While serving as a stunt man on a Western film directed by John Ford (played by Stephen Caffrey), young Indy performs a stunt where he hangs onto the bottom of a speeding, runaway stagecoach. The real John Ford used this stunt in Stagecoach (1939) (performed by Yakima Canutt), and it became George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's inspiration for the stunt in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) where Indiana Jones hangs onto the bottom of a speeding truck. The joke then, is that Indy is "inspiring himself" by performing the stagecoach stunt in this episode.
Part of this episode deals with young Indiana Jones's efforts to get the megalomaniac director Erich von Stroheim (played by Dana Gladstone) to shut down production on his movie, Foolish Wives (1922). Ironically, the cast of Foolish Wives included an actor named Harrison Ford, a well-known silent movie actor of his day (who was no relation to the actor who plays Indiana Jones).
Originally scheduled to be part of a third series of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992), this became the first of four Young Indy TV movies shown on The Family Channel (though chronologically the last). Released on video in 1999 as part 22 of "The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones".
During the second half John Ford and Indy are talking about their names. How Indy was named after the dog and John Ford's real name was that for his brother Francis Ford had to come to America and change the name from Sean Aloysius O'Feeney. The actor most connected with Ford John Wayne also changed his name and ,like Indiana Jones, took the name of the family dog
The 1994 Northridge earthquake struck on the first day of production. The movie ends with an on-screen note thanking the people of Fillmore, Calif. for their support after the quake.