1980s animated Jem and The Holograms was peak Hasbro Saturday morning cartoon and peak US synthpop era. For a glimpse into those two worlds, travel back to an imaginary 1988 synthesizer shopping spree with Jem and the Holograms. That’s right: Jem and Minx went to NAMM.
There’s really … a lot to unpack in these two minutes. Let’s just say just about every frame and every line could be a meme. But for two glorious minutes, the animated band picks apart bleeding edge synth tech at NAMM. Sorry — at “ELECTRONIC TRADE SHOW.” (I think we can just call it NAMM, given Picard recently tried to pass off the Anaheim Convention Center as Starfleet Academy.)
Each of the female band members get in a subtle dig at the boys. Sure, Jerrica (Jem) doesn’t care all about synth tech sheets – she’s too busy being the lead singer and (it’s implied) keeping the band’s actual business afloat. (Hey! Are you implying synth nerds aren’t good with busi— erm, cough never mind.)
Minx strings along a floor demo dude for a bit before dissing the synth and later revealing she’s a synth DIYer and apparent electrical engineer. But that doesn’t stop her from getting (almost) anyone she wants.
And then it just goes on.
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My memory of this show is beyond foggy, so – by the power of the Internet, the bare-chested guy is evidently lead singer Riot, who, along with Minx and Rapture, forms The Stingers, a West German glam rock band with no particular attempt at accurate German accents. And the episode is “A Change Of Heart,” which sounds like a fantastic glamrock soap opera – NAMM – Baywatch crossover, as aired on February 18, 1988.
VLSI? Vector synthesis? 1 megabyte? It was 1988. They’re not wrong. Here’s a little link list Minx might appreciate:
Designing an ASIC with the VLSI Technology ASIC synthesizer
A Deep Dive into Synthesis in VLSI Design
In 1988, vector synthesis would have been a nod to Dave Smith and the Sequential Prophet VS (just before the Yamaha acquisition). Here’s Sequential vet Chris Meyer talking about his work on the design that Minx must have adored:
It’s fun to play with; Arturia has a nice software rendition (with some extras not on the original, as usual – though also a lot of the original content).
As for Jem and The Holograms, the show format was toymaker Hasbro again deploying the winning formula it had used with G.I. Joe and Transformers, this time into a kind of scifi – musical – romance. The show’s creator and main writer was Christy Marx; for US Americans who grew up in the 80s, she wrote way more of your childhood than you would imagine, with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Conan the Adventurer, and G.I. Joe credits. But Jem was all her creation, and funny enough, it might be the one and only show that holds up to adult viewing. (I think I might appreciate it more now than I did then.) The music came from the late Robert J. Walsh, who started with Warner Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies legend Friz Freleng before going on to all the Hasbro shows, plus winning a Daytime Emmy for his work with Jim Henson on Muppet Babies. There’s a wonderful remembrance of him you can read.
I’m no Brony and I’ve got little stomach for 80s nostalgia. But the work Walsh did on this show – plus the clever music talk for kids – is admirable. Crafting these little pop tunes and churning them out in time to make TV production deadlines is pretty striking; episodes typically have three or four songs per show. The Misfits alone got a dizzying 187 songs by the time the show was done and they’re not even the only band; my hands almost cramp up. Walsh also evidently had a studio building history, contributing to the construction of ScreenMusic Studios, now Studiopolis. An extraordinary amount of animation was recorded there (from The Tick to Æon Flux); I had no idea.
But enough of that link hole. Let’s hear some Jem tunes. A few stand-outs:
The theme, natch (also extended for Jem alone):
The Misfits had some bangers (and kinda want to slow down/repitch them):
You could phone in kids’ shows, but this is not dumbed down at all:
And The Stingers:
Anyway …