhile, Lawrence goes on to remark, "I dare say I'll probably live to regret it someday." This may be a foreshadowing by the writers to Lawrence's memoir, which would be published in 1926, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which is believed by many historical scholars to be filled with exaggerations and outright lies about his adventures and experiences in the Middle East (although, as far as I can tell, he did not ever admit to regretting his quasi-fictional anecdotes).

In the book, Indy has a direct encounter with Pierre in the mess tent and again when he begins secretly following him to the tomb while Lawrence is still searching Pierre's tent. This does not occur in the televised episode.

At the end of the book, Indy learns that Lawrence had been unable to stop Demetrios at Port Said; the man had already escaped by ship to Greece. Little Indy vows that he will cross paths with Demetrios again and he would recover the jackal (which occurs 8 years later in "Spring Break Adventure").

After the story in the book are four pages of "Historical Notes" that inform the reader about the historical figures of Howard Carter and T.E. Lawrence. The last paragraph of the notes also remarks that it is unknown if Indy ever met either Carter or Lawrence again. This is because the book was written and published during the TV show's first season. In the second season, two more episodes featured Teen Indy meeting Lawrence again. And he met Carter again in the 1995 TV movie Young Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Peacock's Eye.

Notes from the comic book adaptation of this episode The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles #1 Dark Horse Comics Script and artwork by Dan Barry Letters by Gail Beckett Inks by Frank Springer Colors by Gregory Wright February 1992

Old Indy is not depicted with a missing eye in the bookends presented in the comic book series.

The two boys stopped by Old Indy in the museum look very different here than in the televised episode. One of the boys is revealed to be named Jose. 

Little Indy does not look anything like actor Corey Carrier in the pages of the comic...but he does look more like a young Harrison Ford than Carrier!

On page 7, after Little Indy describes the process of mummification during dinner and his father tells him to eat his tripe, we not only see him run from the table with a queasy look...we see him vomit before he is able to escape the dining room! 

On page 8, the supposed Arabic spoken by the angry camel driver is not true Naskh script of Islamic calligraphy.

The comic takes a one-panel break from the 1908 narrative to show Old Indy's reaction to Little Indy's reaction to the concept of a person living to be over 90 years old!

On page 11, the narrative takes another one-panel break from the 1908 narrative when Lawrence of Arabia makes his appearance to Little Indy and Miss Seymour to have the unnamed boy at the museum in 1992 remark that his old man "saw the movie." A classic film about the life of Lawrence was released in 1962, titled Lawrence of Arabia.

Page 12 reveals that Miss Seymour is a Christian minister's daughter.

In the comic, Rasheed's name is spelled "Rashid" instead (the TV episode credits spell it "Rasheed").

On page 16, after blowing up a large rock as part of Carter's excavation, Demetrios shouts "Imshi! Imshi!" Imshi is Arabic for "walk away" or "get back". But he should have said it before pressing the detonator, not after!

The story of this "Little Indy" TV episode does not quite finish in this issue of the comic book. This issue ends with the scene of Kha's mummy falling on top of the screaming Indy and Pierre approaching. The "Little Indy" portion of the story continues into the first two pages of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles #2, which then continues into Teen Indy's second encounter with Demetrios and the jackal standard in the year 1916.

Memorable Dialog

sitting in this museum.mp3

Junior.mp3

the great Egyptian Sphinx.mp3

I'd like to be an archaeologist.mp3

archaeology doesn't steal from the past, it opens it.mp3

the spark of most great religions.mp3

if you should meet a mummy.mp3

learn the language.mp3

the mummy's gone.mp3

that's another story.mp3