Gephyrophillia #240

Originally Posted on 04/29/2011 by Jeff Harris

Take what I say with a grain of salt, unless you're on a sodium-free diet. You guys and gals take it with a pinch of Mrs. Dash.

The news of The Hub picking up Hasbro's Jem animated series has been an interesting one to say the least. We already knew about Shout Factory's upcoming release of the series this summer, but to see the series on American television after a 20 year absence is quite surprising. Instead of putting it on in the midnight hours as they have done with the classic G.I. Joe and Transformers series, The Hub is actually putting Jem in primetime. Starting Tuesday, May 31, The Hub will air the classic series weeknights at 7 PM EST (that's 4 PM in the West) with repeats daily (on Saturday May 28 starting at 2 PM EST, The Hub's airing a three-hour marathon of the first six episodes). For a series that hasn't been on the collective radar of pop culture in almost 25 years, The Hub and Hasbro are giving Jem a lot of attention.

And that's the plan.

Unless you've fallen into an endless pit for the past decade and just now coming out of it (by the way, if you did, thanks for visiting my site; there are better ones out there so explore them after reading this article), you know that Hasbro are in the process of reintroducing their familiar brands to a new generation of viewers and potential consumers. The reintroduction of the Transformers brand, galvanized by the visually-impressive popcorn-fueled films, has been quite fruitful spinning off three animated series (Transformers: Animated and the upcoming Rescue Bots indirectly and Transformers: Prime directly). G.I. Joe also spawned off a pair of computer-animated OVA releases (Spy Troops and Valor vs. Venom), a Japanese-made series (Sigma Six), a mature audience-themed animated microseries (Resolute), a live-action theatrical release, and, most recently, an animated prequel (Renegades). Other projects based on their board games like Scrabble, Clue, The Game of Life, and the Family Game Night universal theme for all their games have also been well-recieved.

However, the most surprising series to come out of Hasbro's brand revival drive is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a well-written, very vibrant reimagination of the My Little Pony franchise driven by veteran animator Lauren Faust, who brought some of the same kind of freshness and buoyancy seen in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and Powerpuff Girls, created by her husband Craig McCracken. This fresh approach to what many previously saw as a girly franchise has been well-received by many critics, viewers, and a large throng of fans that crosses many generations and demographics. The Ponies are probably the most popular show on The Hub. Heck, if you count the online fandom instead of actual ratings, it's probably one of the most popular cartoons in the country.

Its success has inspired The Hub to go deep into their own libraries to see if there's another property they have that could have that same kind of draw, and they found it in the form of Jem.

Why Jem? Let's look at the facts:

- Jem, like My Little Pony, has a built-in fanbase. Yes, they're older than the demographics that a network like The Hub would be drawn to. But they will watch the series largely because they haven't seen it in a long, long time and either want to see if it still holds up in 2011 or if it's better than they thought it was. Many of the parents of today's kid-vid demographics grew up with Nickelodeon and afternoon cartoons like Transformers, He-Man, Voltron, and Jem. As I've said earlier, parents who watch these shows have children who'll watch these shows. That's one reason why Jem is airing in primetime.

- Jem is a music-based program. Music-based programming is big business these days. Fox has made American Idol and Glee into cultural institutions in the US. Disney's High School Musical set a bar for the studio to churn out more musical films and soon a television series. Nickelodeon's Victorious and Big Time Rush also put its mark on musical television. The Hub is even developing a music-based competition show of their own, Majors and Minors. Jem is essentially a prototypical Hannah Montana in every meaning of the word. A young music exec named Jerrica Benton uses a computer to become Jem, a lead singer of The Holograms, an all-girl band of rockers and using the money to support her company and the foster program her mother founded. Chaos, comedy, adventure, and drama ensue with Jerrica trying to keep both worlds separate as she can. The series combines music and story in every episode, a lot of them quite good. It's only natural that Jem returns in a post-Hannah Montana world.

- Hasbro is testing if audiences will watch and react favorably toward Jem. Why? They want to resurrect the brand for the 21st century. Yes, there has been a few snags in bringing it back in the past, but Hasbro has been making a lot of moves as of late, buying domains and registering/renewing trademarks and copyrights for certain elements of the franchise. The fact the press release calls the series "Jem and the Holograms" as opposed to just "JEM" means they're enforcing the trademark they have on the franchise. The Shout Factory DVD deal was one step in bringing Jem back to the masses. The Hub broadcasting the original series in a high-profile prime-time slot is yet another step. Perhaps Hasbro is building Jem up so they can relaunch the franchise in the near future, maybe as early as 2012.

Again, take what I said with a grain of salt or a pinch of Mrs. Dash. I'm not ashamed to admit I'm a fan of Jem. She's cute, easy on the eyes, as are the Holograms and the Misfits. Should be interesting where Hasbro and The Hub are going into this revival push.

Keep creating.

Jeff Harris,
Creator/Webmaster, The X Bridge.