Jem, also known as Jem and The Holograms, is an American animated musical television series that ran from 1985 to 1988. The series is about record company owner Jerrica Benton, her singer alter-ego Jem, and the adventures of her band Jem and The Holograms. The series was a joint collaboration by Hasbro, Sunbow Productions and Marvel Productions, the same team responsible for G.I. Joe and Transformers. The creator of the series, Christy Marx, had also been a staff writer for the aforementioned programs.
The animation for most of the episodes was provided by Japanese animation studio Toei Animation. Eleven episodes and the opening sequence were instead provided by the South Korean studio AKOM. First-run syndication in the United Kingdom was from 1987 to 1988 on TV-am, from 1987 to 1990 on Sky Channel, from 1992 to 1994 on UK Gold and in 1994 on The Children's Channel.
Premise
Characters
thumb|left|Jem and her true identity Jerrica Benton
The series revolves around Jerrica Benton, the owner and manager of Starlight Music, and her alter-ego Jem, lead singer of the rock group Jem and The Holograms. Jerrica adopts the persona of Jem with the help of a holographic computer, known as Synergy, which was built by Jerrica's father and is bequeathed to her after his death.
Jem and The Holograms consists of Kimber Benton, Jerrica's younger sister, keyboardist, and main songwriter for the band; Aja Leith, Asian-American guitarist; Shana Elmsford, African-American, who plays the synth drums. Carmen "Raya" Alonso becomes the band's synth drummer after Shana briefly leaves the group to pursue a career in fashion. Upon her return to Jem and The Holograms, Shana becomes the band's bassist. Jem and The Holograms have two rival bands: The Misfits and The Stingers:
- The Misfits (no relation to the real-world band Misfits) consist of petulant rich girl Pizzazz and her group: no-nonsense guitarist Roxy and kind-hearted, sensitive keytar player Stormer. In the second season, they are joined by the manipulative British saxophonist Jetta.
- The Stingers debut in the third season when they cause disruptions for both groups by becoming co-owners of Stinger Sound with Eric Raymond. Originally from Germany, The Stingers are composed of egotistical lead singer Riot, guitarist/con artist Rapture, and keyboardist Minx.
Plot
Episodes of the series frequently revolve around Jerrica's efforts to keep her two identities separate, protect Synergy from those who might exploit the holographic technology, and support the twelve foster children known as the Starlight Girls who live with her and Jem and The Holograms. The Misfits frequently attempt to upstage Jem and the Holograms' endeavors, often nearly resulting in physical harm to members of the group. This rivalry is encouraged and manipulated by their manager and central villain in the series, Eric Raymond, the former half-owner of Starlight Music who runs Misfits Music (later Stinger Sound) while working under Pizzazz's father, Harvey Gabor.
During the series, Eric Raymond constantly plots to become owner of Starlight Music and get revenge on Jem and The Holograms for having cost him control of the company. Jerrica also deals with a complex and emotionally draining faux-love triangle involving her alter identity, Jem, and Rio Pacheco, Jerrica's longtime boyfriend.
The series' format included three songs for the featured music videos in each episode. The theme song "Truly Outrageous" was the opening and closing theme for the show until late 1987, when "Jem Girls" became the series' opening theme for the majority of episodes and "Truly Outrageous" was kept as the show's permanent closing theme. Music videos featured an "in-your-face" style that was directed at the viewer or the more traditional style. The music videos paralleled the style of rock videos found on MTV at the time featuring fast editing, a quick pace, and special effects.
Episodes
Production
Conception and staffing
Hasbro and an outside investor started developing Jem in response to an interest that children were showing in music videos. with several of them named after pioneers in the history of holography.
Casting
Samantha Newark provided the speaking voices of Jem and Jerrica. Despite having toured as a child singer in Africa, she did not do the singing for Jem. The voiceover cast never auditioned for the music side of the series and vice versa. The music for Jem was all cast and recorded in New York and Atlanta and the voiceover actors were cast and recorded in Burbank, California. They matched the speaking voices of the cast to the singing voices. Britta Phillips, who had never before worked professionally as a singer, was cast as the singing voice of Jem after obtaining an audition through her father who worked on jingles in New York. The initial take from the audition was used as the first opening theme song "Truly Outrageous".
Other notable cast members included Charlie Adler as Eric Raymond. He also provided the voices of both of Eric's major henchmen Zipper and Techrat. Vicki Sue Robinson, famous for the 1970s discothèque-oriented hit "Turn the Beat Around", provided the singing voices of both Rapture and Minx. Ari Gold, pop singer and songwriter, gave the singing voice of Ba Nee.
Music
The inclusion of music videos in Jem was a result of the success and popularity of MTV (Music Television) at the time, which began airing four years prior. The show contains a total of 187 music videos with 151 unique songs. Over 200 original songs were written for the series. Sunbow Productions employed several musicians and songwriters. Ford Kinder and Anne Bryant composed the music, and Barry Hamon wrote the lyrics of the songs. Hasbro's first Jem doll line was unveiled on February 10, 1986, at Hasbro's Madison Avenue showroom in New York City's North American International Toy Fair. and featured a trip to the MTV Video Music Awards in New York City. as part of the Super Sunday lineup. Starting in September 1987, the series aired five times weekly. The series aired reruns on The Hub Network/Discovery Family from May 31, 2011, to November 15, 2015. On July 25, 2011, Teletoon Retro, a Canadian channel dedicated to cartoons, announced that Jem would be part of its fall 2011 lineup. On April 5, 2012, Hasbro announced that Jem, along with several other Hasbro franchises, would be available on Netflix.
Reception
Jem was the #1 Nielsen rated syndicated cartoon series in November 1986. In 1987, it was the third most watched children's program in syndication with 2.5 million viewers weekly.
Home media
{| class="wikitable"
!Release name
!Ep #
!Company
!Release date
!Notes
|-
| Various VHS releases
| style="text-align:center;"|25 (total)
| Kid Rhino, Family Home Entertainment, Avid Entertainment (US)
| 1986–1987 (FHE, Avid) 1999 (Kid Rhino)
| Various home video releases containing between two and five episodes.
|-
|JemTruly Outrageous: The Movie
| style="text-align:center;"|5
|Metrodome (UK)
|
- October 2, 2006
- June 4, 2007
|Contains the first 5 episodes of the series in their TV movie format. This would include alternate and a few removed scenes from later broadcast versions of the first five episodes.
|-
|
- Jem et les HologrammesEdition VF4 DVDPartie 1
- Jem et les HologrammesEdition VF4 DVDPartie 2
- Jem et les HologrammesEdition VF4 DVDPartie 3
| style="text-align:center;"|64
| Declic images (France)
|
- January 15, 2010
- January 15, 2010
- April 30, 2010
| The episodes are dubbed in French with the exception of the music videos. The set is missing the episode "Fathers' Day".
|-
|Jem and The Holograms: The Truly Outrageous Complete Series
| style="text-align:center;"|65
| Shout! Factory (US)
|October 11, 2011 / September 29, 2015 (as a bare-bones re-issue edition with no bonus material)
|The complete series on 11 DVDs with bonus material. Bonus material includes the documentary featurettes "Showtime, Synergy! The Truly Outrageous Creation of an '80s Icon", "Glamour & Glitter", and "Jem Girls (and Boys!) Remember", as well as original commercials, animatics, and rare DVD-ROM material. Walmart began offering an exclusive edition in simpler packaging with the series authored onto only eight discs on September 29, 2015. This edition contains only the series episodes with no bonus material content.
|-
| Jem and The Holograms: Season One
| style="text-align:center;"|26
| Shout! Factory (US)
| October 11, 2011
| All 26 episodes from season one.
|-
|Jem and The Holograms: Season Two
| style="text-align:center;"|26
| Shout! Factory (US)
| February 14, 2012
| 26 episodes from season two, excluding "Britrock".
|-
|Jem and The Holograms: Season Three
| style="text-align:center;"|13
| Shout! Factory (US)
| July 10, 2012
| 12 episodes from season three and "Britrock".
|-
|Jem and The Holograms: The Truly Outrageous Complete Series
| style="text-align:center;"|65
| Universal Pictures UK
| February 15, 2016
| All 65 episodes spread over 10 discs, a Region 2 PAL re-release of the US Shout! Factory release, though lacks the 11th bonus material disc.
|}