If you’re anything like me, the news and pictures coming in off of the set of the much-anticipated fourth Indian Jones film (“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”) have you in the grips of Indy fever! Personally, I went and revisited the first three films recently for the first time since the release of the boxed set awhile back, but if you need a fix of new (or, at least new to you) Indy goodness, check out The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones on DVD.

Yeah, I know what you’re saying; “young” everything pretty much sucks, right (well, except for young Ann Margaret. She was pretty hot)? I mean, from Muppet Babies to Little Rosie, we’ve all been victimized by clever endeavors to cash in on a hot property by selling us a look at our heroes when they were little, but few characters can claim to have had as compelling an adolescence as Indiana Jones. While I have to admit that I wasn’t exactly a faithful viewer of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, but, then again, 1992 to 1996 are pretty hazy for me, so maybe I’d have been better off watching this series than, oh, I dunno, skulking around Boston in dirty flannel shirts and long johns mourning the death of Kurt Cobain. At least with Young Indy, I’d have learned something.

You see, with these sets, we get maps, notes, and tons of documentaries about the actual events that occurred during the times in which these episodes are set. We see young Indy (who, in his teenage incarnation is played by Sean Patrick Flanery) interacting with all sorts of historical figures, everyone from Leo Tolstoy to Charles de Gaulle, and, sort of like an pubescent Forrest Gump, having an impact on what it was they did to make history. It’s all very fun, very educational, and perfect for the youngins, but those tuning in hoping to see Indy wrap a whip around a Nazi’s neck or shoot Cairo swordsmen will be sorely disappointed. The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is family friendly stuff…not that there’s anything wrong with that.

So while the show itself is strictly for the kiddies, Paramount loads each and every disc with surprisingly mature documentaries (in some cases, multiple ones!) to serve as companion pieces to the eight episodes presented here. For example, the episode The Trenches of Hell sports Siegfried Sassoon: A War Poet’s Journey; Robert Graves and the White Goddess; I Am France: The Myth of Charles de Gaulle, and The Somme: A Storm of Steel as educational supplements to the episode. While I don’t know a lot of kids with the attention span to sit through a documentary about, say, Albert Schweitzer, I was personally bowled over by the inclusion of these documentaries, which, to be honest, I found more fascinating and entertaining than the show they’re meant to compliment. I also liked the fact that these were here, because, to be honest, I didn’t know a lot of the stuff, myself, so now I feel smarter for actually having watched it.

Seriously, kudos to George Lucas and Paramount for putting these sets together as they have, rather than just release the episodes with the run-of-the-mill supplements one expects in these sorts of boxed sets.

While I can’t say I’m crazy about The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, I can say that I would be were I a couple of decades younger, and for those of you out there with fairly astute kids, this set provides you with an entertaining show fit for the family, as well as a bevy of wonderfully produced extra goodies that’ll answer all of your kid’s questions about the episodes so that you don’t have to.