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Jem Wishes
The well balanced mix of so many outrageous ingredients in the Jem show, which appealed to so many of our preferences, is what made the Jem cartoon so great in my opinion, and why it holds up so well over time. So it's always interesting to hear what in particular it is Jem fans love about Jem.
And regardless of what we personally prefer about it, all Jem fans probably have in common that we wondered WHAT IF Jem had lasted longer. Especially those who have watched all episodes a hundred times each.
On this page I will point out some directions that likely could had been taken already then for the cartoon, or perhaps even in a future continuation in some form.
None of these listings are new directions though, nor finished ideas. Just unexplained or unresolved things we wanted more of which we already got some of, or was hinted, or an expected logical continuation.
30. A more consistant plan with the songs. A more equal amount of songs between Jem, the Misfits, and the Stingers would had been nice. Some of us wanted slightly more of a certain band. Some episodes had no Misfits songs, some only Jem songs, or even only Stingers songs. No episodes had only Misfits songs. Okay, it gave more freedom to the writers not to force in a song by certain group. But some other things about the songs changed aswell, like the amount which went from 3 to 2 and then back to 3 songs, suddenly some songs were repeated after an episode and then that stopped, and they went from always showing only new songs to including a mix of some new and some re-used songs in later episodes. On the other hand, it was interesting that they dared to try different things, which is a sign that they really wanted to find the best solution to present Jem as a show.
29. The second theme song! Sure, it was sung very well, and it was fresh to hear a new theme song, and nice to have a separate one that started the episodes and another that ended the episodes. But it wasn't a great as the first one, sounded more like a commercial, and included the line "Jem girls" in the lyrics. Which set the tone a little different from how we knew Jem, and it felt excluding of male watchers which it had worked so hard to appeal to with it's stories.
28. Roxy played drums once in the Jem cartoon, in the episode "Danse Time", but unfortunately that was probably only a blooper, perhaps referring to the Jem bible where Christy says she plays drums. But the Misfits seemed to need a drummer, so she could had stayed the drummer for the Misfits in my opinion, which she became in the new comics by IDW Publishing.
27. More references to things that were seen in episodes, not just characters but also locations. What did they do with the Starlight Drive-in? What became of the original Starlight Music shown in "Out Of The Past"?
26. Some of Techrat's gadgets could had been slightly less extraordinary. As much as we like him, his unique personality, his mystery, his looks, and especially some stories with him, he sometimes even became something of a counterpart for Synergy, while Jem barely used Synergy's full capacity to begin with. So did they really have to make Techrat all that?
25. Perhaps they could had made it more obvious what actually took place in the music videos. Like, what was to be considered things that the characters actually did in the stories which took the story further, and what was artistic fantasies which would set back to normal the moment the music video was over. I think most people probably loved the variation and figured it out, but in some cases there's a mix of different scenarios, and it goes back and forth within the same music video. Some things that are not over the top, and that are set in the same scene, were sometimes probably still only artistic events that were never meant to actually take place.
24. A more re-appearing same style of known buildings, rather than that they change shape and color slightly every now and then. We bigtime fans like to figure out details about things like this, what exact color something has and exactly where a room is located. On the other hand this is a cartoon, and it isn't about architecture, so we couldn't expect them to make a working plan in detail of too many details like that, and it wouldn't have allowed for as much variation in stories.
23. How about equal amount of groupmembers? Yes it added to realism that they didn't have equal amounts of members, and that the Stingers were mixed, and yeah Clash wasn't musically gifted. But never mind that, let Clash join the Misfits, even for a while. Didn't we all wish for that to happen at some point when it seemed she was close to doing so (or atleast feel sorry for Clash)?
22. It was nice to have Raya, a shy and very kindhearted person, join the main band, and show how she despite her shyness, made it all the way into the band because of her talent along with her personality. And it probably strengthened shy people who were watching. But after a great introduction of her in the Talent Search episodes, Raya felt kinda in the background in many later episodes. Perhaps the bandmembers were just too many to write stories and lines for by then. But I would like to see her be more developed as a character, and learn more about her personality. More scenes like the one where she walks into Misfits Music and puts Jetta in place.
21. More connections to G.I. Joe, Transformers or My Little Pony. It can only strengthen these lines to make more of a connection between them, so that fans can find reason to look into the other lines aswell. It could be a less noticable thing like a character they shared (like Hector Ramirez), or just little references like "easter eggs". Infact why not even make a collaboration episode, something like the collaboration comic Unit:E Hasbro did in 2011. Or even as DIC did with Maxie's World and Bevery Hills Teens in the 1987 Maxie episode "Beach Blanket Battle".
20. A duet between only Misfits and Stingers. They only sung together when also Jem and the Holograms took part. I'd like to see them really duel in a song, since we barely see any other Misfit than Pizzazz interact with the Stingers even in the stories. Or why not a duet between the Stingers and some solo artist? Since only Jem and the Holograms got to do duets with other singers than the main group.
19. Christy has said there were perhaps too many Starlight girls. In the last episode Ba Nee finds her father and leaves with him. So why not let some more Starlight girls get other homes some way? Or maybe move away on their own, like maybe the oldest, Lela, at some point. They could sill appear if a story called for it.
18. Sometimes the characters just all seemed to hang around even if they weren't doing something as a group where they all needed to be there. I get that they wanted to show all characters as often as possible to market the doll line. But I would have liked some more scenes with only two at the time, so we could see how those two interacted.
17. More solo projects! They could actually sing their own songs without leaving their group! They kinda did this when they repeated a song with characters like, Kimber, Shana and Roxy, by letting them represent their whole group in the music video. More of that would had been nice.
16. More information about the secret room of Synergy in Starlight Mansion. They never said where it was located in Starlight Mansion, or whether the room was locked. I'd like to know how they set it up, and made it work with so many people living in Starlight Mansion. Did the Starlight girls know the room existed? That room is like Jem's version of Batman's batcave, but while Batman-stories made a big deal about it, Synergy's room wasn't explained alot. Only in the Jem bible can we read it's located in the basement, but we never see any clues to a basement even existing in the cartoon.
15. We get to see alot in the episode "Out Of The Past". But who doesn't want to see even more about why Emmett decided to make Synergy. His original plan, his knowledge and interest in holograms, his thoughts on how the Holograms would use it since he also gave them all kinds of instruments and clothing. Why they would have use for a holographic computer other than as guidance.
14. Some of the added scenes in the first five episodes, atleast in the music videos, could had been left out. The storyline scenes were well written, and they made some existing scenes more understandable. But unfortunately it meant that other scenes were cut out instead. But the problem was the animation of some of the scenes, which wasn't quite as good as the original scenes, and how different it looked. Some of the added scenes in the music videos looked so silly, and none of them were even written by the episode writers. These scenes just made the Jem characters look like something out of Archies. And no offense, but the Jem characters were two decades later than the Archies, and it wasn't hip anymore to do supercute scenes with airplanes making smokesignals, hatching from an egg, or just swaying your body back and forth to the music. I'm proud to be a Jem fan when I see the original Jem episodes and it's music videos, but slightly embarassed about the added scenes in the music videos of these episodes.
13. The re-animated scenes in Starbright could had been excluded. Sure, they fixed a few bloopers and added some short scenes, but also created other bloopers, along with some unneccessarily and poorly redrawn cels, which made the characters even unrecognizable at times.
12. More re-appearing secondary characters instead of so many writers inventing their own, with similar roles. Harriet Horn is an appreciated character, but she kinda reminds me of Lindsey Pierce who already had her own TV-show. Kimber and Danse could had stuck to one boyfriend each, unless it was deliberately addressed as a problem like in the episode "Glitter and Gold", because some characters got no dates at all (not that this was a datingshow though). What happened to some of the secondary characters we never got to see again, and wouldn't we had loved to see more episodes with characters like Regine and Astral?
11. Or what about adding even more characters! There were some characters that we couldn't help but be curious about, which were already planned by Christy, like Graphix (although she was deliberately scrapped), or the male/female Mongrels twins from the planned movie. On top of that, this cartoon really needed some more male main characters, It would had been nice with some more colorful hair on some guys, since there were only Rio and Craig. Or maybe let the existing male groups appear more, like the 5th Avenue Boys.
10. The cartoon talked about not revealing Synergy because she could fall into the wrong hands and be used for evil. What kind of evil? In the episode "Out of the Past" we see her project a hologram of a group of military men marching, is it something like that? I'd like to se what they had in mind somehow, by putting Synergy in more tough situations in episodes where she has to show what she can do.
9. Where does Rio, Pizzazz, Roxy and Jetta live? They are sometimes shown in different unknown places, but we are given no explanation of whether they live there. And they were main characters, so it would be nice to know. Do the Holograms all live at Starlight Mansion and Raya aswell?
8. The writers of the best Jem episodes should had been asked back more! I realize we don't all agree on what qualities of a writer are more admirable, or what ingredients are more interesting in a story. But I wish the people in charge of the Jem cartoon had looked even more to who did the most with their episodes, maybe according to the main ingredients of the show. Luckily they recognized Christy's incredible talent early on, and she was very involved in creating the show and gave us many episodes, and so did Roger Slifer. But a few writers who also did very memorable episodes, sadly didn't write alot of episodes for Jem. Like Marv Wolfman, Cheri Wilkerson, Michael Charles Hill, Cary Bates, Greg Weisman, Evelyn A. R. Gabai, among others. They only wrote one or two episodes for Jem. Maybe some of them didn't get a chance since they wrote their first episode for Jem when the series was coming to an end. But either way I want to acknowledge their work on Jem with a mention. Because sadly their names aren't even recognizable at first sight to all Jem fans.
7. I'd like to see some of the other musicians, that are always featured, do an actual full song, like the Limp Lizards, 5th Avenue Boys, Bluebloods, Sean and his band. Some of those we heard some music from. Or even more non-musical characters do a solo song. Or the Starlight girls could release a song together.
6. Many Jem fans liked the realism the show was based on, although it included some exceptions with unrealistic events in certain episodes aswell. But since we accepted Synergy as realistic in the stories of Jem, with her holographic projections, then why couldn't we see Synergy more often? I just wish she would be present on more occasions in the daily life of the characters, like Jerrica and the Holograms talking more to her for guidance, and that we would see more times when Jerrica turns into Jem rather than let Jerrica suddenly appear as Jem, or even silly playfulness like trying out fashions and looks or jokes on each other. Let Kimber become "bad Kimber" again. Because come on, Synergy was only included in 24 of 65 episodes!!! And in several of those episodes she was either cut out in retakes or appeared only as a voice. Hard to believe how rare her presence was when you think about it.
5. It would had been very interesting with more episodes that concentrated on one character and it's perspective and past. Several episodes did, but I wanted more of that and with all main characters. More about the past of Emmett and Jacqui. How the Holograms got into music as a band. How Pizzazz knew Sean. Who Mrs. Bailey was. Some background about Techrat, like a real name. Where Rio came from. The past of Harvey, and Pizzazz' mother Gail Nye. I'd like to know more about why Jerrica created a pinkhaired singer like Jem. A few of these things can be found in the Jem bible, but would be nice to see as stories.
4. Further development of things like... How does Stingers Sound work between Riot, Eric and the Misfits? Would be nice to have Kimber and Stormer atleast comment on their friendship again. I'd like to learn more about Craig and why he can't settle down slightly and go steady with Aja. What was the relation between Danielle and Howard? And did Danse stay in contact with any of her flirts?
3. Some episodes had some extra things shown at the end of an episode, after the story, like a repeat of one or two songs from that episode, and/or public service annnouncements with messages of morals. Did they really have to be there? Public service announcements was a typical 80's thing, and today most cartoons don't care to do things like that. But the huge gigantic problem is that, not only did it take time from the actual stories of the episodes, but they actually cut out scenes that were animated and voiced, and which we will probably never see, just to make room for these extras at the end. We Jem fans missed an entire music video with Stormer and Angus Bean, a scene where Rio asks Jem if she is Jerrica, lots of fun scenes, lots of fashions and secondary characters, some of which are important scenes that would had changed our view completely on some characters.
2. What would it mean for Jem's career and Starlight Music if her secret identity was revealed? I know it's a main ingredient of the show, and it's difficult to write an episode about it, and then take it back. But maybe there are other ways to explore it. Each time Jem's identity was revealed to someone new, it was a very exciting moment in my opinion.
1. More about Jem and Rio. I'd like to have Rio find out about Jem some day. It has to happen, right? Or atleast I want to see Rio having to decide between Jem and Jerrica and stick to that, like he did from his own free will in the new comics. Or atleast if Rio can't make up his mind, maybe Jem/Jerrica can decide between Rio and Riot? But on the other hand, most Jem fans would probably prefer many more stories before any big changes are made to the basics of the show.
Sure the show isn't still active, and some of these things are hard to change. And it's probably alot more likely they would re-do it from scratch. But we can always dream of a cartoon continuation of the 80's show! There are alot of more stories to be told. We are currently treated to alot of scenarios in the new comics by IDW Publishing, but which is partly re-inventing the show. But as for all the questionmarks that remain for the 80's version of the stories with our beloved characters, hopefully we'll see some continuation aswell. Maybe a parallell comic could be released by IDW Publishing, but in 80's style, where we can see a continuation, in depth stories and resolutions to things. Or maybe some of the talented Jem fanartists will do a comic based on things in the Jem bible? Which ever way new future releases of Jem take, I'm still very curious about the original canon of Jem, but also confident that the brand could have even more interesting things to come.