Jem and the Holograms: The ’80s Cartoon You Forgot You Loved

[TMC]

Before Sailor Moon or Hannah Montana, there was Jem and the Holograms, the original glam rock superhero with pink hair, a secret identity, and a holographic computer named Synergy. Jem mixed MTV-style music videos, soap opera drama, and full-on cartoon chaos. With rival band The Misfits causing sabotage, confused boyfriend Rio missing obvious clues, and 180 original songs fueling the madness, this '80s cult classic was truly outrageous!

From its music video aesthetics to its surprisingly deep character arcs, Jem was part soap opera, part toy commercial, and all '80s excess.

Chapters:

• 00:00 - Intro
• 00:49 - Part 1: The Premise
• 03:35 - Part 2: Origins & Network Ambitions
• 06:06 - Part 3: The Cast
• 09:55 - Part 4: Low-Budget Animation
• 11:48 - Part 5: Notable Guest Stars
• 13:50 - Part 6: Memorable Episodes
• 15:59 - Part 7: The Music
• 18:46 - Part 8: The Toy Line
• 20:48 - Part 9: Legacy & Reboot
• 22:59 - Part 10: Where Are They Now?

[Hawkee]

Like many 80's children I adored Jem And The Holograms and every day after school I watched it a lot and when you watch an episode of Jem And The Holograms you realize that even though it's a cartoon it truly feels like a music oriented soap opera. When Jem And The Holograms dolls and toys made their debut in toy stores Hasbro knew that this toyline would have competition with Mattel's Barbie And The Rockers series which also debuted in 1986 and to help market and launch the Jem And The Holograms toyline Hasbro launched a contest where children called a special number and had to sing the Jem And The Holograms theme song on the phone and based on the contest's success it helped Hasbro a lot. But when it was announced that a cartoon series of Jem And The Holograms would soon be on the way little did we know that this cartoon would be not just a cartoon but a way to market more Jem dolls. From The beginning episode aptly titled The Beginning shows the beginning of how Jem And The Holograms came to be to the thrilling The Beginning Part 2 where Starlight House is destroyed in a fire and Jem And The Holograms win the mansion that became known as their new homebase Starlight Mansion you can see that Jem And The Holograms gets more interesting and we see Jem try exciting new things such as showing her inner Danica Patrick in the Intrigue At The Indy 500 episode to discovering new member Raya Carmen Alonso who replaced Shana as drummer when Shana for a short while tried her hand at fashion design. But we started seeing Jem And The Holograms deal with serious topics such as adoption with the episode A Father Should Be loss as shown in the episode Father's Day and we even learn about the story behind Jerrica Benton's mother's death way before the toyline debuted and how Jerrica's father founded Starlight Music in the episode Starlight. But what I think caused the cartoon to go downhill was when The Stingers debuted and the whole series jumped the shark. But they should've ended it with Jerrica and Rio getting married rather than have Banee return to her real father. And I think also why the Jem And The Holograms cartoon ended was because Hasbro was already starting to focus on the Maxie doll line and once the Maxie line was successful Jem And The Holograms dolls were no longer made and the same thing happened to Maxie with the Maxie's World cartoon series, When you take a toyline and make a cartoon from it it is destined to be a successful hit as Hasbro and Sunbow/Marvel Productions proved with Jem and The Holograms