Back in October 2002 Lucasfilm producer Rick McCallum said that they're going to try to produce historical documentaries about each of the historical characters that appeared in The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones. And that they're hiring some really great documentary filmmakers to help making the DVDs. And it looks like that after 2 years, these plans haven't changed a bit. Lucasfilm is really putting a lot of time and effort into these DVDs!

On Friday, September 10th, George Lucas appeared on Charlie Rose’s PBS show and spent the entire hour with Mr. Rose covered a wide range of topics, from the now re-released THX-1138 to American Graffiti and the Star Wars films. No Indiana Jones IV at all, except this:

... Also to go with the Young Indy DVDs, George Lucas is working on 100 documentaries dealing with historical people and places in the Young Indy series.

This short part comes from a Lucas PBS interview summary at TheForce.net.
Lucasfilm seems to be working on 100 documentaries for on the Young Indy DVDs! And Lucasfilm has also asked real historians and psychologists to help making these documentaries.

Back in February 2004, The Beacon Journal posted the story of University of Akron archivist Dave Baker who was involved in a DVD release of the The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones.

Director of the university's Archives of the History of American Psychology, Baker said he was contacted awhile back by Lucas' people looking for material for a documentary on psychology.

Baker talked with them about the differences between psychology and psychiatry. ("Psychologists are concerned with the human condition in the broad sense,'' he said. "Psychiatrists are physicians first, concerned with the treatment of mental illness.") He also talked about the development of psychology between the world wars.

"The thing I appreciated was that I was able to have some input," he said. "I'm a very passionate historian of psychology."

And apparently an impressive one. Baker was flown out to Lucas' Skywalker Ranch facility for an interview to be included in the documentary. Which turned out to be a companion piece for the DVD release of an episode featuring Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.

Baker did not really know the series. "I had seen it once and it was a long time ago," he said.

Nor was he sure when the DVD will come out. Baker guessed it will be tied to the release of the fourth big-screen Indiana Jones, which had been expected in 2005 until reports of Lucas' dissatisfaction with the original script.

"I didn't see that they had a hard and fast marketing plan," Baker said. "It's a very ambitious project. It looks like they're doing something like 50 or 100 of these documentaries."

Click here to read the full story from Beacon Journal. You will have to be registered to be able to read the story though. But the registration is free!

It's unknown when we may expect to find The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones DVDs in stores. The latest official announcement I found about a possible release date was in October 2003, when Lucasfilm's Jim Ward said there's no street date yet, but late 2004 is certainly possible.
Today we are almost "late 2004" and there's still no sign that these Young Indy DVDs will be releases before the end of this year. So when will it be? The latest rumor is that the release of the DVDs should be in 3 to 4 years. We'll just have to wait and see. Stay tuned!