Jem/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
< Jem


  • Acceptable Target: According to Christy Marx, the Jetta character was originally African-American. Executive Meddling on the part of Sunbow is the reason why the Jetta character is now a white British woman.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Several characters (Clash, Stormer, and Kimber) are considered lesbians by fans in fanfiction.
    • The relationship between Stormer and the Misfits. Is it simply a case of Stormer being a pushover and the Misfits being bullies who really do care about her, or is it a warped, abusively co-dependent relationship, where Pizzazz and Eric have successfully made Stormer think that, without the Misfits she is nothing, instead of the other way around, since they depend on her as the overall creative force behind the band.
  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: The series is now being re-run on The Hub.
  • Anvilicious: Alone Again, sadly, since the first five minutes are soul crushingly depressing. Then Laura Holloway starts taking generic red-and-yellow pills, starts thinking she's a crazy bird, and then starts looking as if she's aged forty years. The public service announcements also crossed into this territory from time to time.
  • Broken Base: Misfits versus the Holograms.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: Just about every song that was featured in this show. They had to come up with at least one new song per episode, with an average of three new songs each episode. Some special mention go to:
    • The Holograms: Only The Beginning, Jealousy, The Last Laugh, Beat This, I've Got My Eye On You, Music Is Magic, Broadway Magic, Nightmare, Time Is Running Out, When It's Only Me And The Music, Twilight In Paris, Too Close, Truly Outrageous, Come On In The Water's Fine, Runnin Like The Wind, Love Is Doin' It To Me, We Can Change It, The Real Me, Who Is He Kissing, Deception, Midsummer Night's Madness.
    • The Misfits: Outta My Way, Designing Woman, Top of the Charts, Making Mischief, Universal Appeal, Congratulations, I Like Your Style, Love Sick, It Takes A Lot, I Am A Giant, Takin It All, Gimme A Gimmick, Scandal, I'm Gonna Hunt You Down, Who Is She Anyway, You Oughta See The View From Here, Queen of Rock and Roll, You Gotta Be Fast, Listen Up, Trapped, We're Off and Running.
    • The Stingers: Mind Games, Perfect Match, Destiny, Take It Or Leave It, It's A Hard, Hard Life, All in the Style, Under My Spell, Are You Feeling Alright, Let Me Be.
    • Other Singers, Duos, Group Songs: Click/Clash by the Holograms and the Misfits, I'm Okay by Kimber and Stormer, Bad Influence by the Misfits and the Holograms, I'm Gonna Change by Roxy, Now by the Holograms, Misfits, and Stingers, You May Be A Star by Krissie, Farewell by the Holograms, Misfits, and the Stingers, I Can See Me by Ashley, Alone Again by Laura, Starlight by Jacqui Benton.
  • Ear Worm: The theme song is truly, truly, truly outrageous.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Stormer. Her popularity is likely due to being the only member of the Misfits who actually has standards. Yeah, she joins in whenever they pull harmless pranks and usually gets roped into Pizzazz's schemes by association, but she's never shown acting malicious on her own. She was the only one who was nice to Ashley when she tried to get the Misfits to be her friends, and later helped her prove Jem's innocence when she was framed for robbery (granted she was in disguise). If it wasn't for the fact that she's such a pushover, you'd have to wonder how someone like her ever joined a band like the Misfits.
    • Of course, this is not to say the evil Misfits don't have their fanbases. Indeed, the whole band could qualify as an Ensemble Darkhorse, even though they're the villains.
    • The entire show was one huge Ensemble Darkhorse; it originally aired as the token girl segment of "Super Sunday" (AKA: "Super Saturday" depending on what station it was airing on) an anthology series of male-centric shows (including Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines and Inhumanoids) but managed to outshine the rest of the shows and, along with Inhumanoids, was advanced to full series status (with the segments expanded to full-length episodes).
  • Foe Yay: Between Kimber and Stormer. The Bands Break Up episode was rife with Les Yay subtext, and the final shot of the episode has the two girls hugging in a way that looks like Stormer is kissing Kimber.
  • Fridge Brilliance: A lot of people complained that Jetta's cockney accent should have tipped off that she was lying about her life, but that was the point, as it was criticizing the American misconception that all Brits are posh. It should be noted that Christy Marx specified that the actress should NOT have a Cockney accent and went for more of a working-class British accent with actress Louise Dorsey.
    • In The Fan, Synergy has to warn the Holograms that Jem is dangerously close to revealing her secret to a group of actresses paid by the Misfits to pretend to be the Holograms and the Starlight Girls. We've seen in multiple episodes that Synergy is able to speak to Jem through the earrings, and could've just warned Jem herself. Then you remember that the Misfits had been secretly recording Jem the entire time she was in the false Starlight House, and any attempt to warn Jem would've been caught on tape.
  • Fridge Logic: When Jerrica loses the Jemstar Earrings, everyone panics because Jem won't be able to perform on time. Since the difference between Jem and Jerrica is basically hair and make-up, why doesn't she just put on a wig and different clothes until the earrings are found?
    • Because with the earrings Jerrica's able to create holograms of Jem, or herself, to throw people off on her secret. Without the earrings it would be insanely easy for Jem's secret to be revealed if the wig fell off or her make-up ruined.
  • Iconic Character, Forgotten Title: A number of people call the show Jem and the Holograms because its the name of her band...but its not actually the name of the show. The Nostalgia Chick makes this mistake in her series review. More recent broadcasts on The Hub by Hasbro and Shout Factory's North American DVD release have released the show under this title, suggesting they have genuinely recently renamed the IP as of 2011. The show's title cards have not been altered to reflect this, however.
    • The French dub inverts this with the official name of "Jem et Les Hologrammes".
  • Memetic Mutation: The scene of Rio kicking over a potted plant in frustration.
    • Riot and Minx were in Nirvana before "that Cobain kid" came along.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Eric Raymond and the Misfits should've crossed this multiple times with the way their schemes endanger lives, but the Misfits cross this in The Fan, when their latest plan to have Jem reveal her identity almost causes her to suffer a complete mental breakdown. It actually makes the easy acceptance by Jem of the Misfit's Heel Face Turn in the finale a little inexplicable.
    • Eric crossed it when he burned Jerrica's dead mother's master tapes of her music after holding them for ransom.
  • Narm: A lot of the content in the series can be considered this, including the terrible animation, some of Jem's music videos which cross into Tastes Like Diabetes territory, Rio's tendency to throw temper tantrums concerning Jerrica and Jem, and the Alone Again episode.
    • Narm Charm: But a lot of it makes the show enjoyable.
  • Periphery Demographic: It was aimed at girls, but there's no question that Jem had a large male fanbase, mostly due to boys who had a crush on Jem or one of the other girls in the show.
  • Replacement Scrappy: The Stingers were introduced to phase out the Misfits in Season 3. Reportedly, this was due to parents finding the Misfits dolls too scary for their children. This didn't go over well with the fanbase, who generally far preferred the Misfits.
  • Rooting For The Misfits
  • The Scrappy: Kimber, on account of being the little sister and her annoying habit of yelling "outrageous!" whenever anything of note happens.
    • There's also Rio, and a lot of people on YouTube don't like Ba Nee.
  • Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: In Video Wars, Video explains that her career as a filmmaker is quite difficult, since she has to constantly work hard at maintaining her success. Despite everything, she doesn't give up on it and loves her work. This wasn't presented in an over-the-top, ridiculous sort of aesop, nor was it even the main message of the episode, but it acts as a nice way to tell kids that having careers and jobs are never easy, but if you love what you do and keep at it, it's all worth it. The show itself seems to be an example of that message; disregarding the animation, the staff obviously put a lot of effort into the characters and gave them distinct personalities.
    • With the exception of Eric Raymond, Techrat, and Zipper, the writers made it a point that neither the Misfits or the Stingers were totally evil and had their soft sides (especially Stormer), and that there was a reason why they were like that. And even the Holograms weren't entirely pure and had their flaws. This seems to say that people have multiple aspects to their personalities, and that even so-called perfect people have their hang-ups, and the worst offender might not be so bad given the chance.
  • Writer Revolt: Christy Marx originally envisioned the Misfits as Complete Monsters: a trio of self-absorbed sociopaths that Eric found and forged into a band, which could fall apart at any moment due to Pizzazz, Roxy, and Stormer being willing to betray each other at a moment's notice if it would advance their respective careers. Similarly, to appease moral guardians, their songs would be "anti-moral" as far as promoting the worst aspects of human nature. The other writers pretty much rejected this outright and we got the kinder, gentler, vitriolic True Companions Misfits everyone loved.