The Curse of the Jackal

The Curse of the Jackal was the two hour pilot for The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles that premiered on March 4th, 1992. It featured a two-part story set in 1908 starring Corey Carrier as a 9-year-old Indy and in 1916 starring Sean Patrick Flanery as a 16-year-old Indy. Bookends were included featuring George Hall explaining what happened before and after the two-part adventure. When re-edited in chronological order for the DVD video release The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, the pilot episode was split into two parts, forming the first half of Chapter 1: My First Adventure and the second half of Chapter 6: Spring Break Adventure.

Since the score was composed by Laurence Rosenthal for the pilot episode, it makes sense to consider the music as it originally aired. While the score has not been officially released, some of the music is available from other sources:

• Part of the track "Cairo / Pyramids / Ned" was reused in the My First Adventure DVD credits and in a scene from Daredevils of the Desert also featuring Indy talking with Ned (available from the LEGO Indiana Jones video game).

• Part of the track "Army Camp / Indy Joins The Revolution" was re-recorded as part of the The Best of the West CD release.

• Part of the track "Pyramids Dress Chase" was used in the closing DVD credits to Spring Break Adventure.

Will the music as recorded for the episode ever be released? Ford A. Thaxton (an industry insider) explained in a post on the Film Score Monthly forums that the score for The Curse of the Jackal was recorded in the United States with members of the American Federation of Musicians. To release the score, new licensing fees would need to be payed to the musicians. Thaxton writes: "After the pilot episode, the scores for the series were recorded in Germany and other places that didn't have any new usage fees." Presumably, this explains why the OSTs did not feature music from the pilot episode.