If you've ever re-watched a show or movie you loved as a kid, you know you're risking let-downed-ness. No one, as a grown-up, ever gets through a screening of Beethoven and goes, "Again!" It just goes to show you how much we really were comatose vegetables in front of a screen, soaking up demented plot lines and accepting pretty much anything as awesome. Nothing proves this more than Jem, the mid-'80s cartoon (and doll), which maintains a positive reputation of awesomeness with her Millennial audience. But how much do you actually remember about the show? Here, a refresher course.
Your adult mind is about to do a say whaaa?
The plot of show revolves around Jerrica Benton and her alter-ego, Jem, a singing sensation who can be conjured via hologram (more on that in a bit).
We open at some point in the future: Jem is a full-on celebrity and exiting a car to a crowd of fans. "I remember how it all began: with the unexpected death of my father," she says. Cue Wayne's World "doodley-doo" to the past.
After the death of Jerrica's father, he leaves her half of his business, a record company called Starlight Music. He also leaves her Starlight House, a home for foster girls.
The issue is that Starlight House is in a state of disrepair—what to do?
Revelation from Jerrica: "What we need is money to fix this up!"
Random old lady says: "Well your father always used to get money from Starlight Music to keep things going."
People.
Jerrica goes to visit Eric Raymond, the guy who now owns the other half of Starlight Music. He's mean and a creep and doesn't want to give Jerrica any money.
So, despite owning half of the business, she can't do anything about it? She can't get any money at all? Get a lawyer, honey.
Eric then says, "I'm planning on turning Starlight into the most powerful recording company in the country." Since he's a villain, this comes off as a bad thing...but isn't this mutually beneficial? In theory?
Then, even though Jerrica is Eric's enemy, he readily reveals his business plan. (Dude!) To put Starlight Music on top, he needs "new blood." This new blood is the band, "The Misfits," who, like proper badasses, have been in the closet this whole time, waiting to ride their motorcycles into Eric's office.
When Jerrica gets home, she finds a mysterious present—star earrings. She puts them on and then this lady with no eyes appears.
But the lady is a hologram and Jerrica can feel right through her!
Hologram lady is like, "Jerrica, come with me." Jerrica's like, "OK."
Jerrica and her gang follow the hologram lady back to an abandoned drive-in theater (because that's not creepy), and enter a lair where the lady talks to them through a high-tech organ. You know it is high-tech because there are lots of blinking lights and robot noises. She introduces herself as Synergy, a system developed by Jerrica's father that can a) produce holograms and b) change appearances.
Synergy: "I'm a holographic computer designed to be the ultimate audio visual entertainment synthesizer."
Jerrica: "But, Synergy, if your projectors are here how did you appear in my bedroom?"
Synergy: "Through my remote micro-projectors."
Jerrica: "The earrings!"
Is anyone following this yet?
Jem and her friends now turn into this crazy cool band, Jem and the Holograms.
So, now, obviously the answer to all their problems is to go crash Eric Raymond's "Battle of the Bands."
Eric has rigged this competition by inviting horrible bands to play. This way, The Misfits will win. Wait, isn't the point of stuff like this to get noticed by a record label? The Misfits already have one, so why are they playing amateur hour? C'mon.
Jem and the Holograms show up and win over the millions of people in the crowd.
Because The Misfits are batshit crazy, they start chasing Jerrica's car and run her off a cliff. Jerrica, knowing that her boyfriend Rio will be driving by, projects a hologram of Jem to wave for help. Rio instantly recognizes Jem because her band became super famous in the course of a few minutes.
Nevermind that this article comes out in the following scene—a day later. They must have Twitter there or something.
If Evil Eric were smart, he'd sign Jem and the Holograms. Everyone would make tons of money. Case closed.
So, let's get this straight. There's Jem the person, Jem the hologram, Jerrica the person, and Jerrica the hologram?
Does no one catch on to this at all? Considering you can see right through a hologram? And if you handed Hologram Jem a banana, she'd drop it? Also, isn't it kind of a dead giveaway when you name your band Jem and the Holograms.
