Jem (TV series)

Jem is an American animated television series that ran from 1985 to 1988 in U.S. first-run syndication. The show is about music company owner Jerrica Benton, her singer alter-ego, Jem, her band the Holograms, and their adventures.

The series was a joint collaboration by Hasbro, Marvel Comics, and Sunbow Productions, the same team responsible for GI Joe and Transformers. The creator of the series was Christy Marx, who also had been a staff writer for the aforementioned programs. The animation was provided by a Japanese animation studio called Toei Doga (now Toei Animation).

The show was originally designed to appeal to both girls and boys, with a mix of action/adventure, drama, music, and fashion. As the show progressed, it became increasingly targeted towards young girls.

Production

Hasbro hired advertising agency Griffin-Bacal to create the 65-episode animation series. Griffin-Bacal had previously created the successful G.I. Joe series for Hasbro. G.I. Joe writer Christy Marx was hired to create the series based on the line of dolls and the original concept, which consisted of the two girl bands, Synergy, the boyfriend Rio, and the Rockin' Roadster. Marx created the full character biographies and relationships (including the love triangle aspect between Jem/Jerrica and Rio), Starlight Music and Starlight House, the Starlight Girls, the villain Eric Raymond and various secondary characters. Later, Marx was asked to develop new characters as they were introduced. Marx wrote 22 of the 65 shows. Other writers for the series included Cary Bates, Greg Weisman, Paul Dini, Buzz Dixon, Ellen Guon, Steve Mitchell, Michael Reaves, David Wise, and Marv Wolfman.

The producers were Joe Bacal, Jay Bacal, Tom Griffin, and Carole Weitzman. The story editor was Roger Slifer and the voice director was industry veteran, Wally Burr.

Originally the main character was called "Misty", then "M," but that idea was dropped because a letter could not be trademarked. The show was originally designed to appeal to both girls and boys, with a mix of action/adventure, drama, music, and fashion. It was first slotted as a 6-minute cartoon that aired during Super Sunday (or "Super Saturday" depending on the market) along with the boy-oriented properties Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines, Robotix, and Inhumanoids. Although it was the only girl-oriented show in the lineup, Jem proved to be the most popular of the four.

Plot

The central "secret" of the series is that Jem is in fact the alter ego of Jerrica Benton, owner/manager of Starlight Music, who adopts this persona with the help of Synergy, a holographic computer designed to be the ultimate visual entertainment synthesizer built by her father, who left it to her on his death.

The other Holograms are Kimber Benton, Jerrica's younger sister, keyboardist and main songwriter for the band; Aja Leith, guitarist; and Shana Elmsford, who plays the synth drums. Aja and Shana are also childhood friends and adopted foster sisters of Jerrica and Kimber. Shana briefly left the group in a two-part episode called "The Talent Search", where a new character, Carmen "Raya" Alonso, is introduced as her replacement. When Shana returns, Raya Alonso remains the Holograms' drummer while Shana takes up the guitar. Only the Holograms are aware of Jem's secret identity, although Jerrica revealed it to the United States President in a season 3 episode, "The Presidential Affair", an old Tibetan woman in the episode "Journey to Shangri-La", and the princess Adrianna of Morvania (who is mistaken for Kimber) in the episode "The Princess and the Singer". Episodes of the series frequently revolve around Jerrica's efforts to keep her two identities separate. Jerrica's other main concern is Starlight House, a home for foster girls run by the Holograms. The Holograms' main purpose is to fund the Starlight Foundation and support the Starlight Girls. Jerrica's childhood home, where the foster girls were housed was accidentally burned down by Zipper, one of Eric Raymond's not-too-bright henchmen. Jem and the Holograms later got possession of the Starlight Mansion when they won the Battle of the Bands as well as a movie contract which were offered by movie producer Howard Sands.

The Holograms' rival band are the Misfits: petulant rich girl Pizzazz (Phyllis Gabor) and her cohorts: no-nonsense Roxy (Roxanne Pelligrini) and kind-hearted, sensitive keytar player Stormer (Mary Phillips), who are later joined by the manipulative British saxophone player, Jetta (Sheila Burns). (This group should not be confused with the real-life band The Misfits, led by Glenn Danzig.) Most episodes of the series involve a plot by the Misfits to upstage Jem and the Holograms' latest glamorous escapade. This rivalry is encouraged and manipulated by their manager, the ruthless Eric Raymond. In the middle of the third season a new group, the Stingers, appears and shakes things up for both groups. In the final episode of the series, all three groups seemed to have declared a truce between them.

Characters

Episodes

Music

No official Jem "Soundtrack" was ever released, although all but one of the songs released on cassette in any form were featured in the first season. The cassettes released included:

Love Is Here - (included in the Video Madness playset of the same name)

1. "Jem Theme"
2. "Love Is Here"
3. "Can't Get My Love Together"

Show Me The Way - (included in the Video Madness playset of the same name)

1. "Jem Theme"
2. "Show Me The Way" (TV edit)
3. "People Who Care"

It's Workin' Out - (included in the Video Madness playset of the same name)

1. "Jem Theme"
2. "It's Workin' Out/It's Doing Me In" Jem and the Holograms/ The Misfits
3. "We Can Change It"

Welcome To The Jungle - (included in the Video Madness playset of the same name)

1. "Jem Theme"
2. "Welcome To The Jungle" - The Misfits
3. "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme" - The Misfits

Glitter N Gold - (Second year mail-in offer)

1. "Glitter N Gold" (extended TV version)
2. "Back N Shape" (extended version)
3. "Jem Theme" (extended version)

VHS and DVD releases

In the 1980s, various episodes were released on VHS by Family Home Entertainment in the USA.

On March 30, 2004, Rhino Entertainment released The Complete 1st and 2nd Seasons on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time. On September 14, 2004 the released Season 3, Part 1 which featured the first 19 episodes of Season 3. Both releases were digitally remastered and contained Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Rhino subsequently lost the rights to the series before they could release the remaining episodes of Season 3, the final season of the series. In 2008, Hasbro acquired the distribution rights for all Sunbow series including Jem, which gives hope that they will re-release the series at some point.

DVD Name	Ep #	Release Date	Additional Information
The Complete 1st & 2nd Seasons	26	March 30 2004	Interviews With Samantha Newark, the Speaking Voice of Jem and Writer/Creator Christy Marx Commentary On Four Episodes by Writer/Creator Christy Marx View All the Music From the Show In order, Uninterrupted Excerpts From the Jem Bible
Season 3, Part 1	19	September 14 2004	Commentary tracks on episodes "KJEM" and "The Talent Search" by writer/executive story editor Christy Marx Interview with the singing voice of Jem Britta Phillips Interview with writers Roger Slifer Commentary track for "Father's Day" by writer Roger Slifer "B" - Roll Footage "Play Songs" feature

Jem was first released on DVD in the US in 2004 remastered and in 5.1 Audio. Since then Australia and France have also released Jem on DVD. The UK had the "Jem: Truly Outrageous" movie released on DVD.

In September 2004, Cartoon Network Australia bought the TV rights to Jem and aired the show for ten months on their classics network, Boomerang. Australia also had the first and second season of Jem released on DVD.

Current status of franchise

Almost 20 years after the Jem toy line was introduced to the U.S. market and 17 years after its demise, Hasbro has shown some legal activity in maintaining their trademarks and intellectual property, leading some fans to believe they may be reviving the line via the trademark renewal "for the purpose of selling dolls and doll clothes". However, this may just be standard practice, as if they had not renewed the trademarks they would have lost any future rights to their creation. As of August 2008, the Jem series have not been released in any further DVDs.

Christy Marx has long expressed a desire to make a modern day revival of the animated series, but stated in a 2004 interview that there are a great deal of complications concerning the rights to the Jem properties.

"I would like to see that happen. I don't want to go into a lot of detail, but the whole rights situation for Jem is very, very complicated. Believe me, if there were a simple straightforward way to do it, it would be done. But there are some very big complications that are in the way at the moment." - Christy Marx

Forbes.com has reported that Hasbro has recently re-acquired distribution rights to the Sunbow library of Hasbro Classics, which includes Jem. This has led to speculation that Jem may be re-released on DVD in the future.

References

External links

• Jem at TV.com
• Jem Convention