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"ASK CHRISTY" ARCHIVES - VOLUME 1
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.8
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.9
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.10
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.11
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.12
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.13
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.17
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.18
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.19
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.20
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.21
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.32
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.33
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.34
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.37
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.42
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.45
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.47
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.48
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.54
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.55
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.57
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.58
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.59
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.60
From TO! 1.8 (June 23, 1996)
Q: "When you wrote Glitter and Gold, you depicted the relationship
between Rio and Jem/Jerrica. When you made Jerrica make the
holographic simulation of Rio, did you make Rio react like
you think he really would, or what you think was fake? If so,
is that why you made Rio yell at Kimber when her boyfriends
fought her? I was just wondering what you thought he would
do."
A: "Well, yes, that was the whole point of the simulation scene
was to make Jerrica worry about Rio's reaction. Then, when
she decided she would go ahead in spite of the simulation's
reaction, she had further proof of Rio's potential reaction
from the way he treated Kimber. I wanted Rio to be someone
with a bit of a temper, but I *hated* it when Rio kicked the
pot or whatever it was as he exited that scene. It was *not*
in the script and I would never have tolerated him behaving in
such a childish manner. I don't know if it was thrown in by
the storyboard artist or an animator or what, but I wince every
time I see it. Mainly, Rio is someone with no tolerance for
b.s. or deception. He's a very straightforward guy. I needed
this element of his character or I had no basis for keeping the
Jem/Jerrica secret from him. Had we continued the series, I
definitely wanted to explore this whole situation in great
depth. Sooner or later, he had to find out, either
intentionally or accidentally, with all of the dire
consequences. He would certainly leave Jerrica initially, with
serious doubt as to whether or not he would ever forgive her."
From TO! 1.9 (June 26, 1996)
Q: "I know that Rio never discovers Jerrica is actually Jem(which
I was informed of in the last digest), but did you ever have
any plans of letting him find out? What do you think would
have been his reaction. Would you ever be wiling to create
new scripts?"
A: "Were it up to me, I would have moved the arc of the series
ahead at some point by having Rio learn the truth and make
Jerrica deal with the consequences. I can't see myself writing
new scripts, no. It's a lot of work and I need to be paid for
my work. Otherwise, I can't pay my bills. :) Plus, there
are copyright issues. Fans can usually get away with writing
unpaid fan fiction, but I might run into trouble."
From TO! 1.10 (June 28, 1996)
Q: "During the closing number of "The Stingers Hit Town" ("Now")
we see the various characters settling back into their roles
after the stirring they've been given by the arrival of the
Stingers. Pizzazz took some major blows to her ego during the
episode. In that closing sequence we see her at the beach
walking towards the ocean when the other Misfits catch up
with her. Was this, perhaps, an aborted suicide attempt?
(I've heard of such attempts where the individual walks
into the ocean and justs keeps on going until they're too
tired to swim back.)"
A: "No way! Sunbow and Hasbro would have a heart attack
over the merest thought of suggesting a suicidal action.
That was verboten for Saturday morning material."
Q: "I know last issue a mention was made of a book stating Kathy
Andrini as the "voice of Jem." Considering that the
woman's name is NOWHERE in the credits I find this highly
unlikely unless she was only Jem's SINGING voice. Since
the production companies in question usually don't use
singers, I can see the oversight of separate singers not
getting credited as plausible. I'm thinking along the
lines of movies like BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, POCAHONTAS,
and even the just-released HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, the
lead female characters have different women doing the
speaking and singing. why couldn't JEM have done the
same thing?"
A: "I have no recall of the names of the voice actors, but
I am pretty sure that they did use one actress for the
voice and a different woman did the singing. One of the
voices listed, Wally Burr, is in fact a voice director
(though he may also have done voices). If I ever run
into Wally again, I may try to straighten this out."
Q: "Producing an animated cartoon can take a long time since
each frame must be drawn by hand. Usually there is a
lead artist who will draw "key frames." These frames
are an outline of the animation, but they are important
because they set the "look" of the characters and the
style of the animation. Next, a group of artists known
as "betweeners" (aka 'tweeners) will fill in all the
missing frames. (For all you Macromedia Director users
out there, now you know where the name comes from.)
Their job is make the action match from one key frame
to the next, and maintain the look set forth by the
lead animator. Judging by style alone, I would guess
that there were three lead animators, and perhaps three
animation "units." In this way, several episodes could
be in production at once."
A: "It's even more complicated than that. First, we
have the American artists who draw the "models" that
are to be used by all other artists as the guides to
how the characters should look. When a character
looks wrong, we say it's "off-model". However, each
*act* of a script goes to a different storyboard
artist. Not only does this result in a difference
in style from script to script, but also from act to
act. Furthermore, it can lead to serious problems
with continuity, since the three artists don't
necessarily see one another's work. On top of that,
the musical sequences were given out to different
artists from the ones doing the acts. Then it goes
overseas, in our case usually either Korea or Japan,
where you add in translation and cultural problems to
everything else. The result depends a lot upon how
rushed the work is, what quality of artists the
overseas studio assigns (which is in turn determined
by the show's budget) and so forth. If something
looks really terrible, and there is the time and
money available, a director or producer can ask for
"retakes", that is, to have the animation done over,
but often there simply isn't the time or money to do
so. And that's where you'll get continuity mistakes
left in even when they may have been spotted. BTW,
the artists who do the inbetween cells of animation
are more commonly called inbetweeners (rather than
"betweeners"), or sometimes "the ink and paint
people"."
Q: "So, you tell me--does Rio know? It certainly looked like it
from where I was sitting."
A: "At the end of the series, Rio had not figured out
that Jem was Jerrica. The boy is maybe just a leetle
thick..."
From TO! 1.11 (June 30, 1996)
Q: "A bit of trivia, exactly which city does Jem and the Holograms
live (and everybody else)? I thought it was New York. Maybe
L.A.?"
A: "We avoided specifically mentioning the city, I
believe, but it was L.A."
Q: "I was wondering if there is some information on the artists
that drew the illustrations on the doll-boxes...
especially those of the Misfits; very COOL!"
A: "I wish I could tell you. It would have been some
unsung artist who worked at or for Hasbro toys. I
agree, the artwork on the toy boxes and posters was
always wonderful."
From TO! 1.12 (July 2, 1996)
Q: "There's something I've been wondering about, and thought you
might be able to answer this. Whatever happened to the character
named Zipper? He was Eric's main henchman for most of the first
season, but he seemed to up and vanish around the time Techrat
was introduced. Was Techrat meant to replace Zipper, or was this
just coincidental? Also, did you create the characters or Zipper
and Techrat, or were they Hasbro's idea?"
A: "I did create both Zipper and Techrat. By the end of the
first season, the producers had gotten sick of Zipper and
sent a memo saying, essentially, let the guy rot in prison,
we're sick of him. But we needed another villainous type, so I
came up with Techrat. My original idea for him was along the
lines of a Boy George gone wrong. He was supposed to be a
completely androgenous character with the viewer unable to
determine if he was male or female. That got squashed in
a hurry. They simply weren't going to deal with a
concept that...ummm... controversial. Not to mention how
to cast the voice."
Q: "If "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" can make it to
the screen in the form of Dolf Lundgren, maybe real
characters involved in a real plot could grace the screen
with a Jem movie! (Either live-action or animated.) Think
of the possibilities. . ."
A: "Sunbow did indeed think of the possibilities. The
idea of live action was ruled out pretty quickly. Using
real actors means you're stuck with those people for
future films, which is a problem. And Sunbow was
primarily in the animation business at the time. I was
hired to do development on a JEM movie and came up with
a male-female twins musical duo, Alexander and Alexandra,
who develop powerful musical-psychic abilities which they
use to no good. I'd gotten as far a working on the
outline when Sunbow released their big TRANSFORMERS
animated movie. I think it was Transformers. Unless it
was G.I. Joe. I forget. Anyway, it tanked. It was such
a failure that it instantly doomed the JEM project and
nothing further was done. I never did get beyond an
initial outline stage. It was a great disappointment,
to say the least."
From TO! 1.13 (July 4, 1996)
Q: "Yes I can go out there and buy action figures. I do.
but how do toy companies know who is really buying their
stuff.? if it is being given to girls or boys as gifts?
do you suggest sending letters/e-mail to toy companies?
what do they really look at (statistically or whatever)
to decide on this total boy/girl schizm??? what is the
most effective thing we can do to change it.???"
A: "Actually, I was talking about buying the *female*
action figures so that the toy companies would have
proof that they sell. The excuse they use for not making
them is that boys won't buy them and girls don't. Go
right ahead and send letters to the toy companies, if
you feel motivated. What can it hurt? But the bottom
line for them is sales. They care about what sells,
period. The only reason JEM went off the air is that
the JEM doll didn't make them enough millions of dollars."
Q: "What I'm curious about is whether or not they ever made
any dolls of The Stingers(not sure of name) but they
had Riot, Rapture, and Minx in it."
A: "I don't know whether or not the Stinger dolls ever
made it to the market, but I have photos of the doll
prototypes that Hasbro sent me when I developed the
characters. They certainly intended to put dolls on
the market. The doll collectors on the list will
undoubtedly know."
From TO! 1.17 (July 21, 1996)
Q: "How did you feel about working Regine, the young fashion
designer, into the show? I mean, I can see why Hasbro
did it from a marketing standpoint, but in the show
SHANA was supposed to be the fashion designer. If the
show had continued, how would you have handled that,
do you think? Basically Regine left Shana nothing to
do other than play guitar, or at least it seems that
way. And a second part to this question: Do you know
if there were any thoughts of a regular rival fashion
designer for the Misfits and/or Stingers?"
A: "Frankly, the whole Shana-as-fashion-designer thing
was never intended to be a major direction for that
character. It was a hook I used for getting into the
real story of introducing a new character, per the
request of the toy company, that character being Raya.
I didn't see it as something that had to conflict with
Regine. And again, Regine was a character Hasbro wanted
to add and that took precedence over anything else. I
had no problem with it. There was no rival fashion
designer in the works. The one new character that never
did get introduced would have been called GRAPHIX. She
would have been a tagger, another nuisance hanger-on
to the Stingers and Misfits. Dredging back through dim
recesses of memory, I can't recall why Hasbro yanked her
off the list of new characters to introduce."
Q: "We really get to see the development of each character in the
second and third series, especially with Rio and
Jerrica. I just wanted to know why they never actually
say the words, "I Love You?" At least, I don't recall
that they do. The only time it's mentioned, is when
Pizzazz sends Jem a note in "Broadway Magic" and signs
it "I Love You, Rio." I would never expect Rio to say
it to Jem, but Jerrica? Was this done on purpose, or
just an oversight?"
A: "There was no deliberate policy to avoid the words.
I never thought about it until you asked. I would've
probably said that they had said "I love you" somewhere
in the series. I'll lay the blame on my bios for the
characters in the bible, as it indicates that Jerrica
and Rio developed such a gradual relationship, that it
was taken for granted. Then, once the Jem-Jerrica-Rio
triangle got into full swing, they'd all be careful
about such words because of the impact they could have.
If Rio said it to either Jem or Jerrica, or she to him
in her Jem persona, there would inevitably be a betrayal
involved that neither of them wanted to deal with."
From TO! 1.18 (July 23, 1996)
Q: "Do you know anything about the "Doing the Right Thing Makes
You A Superstar" campaign that JEM did briefly? For
about a dozen episodes, a song was cut in favor of
one of those small message spots similar to what
G.I. JOE was doing on a regular basis -- tell the
truth, don't go with strangers, etc. I've always been
curious whose idea it was to try that (personally I
hated it) and if you know who scripted the pieces.
A: "I know that campaign intimately as I was hired to
write every one of them. I'm not quite sure precisely
where they originated (whether from Sunbow or Hasbro),
but I think it was from Hasbro. It was most likely
motivated by the desire to make the show look as
moralistic as possible to assuage the forces of
censorship, which you will note are not only still
with us, but gaining ground."
Q: "Do you know if episodes like the "Music Awards" (about
runaways) and "Alone Again" (drug abuse) actually had
any positive impact, particularly regarding the
hotline numbers at the end of the shows?"
A: "I don't know about "Alone Again", but I do know
that the hotline number we ran at the end of "The
Music Awards" generated an *incredible* response.
The switchboard was flooded with calls from kids of
all ages. I heard of two stories in which
ten-year-old children had run away and used the
number to be safely returned home. It was an
unqualified success and made a profound impression on
me. Any time I question my responsibility to my
audience, I remember the impact of these episodes.
Which is another reason I was so frustrated at being
unable to talk them into letting me write a show
about a kid with an alcoholic father. From some
reason, they could cope with an anti-drug story, but
wimped out on the drinking story."
From TO! 1.19 (July 25, 1996)
Comment from Christy: "The one new character that never did
get introduced would have been called GRAPHIX."
Q: "Were there worries that her specific kind of behavior
(tagging) would be TOO EASILY imitated by youth, or seen
as an encouragement for such behavior? :P"
A: "I think it had more to do with the fact that they were
already releasing a large number of new dolls and the sales
weren't justifying putting out additional product."
From TO! 1.20 (July 28, 1996)
Q: "Also, I had a question about the copyright restrictions
prohibiting the posting of song lyrics...exactly what
is the illegality associated with that? I had always
thought that copyright restrictions only prohibited the
*sale* of this kind of information (lyrics, plot
synopses, guitar licks) without prior permission, but
that posting on-line or making available through other
media was okay. Any legal experts out there?
A: "No, copyright protects a work in its entirety from
being reproduced in any other form. We may not
legally reproduce all the lyrics of a song here
without permission from the copyright holders. I was
hoping to get that permission, but I'm having trouble
getting anyone from Sunbow's legal department to give
me an answer. There is such a thing as "fair usage"
which allows you to quote a SMALL PIECE of copyrighted
material, but I'm not quite sure what the legal
restrictions are. It may only allow a few to several
lines to be legally quoted."
From TO! 1.21 (August 4, 1996)
Q: "Were any of the Misfits tuckerized?"
A: "Hmm....not that I can remember. Though I did pick the names
Roxanne and Sheila because they're considered lower class names
amongst the Aussies and Brits. The Aussies use "Sheila" as a
nickname to mean any girl."
Q: "And did you ever create a last name for Jetta? I know her
first name was Sheila."
A: "Yep, her full name is Sheila Burns."
Q: "I was re-reading TRUELY OUTRAGEOUS! 1.18, and everyone is
concerned about the copy right laws. If printing
materials via the internet is infringing on copy rights,
how come so many people do it?"
A: "Because most people simply don't know any better. They
don't have a clue what copyright is about or they simply
don't care. The internet is a huge, amorphous, chaotic
non-place with many copyright issues yet to be worked out
in court. But they will be, you can count on it."
Q: "I thought the laws only prohibited the sales of this action.
A lot of web sites have quoted entire songs, but they
always begin and conclude with a note about not wanting
to infringe on copy rights, and that they mean no
disrespect to any of the company's involved."
A: "If we take a look at the fundamental meaning of the
term "copyright" it means this -- only the creator of
the material has the RIGHT to COPY that material in any
form or medium. The creator of the material can give
away, license out, or sell the separate RIGHTS to COPY
that material. The copyright holder of a song owns the
RIGHT to determine when, where and how that song will
be COPIED in any other form (with special exceptions
such as parody and satire, partial reproduction for
reviews). These are the creative rights used to
protect artists, writers, musicians, photographers and
so on from having their work copied, spread around or
used without their control or permission. As long as
the copyright holders don't come after them with
lawsuits, the people posting such things on their
websites will be okay simply because they're
overlooked. If no one's making a profit, that also
makes it less likely that someone would bother going
after them. But if a major music company ever does
decide to come after them, they may suddenly find
themselves faced with big legal expenses. In the case
of JEM, you have joint copyright holders, both Hasbro
and Sunbow, which further complicates the situation.
Nonetheless, they own the rights and we have to respect
that. There is one other issue here and that's respect
for the creator. Even when the "creator" ends up being
a corporation, there was initially some creative person
behind the endeavor. For example, if I found out that
someone were to take one of my scripts and post it on
the internet without my permission, I would consider
that a personal insult in addition to a violation of my
rights. It shows a lack of respect for me and my work.
It treats my work as something that no longer belongs
to me. The same is true when a piece of art, a piece
of music, or whatever is used without the creator's
permission. Every time someone pirated one of my
computer games, I was deprived of my rights as well
as my income from sales of the games. I don't mean
this come across as a rant. Consider it awareness-raising.
There are the legal issues and there are the ethical
issues. All I ask is that people stop and think first
before blithely going ahead and reproducing something
that doesn't belong to them."
From TO! 1.32 (September 19, 1996)
Q: "You did a good job making the show realistic, but I have one
major gripe. How come when the Holograms and the Misfits are
children, they always have the same rainbow colored hair?
Wouldn't it of been more realistic to let them have normal
hair colors or was this a choice beyond your control? It
just seems unrealistic to me in an extreme way."
A: "Ink & cell painting is an area over which I had no
input or control whatsoever. It's not the way I would
have done it, but I'm weird like that."
Q: "I was wondering do you know how Christy Marx got into the
business of writing for shows such as Jem."
A: "I studied scriptwriting, took classes, wrote a sample
script and sent it out to any producer, agent or studio
that would read it. Eventually, I was recommended to an
agent on the strength of the script and the agent took
me on. I began to make friends and contacts within the
comic book, animation and TV business. One day, one of
those friends called and said that DePatie-Freleng studios
was doing a "FANTASTIC FOUR" series and looking for
writers. I was able to get an interview with David DePatie.
Because I had one comic book credit on a Fantastic Four
"What If" story, he gave me a shot at writing an episode.
He gave me a sample of an animation script, so I'd have
an idea what it was supposed to look like. Talk about a
fluke! I did well enough on that to continue writing
for them on the 1980's SPIDER-MAN series. Then my agent
connected me to Sunbow Prods., who were looking for
action-adventure writers for G.I. JOE. I wrote a JOE
script that everybody loved so much, they had me four
more scripts for that series. It was after that Sunbow
approached me to develop the JEM series. I have also
developed, written and story-edited these other series
for Sunbow: BUCKY O'HARE, CONAN THE ADVENTURER. I did
other development work for Sunbow projects that didn't
make it to series."
Q: "I've always wanted to do work on great cartoons, but the only
way I knew how, was to become an animator. Although after
learning that there was an actual storyboard writer
participating in the digest, I'd like to expand my options.
There's just no glory in becoming an animator-I'd be like
a drone or something, one of the thirty or so guys in the
credits. A model designer, writer, or maybe even a voice?"
A: "I am NOT a "storyboard writer". There is no such
thing. I'm a writer; I write scripts. My script goes to
a storyboard artist who draws out the storyboards based
on my script."
Q: "Also whether she knew a gentleman by the name of Michael
Bell, who'd seemed to be a very popular voice/actor in the
cartoon genre."
A: "I don't know Michael Bell."
Q: "I always wanted to see what JEM would have done with an
ethnic Misfit."
A: "This story should amuse you: I was in a meeting with
the head person from Sunbow and we were discussing adding
a new member to The Misfits. I wanted to add a black girl.
"Oh, we can't do that!" I was told, "But she can be
British." I couldn't help myself. I laughed out loud and
this person had the good grace to look embarrassed. But
they couldn't bring themselves to let an ethnic person be
"bad", while they didn't mind letting a Brit or an Aussie
be an villain because they're friends of the U.S. and we
didn't have to worry about getting them mad at us. This
is the kind of thinking I'm up against on these shows.
I thought it would have been only fair and a lot of fun
for The Misfits to have the same sort of ethnic diversity
the Holograms did. Silly me."
From TO! 1.33 (September 21, 1996)
Q: "Which character "wrote" the Misfits songs?"
A: "I don't think I ever really specified that, though I
indicated that Stormer had the most real musical writing
talent in the group. I can see Pizzazz being good at
lyrics and music, though. I'd say that Roxy is a good,
intuitive player without much innate talent for writing
original work. Jetta is set up as a terrifically talented
musician and given her way with words, she could also be
good at lyrics."
Q: "I've always wondered how her holograms scared people. I
mean, in the episode with the missing tapes, Jem creates a
hologram of fire around the Rockin' Roadster, and it seems
like the hoodlems are feeling the heat? Wierd huh?"
A: "I adamantly wanted to stick to some sort of technical
reality (given that holographic projection earrings is
pretty far-fetched to begin with). I specified that
holograms couldn't be projected beyond a certain distance,
through a solid object and so on. Yet this was largely
ignored. It's one of the reasons I insisted that I
start story-editing in the third season. Ignoring
scientific principles really ticks me off. Had I been
editing that particular script, that would NOT have been
allowed!!!"
Q: "Another thing, why was Rio always so uptight? I mean, sure,
Jerrica/Jem was playing with his mind, but the guy was so jealous
that it made me mad watching him!"
A: "I needed to set Rio up that way, or I'd have no reason
whatsoever for Jem/Jerrica to continue having a secret
identity. If he were mellow and understanding, she could
have told him the truth at any time. That would have
eliminated the love triangle situation which is one of the
most important emotional elements of the series. Rio is an
intense man with strong feelings which was one of the
things I loved about him as a character."
Q: "Why did Zipper's hair change from blond to black
between 1-5 and the World Hunger Shin-dig?"
A: "Continuity gaffes like this happen all the time when
you have so many different artists working on the same
show with cel painting being done overseas."
Q: "Why was there actually a 'last episode', what I mean
is so many cartoons (especially ones based on toys) just
go off the air. With Jem there was a conserted effort to
end the show. Also, why wasn't Eric in it? Was he just
to nasty to be 'redeemed' like the Misfits or was it that
there wasn't really a place or reason to insert him in
the story."
A: "I had the rare opportunity to write what would I knew
would be the final show of a long-running series. By
that time, I had spent three years of my life immersed
in JEM--creating it, writing it, editing it. I had lived
and breathed the characters. This gave me the chance to
personally say good-bye through the mouths of the
characters I brought to life. It was an emotional script
for me to write. As for why Eric was left out...it wasn't
a deliberate desire to exclude him. He simply didn't fit
into that particular story and I had a lot of characters
and action to deal with as it was. In retrospect, he
should have been shoehorned in there somewhere."
From TO! 1.34 (September 23, 1996)
Q: "In the design of the Jem wardrobe, how did they go about
doing the research for what they thought was hot? I lived
on Oklahoma at the time and all the cowboys and cowgirls
started getting fancier with their wrappings, and a lot
included 'gold' colored fabric. This was riht about the
same time GLITTER AND GOLD came out, which surpried me.
I even remember a few months later, one of the women's
magazines my mother was subscribed to, had the headline
something like THE YEAR FOR GOLD Was this just by luck,
that Jem was on top of one of the fashion trends for the
year?"
A: "Unfortunately, I can't answer this question. I was
never involved with that aspect of the show. I just
know that I was impressed from the very beginning with
the excellent character and clothing design I was seeing.
I would love to track down that designer and use her on
some future series of my own."
Q: "What was the final episode of Jem about? I'm sure
I've seen it, but I think it's somewhere deep in my
memory, so could someone refresh my memory?"
A: "The show was titled "A Father Should Be..." It was
about Ba Nee yearning to find her father. Jem enlists
Riot's help and Riot gets his father to use in position
in military intelligence to come up with several likely
prospects. An imposter grabs Ba Nee thinking he can
ransom her, but Ba Nee's real father and Jem come to the
rescue. It ends with Ba Nee saying good-bye to all our
characters and leaving with her father. The name of
Ba Nee's father was Martin O'Carolan, named after the
most famous of the Irish musicians, the blind harper
Turlough O'Carolan, a big favorite of mine."
From TO! 1.37 (October 1, 1996)
Q: "Anyway, I had to create a history for the Synergy computer -
I had to figure out where it came from. I know that in the show
it was said that Emmett Benton built it, but that never washed
with me. If he was such a phenomenally brilliant scientist (and
he'd have to be to have built Synergy), what was he doing running
a record company? I gathered from the TO Archive that Christy
did a story (uncredited) about their mom, and I must have just
missed it. So her name was Jacqui, and she was the one who
founded Starlight House, but do we know anything else about her
and her husband's past history? Was it ever said how she died
(we know that Emmett died shortly before the first episode) or
how long ago?"
A: "Right, Jacqui was a rising star, a talented singer and
musician, hence the source for both Jerrica's and Kimber's
talents. Emmett was a brilliant engineer who used his
talents on Jacqui's behalf, as well as helping her run her
own music label. When Jacqui was killed in the plane crash,
Emmett almost gave up living. Only his daughters' love and
needs kept him going. He plunged deeply into creating
Synergy and building up the music company to support his
daughters and Jacqui's foster girls. When he found out that
he had only a short time to live, he hid this from the girls
as he worked harder than ever to complete his project. He
programmed his memories of Jacqui, as well as her original
master tapes, into Synergy, so Jacqui's personality forms
the matrix of Synergy's persona. Emmett had planned to
reveal Synergy and all the other gifts for Jerrica's
birthday, but died suddenly. It was left to Synergy to
reveal herself, which she did at the beginning of the series."
Q: "What exactly is Rio Pacheco's ethnic background, in your
opinion?"
A: "To be honest, I don't think we ever got around to
specifying Rio's ethnic background. Hasbro already had
the name "Rio", but I came up with the last name, Pacheco.
And I completely forget where I pulled the name Pacheco
from. I guess "Rio" must have suggested something Latino to
me, though I never wrote Rio as a Latino character. My gut
feeling is that he must have Latino heritage, but is a
generation or some removed from it and simply comes across
as a plain old American. Let's see, he grew up in L.A. He
could, technically, come from one of the original founding
families of the pueblo. As it happens, the initial
parties Spain sent to colonize "Alta California" were
ethnically mixed: Spanish, mulatto, black and who knows
what. They would have intermingled with the natives.
Later came the Mexicans, themselves a mix of Spanish and
Indian. He could be a mix of Spanish, Mexican,
Gabrieleno Indian and white. That sounds nice and exotic
to me. I have spoken. Let it be so."
Q: "I noticed that you had Raya use that name as a nickname/
"stage name" which none of the other Holograms have, and
her real name be Carmen. What exactly prompted you to do
that?"
A: "Ummmm...(casting mind into the Way Back Machine)...
Hasbro, as usual, came up with the name of the doll. As
far as I could tell, it wasn't a real name. The Spanish
word "raya" as a noun means "line, scratch, stripe"; as
the verb "rayar" it means "to line, to scratch, to cross,
to underline". Not very promising for a name. However I
spotted "el rayo" which means "ray, beam" (as in a shaft
of sun). So I took some liberties and decided that her
father has feminized rayo to raya and his endearment for
her meant "my sunbeam", but to cover my bases, I also
gave her a real name, Carmen."
Q: "FIRST of all, Christy, I was wondering how Jem was written.
Did you just write the script, then hand it over to
someone else who then inserted the songs or did you
decide where the songs would go? Also, did you or
any other writers have any input with the songs,
like titles or subject matter or anything like that?
Finally, did Jem take longer to produce than other
cartoons because of the songs? I mean did they did
have to be specially written then recorded."
A: "There are three steps to writing a script. First,
you come up with a premise. This is the basic idea,
about a paragraph or two in length. Next, you go to
outline where you get specific about what will happen
in each act, breaking it into rough text descriptions
of each scene and what happens. Finally, you go to
script in which you break each scene into specific shots
with action and scene description for the storyboard
artists and dialogue for the actors. The writers were
expected to indicate where the song would go in each
act and give a rough idea or summation of what the
song should be about, or what takes place during it.
We didn't have to give titles, but were free to do so.
I usually came up with thematic titles. For example,
here's how I described a song in one of the earliest
scripts:
*****************************************************
JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS
with instruments. BEGIN SONG: "Got My Eye On You"--rapid
intercutting of images, cutting from Jem and the
Holograms as normally seen to multiple images on
stacks of television sets in a department store with
customers stopping to watch and keep the beat; the
faces of Jem, Aja, Kimber, Shana flashing one after
the other on a single tv screen; then four screens
with their four faces flashing about, exchanging
positions on the different screens; cuts of the
studio cameras moving into different positions while
the girls play; then looking into the lens of the
camera and seeing the reflection of Jem and the
Holograms, moving right into the camera and blossoming
into yet another image. Jem keeps trying to catch
sight of Rio; cut to her POV, with a tv camera moving
so that we get only a brief glimpse of Rio before he
is blocked by the camera's eye; ULTRA-CLOSE-UP on
Jem's eye with a reflection of Rio in it, then she
closes her eye as SONG ENDS.
******************************************************
You can compare this to the finished video.
We worked out ahead of time how many Jem songs we
wanted vs. how many Misfits songs. Things got much
more complicated after the first season when they
wanted to cut back on the cost of the music and we
had to reuse existing songs. It's difficult to find
a place to make a previous song fit the new script,
plus we had to constantly juggle who was using which
song for what script so we didn't end up being overly
repetitious. After I wrote a script, it went off to
Sunbow Prods. in New York. That's why the music was
done by people in New York. That's also why I don't
know much about the production end of the series. I
wasn't much involved in production and I was on the
opposite coast. I don't know how much longer writing
and recording the songs would have taken above and
beyond a normal production schedule. We're used to
working fast in this business, so it may not have
added much extra time. I can't really say for sure."
Q: "SECOND, I was wondering why the last season of Jem was made.
Don't get me wrong, because these were some of the best
episodes from the entire series, but if Hasbro wasn't
going to release dolls of The Stingers, Hollywood Jem,
Regine Cezarre, or Astral, then why bother to introduce
them onto the show?"
A: "Obviously, because Hasbro *was* planning to release
the dolls. They must have changed their minds at some point
after they were already committed to completing the series.
From Sunbow's point of view, a full syndication run is 65
episodes, so they needed to complete that number and
would have pushed heavily for this."
Q: "I have a question for Christy: Why did Kimber always get
the guys!?! Was she your favorite??"
A: "Kimber was far from my favorite character. It was
mostly other writers who kept giving her romances. But
she wasn't the only one. Don't forget Shana and Anthony
Julian, Aja and Craig Phillips. Unfortunately, Raya
wasn't around long enough to find someone for her."
Q: "Also, are the ages of the characters listed in the Jem Bible
or are they just approximations?"
A: "The only characters to whom I assigned specific ages
were the Starlight Girls. Everyone else was approximate.
Jem, Holograms, Rio, Misfits, Stingers in their 20's;
Eric is his 30's."
From TO! 1.42 (October 16, 1996)
Q: "In the last issue of TO., you touched upon the ages of the
characters, do you have any definite ages? I always thought
Kimber was around 19 or 20 and Jem and the rest of them were
around 23 or 24. Am I close?"
A: "I never assigned specific ages to any of the adult
characters. The only ones for whom I listed ages were the
Starlight Girls. I seem Kimber as being younger, maybe 17,
with the rest in their early 20's and Eric in his early
30's."
Q: "Rio had a relationship with both Jerrica and Jem right?
So, didn't Jerrica realize that Rio was cheating on her
with Jem? Why did you and the writer's do that?"
A: "I forget exactly how I came up with it, but I initiated
the idea of the love triangle and Hasbro went crazy for it.
It added a special dimension and tensions to the show that
added tremendously to making it work as soap opera. Plus,
it gave us another good reason for Jerrica to continue
keeping Jem's identity a secret. I never really thought
of it as a "cheating" situation. Look at it this way,
Jerrica is deeply in love with Rio and terrified of losing
him. Without meaning to, she's gotten herself into a
situation she doesn't really know how to resolve. Neither
does Rio. They're good people trying to do the right thing,
trapped by a weird set of circumstances. I'll tell what
I think would have been fun had we continued the series.
Imagine this: things finally come to a head, Rio learns
the truth and reacts exactly as Jerrica feared all along.
He leaves her, furious that she never trusted him enough
to tell him the truth, and feeling betrayed and used. But
as he examines his own reactions, he realizes that she was
right to be afraid of telling him the truth. But he can't
quite bring himself to simply go back, not without knowing
where he really stands. Having learned about Synergy,
having been trained by Emmett, he creates his own
holographic identity and re-enters Jerrica/Jem's life as
another man. And we get into a new, reverse triangle
situation. Now there's some possibilities for you."
Q: "Who is ASTRAL and REGINE? I can't seem to remember."
A: "They were characters introduced in the third and final
season and appeared in only a few episodes. Astral is a
professional magician and psychic phenomena investigator.
Regine is a fashion designer. Along with these two dolls,
Hasbro was also going to bring out GRAPHIX, another
hanger-on for the Misfits, but we never ended up using her
in the last batch of stories."
Q: "Where did Jem and the Holograms live? I know they lived in
the States, but did they live in California? In the Los
Angeles area? Is that where you made them grow up too?
So, what's the answer? :)"
A: "They were portrayed as living in the Los Angeles area
(which includes the San Fernando Valley), which is where
they grew up."
From TO! 1.45 (October 24, 1996)
Q: "I have one question, did Marvel comics help produce the JEM
T.V. show?"
A: "Marvel Comics had nothing to do with the show. It was
produced by Sunbow Prods. out of New York."
From TO! 1.47 (November 1, 1996)
Q: "Was there any intention in making Rio and Riot's names so
similar or was it jus a coincidence?"
A: "As far as I know, it's purely a coincidence."
From TO! 1.48 (November 4, 1996)
Q: "How is it like and what must be done to bring a concept like
JEM from Hasbro to television? I mean the processes and what
are your feelings on that."
A: "Sometimes the toys come first; sometimes the animation
comes first, followed by the toys. I'll stick to talking
about what it was like to, and worked on prototypes of the
dolls. They brought in Sunbow Prods. To develop the
animation series. Sunbow offered me the job of doing the
development. I was flown to New York to meet with the
Sunbow people, see designs and so forth. I met one woman
from Hasbro and maybe talked to her a couple of times,
but 99% of my work was with my producer, Jay Bacal, at
Sunbow. I loved working with Jay. He was a great guy
with infinite patience. Jay and the other executives at
Sunbow gave me my guidelines: it was going to be short
segments sandwiched in the middle of two othershort
segmented series; the other two series were based on
boy-toys and were very action-oriented for a boy audience;
consequently, JEM had to somehow appeal to girls without
causing the boys to change the channel when it came on.
The toy companies believed then, and I think still
believe, that boys control the TV channels, even when
girls are watching. So they wanted me to do a show for
girls that had fashion, romance, glitter, but would
also appeal to boys by having action. Oh, yes, and there
had to be music videos. I received a lot of
contradictory guidelines when I began work. It was a
daunting challenge for me. I was nervous about it when
I began because this was also my first shot at
developing a series. It meant a lot to me to do a good
job and I felt the pressure of it. I sat down with
photos of the dolls, their names and the small amount
of basic material Hasbro had provided, which was:
Jerrica becomes Jem using Synergy, has the holographic
earrings, has this group of girls in her band called
Jem and the Holograms, Kimber is her sister, she has
a boyfriend named Rio, and a group of bad girls in this
other band called the Misfits. From this basic
information, I had to come up with who these characters
really were, their strengths and weaknesses, how they
interacted with one another, what their goals were and
so on. I had to come up with an overall structure for
the series that had enough depth to allow us to do 65
episodes. I needed another strong villain so I invented
Eric Raymond. I invented the Starlight House and
Foundation and Starlight Girls as a way to give
Jerrica/Jem a noble reason behind what she does and to
spin off additional stories. I came up with the
Jerrica/Rio/Jem love triangle. I brainstormed on all
of this, batted ideas back and forth with the producers
and made sure everyone liked my ideas. Then I sat down
and wrote the bible, which contains all the background
information the writers would need to write the scripts.
In addition, I came up with the plotline for the first
15 segments which were later turned into the videotape
"movie" and into half-hour episodes. Once the outlines
for the segments were approved, I wrote the scripts
and the series went into production. The bible was
handed out to writers so they could pitch ideas to us.
The more I worked on it, the more I liked what I was
doing. I came to love the whole process of
development -- creating characters and their world. I
discovered that I really had fun writing soap opera.
I still feel that JEM is one of the best shows I've had
the pleasure to be a part of. It was a wonderful
experience."
From TO! 1.54 (December 4, 1996)
Q: "This might sound like a stupid question but, how tall were
Jem and The Holograms? When I watch my old tapes, they look really
tall, so I was just wondering what you think their height was."
A: "I never thought about it and I don't know that anyone else
really did either. They look tall mainly because of the way the
legs were exaggerated, but as far as what their "real" height
might be, go ahead and make your own best guess. Anywhere
from 5' 7" to 5' 9" seems fair enough."
Q: "In the episode when Kimber and Princess Adriana switched
places, there is a scene where Jem and the Holograms are
talking to Adriana'a cousin (the one with the white and black
hair), anyway, when the cousin asks Jem who Kimber is, Jem
answers "She's my SISTER Kimber" Was this a mistake since
Jem and Kimber weren't sisters or was it planned that way?"
A: "It was a mistake. Somehow it slipped past all of us
working on the show."
From TO! 1.55 (December 6, 1996)
Q: "Christy, I was just wondering if you might know why the
powers that be decided to suddenly change the theme song for the
show. I always enjoyed the first theme much more. The second
one was much more "gender specific.""
A: "I have no information on that, I'm afraid. They didn't
consult me on music and production issues."
From TO! 1.57 (December 12, 1996)
Q: "I have adored Jem since its very first airing (I'm very proud
to have been a Jem viewer since its first episode) and was
very disappointed when it was cancelled (why WAS it cancelled
anyway?)."
A: "For the simple reason that the dolls didn't sell well
enough. Hasbro backed the series solely to help sell the
toys. When they toys failed, they had no reason to
continue backing an animation show."
From TO! 1.58 (December 16, 1996)
Q: "Copying off the commercially available FHE Jem tapes would
be akin to copying say, GoldenEye or Heavy Metal. My question is:
is it illegal to distribute (for cost) tapes of tv episodes
that you have made yourself?"
A: "Technically, to the best of my knowledge, it's illegal
to even make a copy of the tape, regardless of whether you
keep it, give it away, trade it for cost or other items, or
sell it at any cost. COPYRIGHT means precisely that -- the
right to copy the intellectual property lies solely with
the owner of the property. If you want more copies, you
are meant to purchase them, thus guaranteeing that the
creator receives income from which to produce more works."
Q: "I guess I just can not see the harm in making 3 or 4 copies
of a cartoon show that has been out of production for
nearly 10 years..."
A: "Neither do I, frankly. But how I feel about it
personally and the letter of the law are two different
things. In the real world, of course we violate
copyright, but most of the time it does little real harm.
Granted, if I were, for example, to copy a CD album onto
an audiotape so I could listen to it in my car, I'm not
doing any real harm, but I am depriving the artist of a
royalty by not buying a tape. I happen to think buying
a CD is sufficient given what they cost. But to make
lots of tapes and sell them to friends at cost would
seriously cut into the artist's income. That's where
I draw the line. I don't argue with helping people see
JEM episodes when they aren't available by any other
means. However, you must know that you're violating
copyright and bear that in mind at all times."
From TO! 1.59 (December 20, 1996)
Q: "Was "A Father Should Be," which was the last episode,
actually intented as the last episode. I mean was it planned
that this is the last episode?"
A: "Yes, we knew the series was ending and I had the rare
opportunity to write a final show knowing it was a final
show. It was an emotional script to write, too, because
I was saying my own farewell through the voice of Ba Nee."
Q: "This one is for Christy. In the last digest you mentioned
meeting Ellen Bernfeld from the show, and that she was
the voice of Rapture. This is very confusing to me because
Britta Phillips had told me when she saw Anne Bryant (of
Kinder and Bryant who wrote the songs) at her father's wedding
a few months ago, she was with Ellen Berfeld, and that she
was the singing voice of Pizzazz! Perhaps Britta is mistaken,
but she spoke with her about it. I know there can not be
two Ellen Bernfeld's in the show. The only thing I can
think of is she was the singing voice of Pizzazz, and the
speaking voice for Rapture. But that doesn't make sense.
Is there another Ellen in the credits? Maybe Britta
confused the last names."
A: "Hmmm, that is confusing. Ellen only mentioned doing
the one voice, and she was even a bit vague on the
character's name. We had to work out out by a process of
elimination. This makes me doubt she was the singing
voice of Pizzazz, as that was a major role that she would
hardly forget. I'll try to remember to ask her about
that."
Q: "Also, a long time ago Christy, you had mentioned that the
Fifth Avenue Boys were a delicate topic from the show.
Something about the producers being nervous about people
figuring out who they were desgined after. You never
told us who that was."
A: "There wasn't anything delicate about it. I didn't
mean to give that impression. It was simply a private
joke that I snuck into the episode. Sunbow Prods. was
located on Fifth Avenue in New York. The three names
I used--Joe, Jay, and Tom-- were for Joe Bacal and Tom
Griffith (owners of Sunbow and its parent company
Griffith-Bacal, an advertising agency), and Jay Bacal
(Joe's son) who I worked with closely as a producer
on many Sunbow shows. All three gentlemen were a
delight to work with, especially Jay."
Q: "And what was the code Ruby Red used for?"
A: "Ruby Red was the codename for Glitter'n'Gold."
From TO! 1.60 (December 24, 1996)
Q: "Didn't someone mention finding a cassette of Jem songs, SUNG
in another language?"
A: "I have a tape of an episode that is entirely in Korean -- the
copy on the box and the voices are all dubbed in Korean. It's
really weird to watch the American characters speaking in Korean."
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