Jem became quite a phenomenon in the 80's. And obviosuly made a lasting impression. Because on top of being featured unrelated places in the 80's, like a doll in a scene in movies, Jem has ever since made appearances in live-action shows, cartoons, comics, toy lines, song lyrics by superstar singers, aswell as mentioned by a lot of famous people on TV shows.

When celebrities talk about Jem, they mention it in an obvious way. Most of the other appearances are of course unofficial, but obvious by the appearance in combination with phrases like "Jem and The Holograms" aswell as "Jem is truly outrageous".

It's so much fun seeing Jem pop up up every here and there, and this is the page where those kind of appearances go.

In episode 14 "Guys and Dolls" of season 2, which was originally aired on 10 January 1988, Marcy loses her Barbie doll. So she sends out her husband Steve and neighbor Al Bundy to find it. It's a Barbie doll, in a Rock 'n Curl Jem doll's outfit. Infact if you look closely on all the Ken dolls Marcy and Peggy are playing with it looks like they might even be wearing several pieces from two Rio outfits, "Rappin'" and "Time Is Runnin' Out".

After some searching, Steve and Al find a doll on a motorcycle.	They untie it.	The owners of the motorcycle and doll show up, who aren't happy.
Steve and Al finally get back.	Marcy tells them it's the wrong doll.	So they have to continue searching.

The group made an appearance on a show called "The Zone" on the canadian channel YTV, which aired thursday 14 september 2000. Here's a reply from YTV: "Hi there! Thanks for writing to YTV. Sorry that it has taken us so long to respond but we get thousands and thousands of e-mails a week and sometimes it is difficult to answer as quickly as we would like. Destiny's Child Appeared on The Zone. They said they used to watch Jem and then Jenny sang the theme song with them. YTV no longer airs Jem. Our contract for it has expired which means that we no longer have the rights to air it. Thanks for watching Keep it Weird YTV Viewer Relations."

On his 99 cents segment Jay Leno took up one of those Super Stars dolls that had leftover parts from Jem and Maxie dolls saying:

"Oh here's a cheap doll, this is a Superstar! Look at this, it says super star doll, and look she's a superstar. Look at this thing. She realized how to be a superstar in this town, take your top off apparently. I don't know why. And with the yellow boots. But it's only 99 cents. Kevin, that big blow up you've got, what did you pay for that? What'd you pay like 80 bucks?".

This particular doll didn't seem to have any of the leftover parts or clothes from the Jem doll line though. It had some other body and a curly purple haired female head.

In an episode from 2006, the characters Brian and Stewie drill a hole to spy on the Mayor Adam West, which is played by the Actor Adam West, known from the more famous series the 60's Batman series.

We don't get a very good view of the TV which the Mayor is watching Jem on, but you can tell Jem is dancing, some music is playing and the background is flashing in different colors.

Stewie drills a hole in the wall.	Brian peeks through it.	He sees the Mayor in bed watching Jem on TV.
The Mayor says "Oh Jem, you are truly outrageous, truly truly truly outrageous!"

The 1988 horror movie about a doll with a murderer's soul, starts with a scene in a toy store. One of the first toys we get to see is a KJEM Rock On Guitar, out of it's box, which was made in 1987. We also see other toys of the time by Mattel like Princess of Power and Barbie and the Rockers.

KJEM Rock On Guitar.	Princess of Power Crystal Castle.
Barbie and the Rockers.	The Playland toystore.

In the music video of Madonna's song "Sorry" from the 2005 album "Confessions on a Dance Floor", one of the three female dancers is wearing a purple t-shirt with Jem and the Holograms on it which can clearly be seen in several views. The video was filmed in London in January 2006 and directed by Madonna's longtime choreographer Jamie King.

Madonna.	The dancers come out of a club. The dancer in the back has the Jem t-shirt.
Close-up.	She takes of the Jem t-shirt.

In the 10th, 11th and 12th episodes of season 11 of South Park, aired on 17 October 2007, the South Park characters go to Imaginationland where all the characters that have been made up by our imagination live togheter. Jem is seen a couple of times in an iconic dress she wore in the "Starbright" episodes and with gray hair and star make-up and no Jemstar earrings. Also several other 80's cartoons like She-ra, Transformers and Thundercats show up.

Cheetara from the Thundercats.	Optimus Prime from the Transformers and a Care Bear.
Jem up in front.	Jem close-up to the right.
She-ra.	A larger picture of Jem. Also Super Mario and Danger Mouse in the background.

In the 30th season of Saturday Night Live, in the 11th episode aired on 5 february 2005, there's a segment called "Barbie's Dreamhouse" with Amy Poehler as vintage Barbie, Will Forte as Ken, and also featuring Paris Hilton as the new Fashion Fever Barbie. Jem doesn't appear but is mentioned along with the phrase "Truly Outrageous".

Barbie's Dreamhouse.	Barbie comes home early.	The new Fashion Fever Barbie asks Ken to come back to bed.
The new Barbie says Ken and she are in love.	Vintage Barbie asks Ken "What is she this time Ken, the nutcracker Princess, Rockstar fantasy?". Vintage Barbie rips off the new Barbie's hand.	Vintage Barbie says "wait till I call Jem, she will think this is truly outrageous!".

Jem and Transformers have several things in common. They're made by the same companies, the toys aswell as the cartoons, they share the theme song writers, episode writers, animation artists, and several of the voice actors. In other words, alot of the people who worked on Jem worked on Transformers. 9 January 1986 in season 2, episode 49 "B.O.T." of Transformers, Jerrica and Kimber actually appear as characters in a school classroom. They have their regular and easily recognizable outfits and hairstyles, but in other colors. Can you spot them?

In an episode of Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, "The Ice Goose Cometh" from november 28, 1987, when Gandy Goose goes to Mouseville, he sees a wall of posters of 80's stars, like G.I. PHIL (G.I. Joe), Shmurds (Smurfs), Thundercows (Thundercats), Human (He-Man), Robotoast (Transformers) and Jim (Jem). [Spotted by NIGHTWALKER193]

Jem in magazines, other than the official Jem releases.

Issue #225 January 1987. The famous doll "Bubbie" is has been around for a long time and is being interviewed by a reporter who asks her about her boyfriends, and about her band "Bubbie and the Rockheads" and their rivalry with "Jerm and the Hollowgrams". Bubbie uses a Jerm doll as a voodoo doll. Other toys that show up or are mentioned are "Hu-Man", "She-Rat", "Transdeformer robots", "Big Jim", and "G.I. Joke". Jerm and Bubbie end up in a fight, Bubbie critizes Jerm's make-up, and Jerm makes fun of Bubbies clothes.
Pages:
Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4.

Issue #28 March 1993, has a very interesting 6 page b&w article about the Jem dolls. Some notes: Rockin' Romance Jem is being mention as "Rock 'N Romance Jem" and is said to have been manufactured, but only in France. Something called "the Jem Newsletter" is mentioned. Several rare items are mentioned, like the Jem Fan Club Kit, the llama, the MTV jacket, mexican made Jem dolls, and the Super Stars Jem dolls. Includes a price guide, which seems surprisingly accurate even today.
Pages:
Page 42, Page 43, Page 44, Page 45, Page 46, Page 47.

In May 2012, the Danish toycompany Lego released their seventh series of mini figures, sold one by one. 16 different figures inspired by television, movie, sports characters and more. All carefully named to avoid direct mixup with any trademarked name I suppose. And one of them, called "Rocker Girl", is a pink-haired female rocker with pink eyeshadow, a flash on her cheek and a guitar. Even the dress reminds of Jem, even if colored differently. This isn't officially Jem, but Lego fans seem to have their mind set on it being based on Jem.

This is how Lego themselves describe the doll:
"Whatever you may say about the punky, pink-haired Rocker Girl, you can’t ever call her humble! From her clothes to her music, she goes through life with complete confidence in herself. She knows she looks and sounds awesome up there on stage with smoke and lasers flashing all around, and she lives for the way the crowd roars with excitement when she starts playing that next power chord. The Rocker Girl’s unshakeable self-confidence has always been her greatest strength. No matter what troubles she faces – cancelled shows, electrical failures and bad cases of rockin’ pneumonia – she always powers right on through, knowing that her next performance will be the greatest one yet. And the best thing of all is that she’s right!".

Could "electrical failures" perhaps refer to how dependant she is on her high tech earrings? And could the use of the word "rockin'" refer to all the things named that in the Jem line, like "Rockin' Roadster", "Rockin' Romance", "Up and Rockin'" and so on.

They even have decided the skills for each figure with stars:
Strength: *
Creativity: ****
Speed: ***

These are sold in a completely covered package so you can't tell who you're going to get, unless you know the bump code pattern.

Offsite link to Lego's website for this character.