Joe Russo, the director of Avengers: Endgame, tweeted this fake poster for a Short Round show on Disney+ and said “This. When.” I love the idea of Ke Huy Quan reprising his role and going on adventures. Hell, I think I wrote about this years ago (actually it may have been a post on MySpace hahahaha). So I started thinking about a Short Round show. And I definitely think it could work.
Alright Disney, here is my pitch…
The show starts out with Ke Huy Quan teaching a class at some prestigious university, like Harvard, or Oxford. He is teaching about archaeology (very similar to the opening of Holy Grail). He is talking about how the archaeologists of the previous era, were more like tomb raiders, than modern archaeologists. He jokes that guys like Carter, Schliemann, and Jones were more interested in loot for museums, rather than learning about the people and cultures of the area.
As he heads to office hours, his assistant says that a package arrived for him. He opens it up and reads a letter aloud. It says something like “Doctor Wan Li, blah blah blah, blah blah blah, sincerely Doctor Henry Jones Jr.” The blah blah blahs would be a bunch of drivel about previous discussions on a topic. Li looks troubled, and immediately opens a closet and grabs a bag. His assistant asks what is wrong, and he replies that Indy is in trouble. The assistant asks how he knows, and Li responds that he would never address him as Dr. Li, always as Short Round, to piss him off. And that their last conversation was a fight years ago, not whatever was in the letter. He then pulls out a similar leather jacket that Indiana Jones wears.
Turns out the letter is a code, and once they decipher it, they have a starting point. The rest of the show is just Short Round and his assistant traveling to different sites looking for clues. Once he unravels the mystery, he figures out who captured Indy and for what reason. Final episode is a big rescue. All sorts of adventures in between.
The overall theme of the show could be Short Round reconciling his feelings toward his old mentor. By the 1960s (maybe when that show would be set?). Archaeology was starting to realize that plundering sites for loot was wrong, and that we did irreparable damage to cultural identity. This is what their fights were about, Dr. Jones believing things belong in a museum, Dr. Li fighting for artifacts to be returned to the people.
So there you go Disney, give me a call if you want to hear more!
I like it
Thanks! Disney should be calling any minute