Here is a new section on Jem articles - ie: stuff not written by me!   A forum for people who have Jem opinions, info & photos that they want to share but don't yet have or want a webspace on which to publish it. If you have an article about Jem (preferably about something I haven't already discussed in length on Jem Vs. P) that you would like to see published here, feel free to contact me. 

By Dr. Thinker

This is going to send most Jem fan to bang their heads against the desk, but I have reason to believe that even know Jerrica Benton never told Rio that she is Jem’s secret identity, Rio knows it—and have been playing dumb for while.

You might say, I’m been writing too many fan-fiction with Rio being in the knowledge—the show itself will proof me right. 

Male Brains:

There is a lot of male brains showing their smarts in. First off, the late Emmett Benton showed his smarts by making Synergy. Even Eric Raymond, had show of some his brain power in the issue of trying to get Jem’s secret identity by hiring that private eye in “Totally Outrageous.” Lord Hawthorne showed some smarts by confronting his uncle in “Britrock”. In “KJEM”, Mr. Kite used some smarts in hiring the Misfits and getting McDuffy’s plane. On one of the most smart move on the planet is to “play dumb” for safety reasons.

Short Temper:

We know why Jerrica isn’t telling Rio about her other identity. His explosion temper about lies and deceptions—but I have reason to believe that they are short term. The first comes from “Out of The Past”, after Jerrica tells him that the tapes come from an anonymous old friend, she is repentant about an old trick she pulled by using Eric Raymond to make Eric generous that she read in Emmett’s dairy. Rio stated that he forget all about it. According to the dairy, it took Jerrica “two weeks” to thaw Rio out after this—but I believe Emmett Benton never saw Jerrica with Rio until two weeks after the events. 

The events of Christy Marx’s episode, “Glitter N’ Gold” reveals, how long an upset Rio accidently last. In this episode, Rio gets upset over Kimber mistake with two guys-just when Jerrica had give a “Rio” illusion test run with Synergy about telling Rio her other identity—and real Rio states the same line to Kimber that the illusion Rio give her. But, later, after Rio saves Jerrica from the Skulls, he states the following: “I may get mad, but I still care.”  

This believe the following scenes in “Glitter N’ Gold” occur on the following days
 
 

SCENE	DAY
Mall Scenes (Jerrica doing Starlight Music, Kimber reading about the Misfits, Rio wondering where Jem is, Kimber making dates with Jeff and Max)	Friday
Synergy Room (Jerrica’s “Rio” test)	Late Friday’ Night/Early Saturday Morning
Starlight Mansion (Jerrica’s attempt to tell Rio is ruined by Kimber’s dates, and Rio’s temper explosion.)	Saturday Night after 8:00 PM.
Diskcovery Records (Jerrica gets annoyed by “The Misfits” remarks, and becomes Jem for the first time in a long time.)	Sunday Morning
Starlight Music (“Jem and Holograms” recording their ‘Glitter N’ Gold’ album)	Sunday Afternoon
Starlight Music (Jerrica loading the Jem album into the Starlight Express)	Early Sunday Night
The Skull’s Attempted Attack on Jerrica	Late Sunday Night/Early Monday Morning

By my view of the “Glitter N’ Gold” episode, I believe that Rio temper only last one day.  Now, we know that Rio’s temper is short then we think it is. 

How? 

You must be asked how he knows.  We knows Rio is quick to presume things—first off that the Clash’s fake Jem was the real deal in “One Jem Too Many” and that Ashley was the one that damaged Jem’s equipment in “The Rock N’ Roll Express”. Even know he was proof wrong in both episode. He had a good presume after Jerrica give him a hint during the yacht party by her action after his reaction to the question, “Do you like me?” from Jem.  After the yacht party, I think Rio excused himself and went to his home—and assumed Jerrica is Jem.

This is proofed in “Broadway Music” by Rio asking a question to Jerrica—even know it’s sounds like he trying to get money for Eric Raymond—but if he didn’t know Jerrica’s true identity at this point, he would have been a quiet man, and let Jem deal with Eric’s reward for Jem’s secret identity. He was trying to find how Jerrica disguise herself. Jerrica whisper her usual phrase to active one of Synergy’s illusion, but since Rio was pretty close—he heard it. The moron actions afterword was just Rio’s “dumb act” as usual.

An earlier event happens on the way to “VTV” in “Totally Outrageous”,  Rio tries to quit on Jerrica, but if he didn’t know Jem’s true identity at this point, he would be quiet—and still work for Jem. I believe the “crush on Jem” is a fake one, played by Rio to protect Jerrica.
 

Reasons:

Why doesn’t Rio tell Jerrica that he knows she is Jem? Let’s take a look at Jerrica’s reasons for not telling anyone that she’s really Jem’s other identity.

1. Jerrica can’t reveal her identity with out revealing Synergy, the secret hologram computer. 
2. Jerrica can avoid ultra-fans of “Jem and The Holograms” while doing her Starlight Music” work.
3. Rio’s temper towards “lies and deceptions”—this is her BIGGEST REASON for not telling that she’s Jem to him.

The reason is that Rio isn’t telling Jem he knows her identity:

1. Eric Raymond’s annoying band, “The Misfits” had been cause of numerous problems for the “Holograms”. Playing dumb, allows him to protect Jerrica with out getting into her hair. 
2. Neither Jerrica nor Rio is brave enough to admit they love each other. 
3. The reaction of Jerrica “Jem” Benton after her Rio illusion test had her crying. His is the BIGGEST REASON for not telling Jerrica that he knows—he can’t tell Jerrica he knows with out accusing her of lying—and setting off Jerrica’s into one of her crying fits.
 

In the end, I hope I give you enough to move reason to think Rio knows Jerrica is Jem—and why he’s not telling this knowledge to Jerrica. 

Logging off,
Dr. Thinker 

Looks take a look at some of the parallel universes that might happen to “Jem” if Hasbro went a different way. 

#1: MALE BACK-UP BAND –

OUR UNIVERSE: Originally, M was going to have a male band. Either to cover up a Mattel employee discovering of a trashed “Jem” box in Hong Kong or their own spies discovered Mattel was making a band for Barbie.  This resulted in the creation dolls og Kimber Benton, Shana Elmford, and Aja Leith. 

THE OTHER UNIVERSE: Either the person took the box back to U.S.A. or the Hong Kong meeting was call off for some reason. And Mattel was able to kept Hasbro’s spies away from its’ Barbie factories. The dolls for the Holograms end up as John, Alex and Steve. The dolls for the Misfits were fronted by Rain (a rich boy, with Thunder and Lighting (twin brothers) doing the Rain’s jobs for him. Eric Raymond in this cartoon was Rain’s lawyer. In the early potions of the movie, Jerrica was angry that John, Alex, and Steve were fired by Rain. Finding Synergy as usual, Jerrica becomes Jem and John, Alex and Steve become the Holograms.    Christy Marx got the files from Hasbro—and went to work. Thanks to the boys being on the side—Christy Marx feels safe in “the action series” and worked on the bible for the series as usual. The outcome of the studio was an equal to a two and half hour movie. This movie was so good that Hasbro decide not to cut into up into seventeen 7-mintunes episodes—and air the full movie on noon the Friday after Thanksgiving Day. The movie revealed that Jerrica is angry that Rain fired her friends. The ratings of the airing of “Jem: The Movie” was pretty good—and they O.K. the first season—and lunched the dolls. That January, Jem appeared on network. It was a successful—but the network air “Jem” usually between “My Little Pony” and “She-Ra” in the mornings or “Transformers” and “G.I. Joe” in the afternoon. 

Alex was keyboardist—and was usually the reserve of the roadie/boyfriend Rio. Alex is some between Jem’s laid-back and Rio’s wariness. Steve was the drummer that act tough but had a heart of gold underneath. John was the songwriter and guitarist for the group.  The show had a good amount of action. It put a decent-size dent in “Barbie” sells—much to Mattel’s surprise.

The third season adds a new character to line-up of each band, a Mexican-American named Ray for the Holograms and an English male saxophone named Volanco to the Misfits.

Soon, the 1990s come—and Hasbro had a big worried—they had three big toys of the 1980s—in the 2000s, the Internet fans of “G.I. Joe”, “Transformers”, and “Jem” pages call  those three toy-ads series, “Hasbro’s Toy Triforce.”  Triforce referring to the three triangles of power, courage and wisdom from Nintendo’s “Zelda” series—though each fan picked a different one—the most common are the two following:

    VERSION #1

TRANSFORMERS  =  POWER
G.I. JOE   =   COURAGE
JEM     =   WISDOM
 

    VERSION #2

TRANSFORMERS  =   WISDOM
G.I. JOE   =  POWER
JEM    =   COURAGE

Most fans in this universe’s present day think Version #2 is the best.  Hasbro decide to least the another Jem into theaters. Christy Marx was given three rules: for the movie

1. PUT ERIC RAYMOND IN JAIL!
2. HAVE JERRICA/JEM FILL RIO IN 
3. TWELWE SONGS -- ALL NEW! 

The movie storyline’s focus on Rio discover of Synergy, Jem’s hologram computer—meanwhile Eric is plotting to use a false truce to uncover Jem’s identity—but surprising the tired of Eric’s bossing them around like “villains from a 1980s cartoon show”, Misfits make a real truce with Jem—much to Eric’s annoyance.

The critics’ reviews were so-so on Jem movie—but it pleased the crowd. The next movie to come out was “G.I.”—which killed off Duke. It got a third season form DIC—but it didn’t last long.  The next movie come along was “Transformers”—which dealt with Unicorn and Primus fight—creating their own Transformers. Optimus Prime is stuck inside Megatron--who is stuck inside Unicorn--for the entire movie. The movie ends will four Transformers sides: Autobots (lead by Optimus Prime), Decepticons (lead by Megatron), the Cornicons (lead by Galavatron [nee Starscream] and The Primabots (lead by Merge [nee Arcee]. The Transformers lasted two more seasons.  Jem had two more seasons—the most common foe for them is Clash, a Misfit fan-boy.
 

#2 – TWO MORE BANDS IN THE MIX

OUR UNIVERSE: Hasbro had a problem. Jem’s doll line is doom unless they change the doll line-up. Hasbro come up with “The Stingers”, a heavy rock group lead by ego-manic Riot. Soon, the Jem toy line and show was canned by Hasbro. 

T.M.B.I.T.M UNIVERSE: Hasbro decide to but Jem on hiatus after the final episode of Season 2. Mattel laughed at them—and unleashed a full page ad in “Vanity Fair”—“The Victor Is: Barbie!” For one full year, Hasbro was a laughing stock in the girl’s market—though “The Transformers” and “G.I. Joe” were doing fine. A Hasbro employee came up with an idea of making two new bands. One was a female “hip-hop” group, which will be added to Starlight Music—and will be helpful to the Holograms. The other was a heavy metal band lead by a egoistic male—but after while—the egoistic male—was turned into the daughter of Zipper, a old foe of the Holograms—who created her band as a way of  attempting to kill the Holograms. 

In 1989, Jem reappeared in toy stores. With the invention of CD players and CDs, Hasbro make Jem a little cheaper. Synergy got two versions—one was her doll from earlier and one was playset that was a working CD player. Added to the mix was the two band, the hip-hop musicians, “The Party” lead by “Life”—and the heavy metal musicians, “The Gangsters” lead by Volanco. 

The third season opened up with the Five Partner which Eric buys Misfit Music away from Harvey Gabor. The Misfits upset with this quite---Eric finds “The Gangsters”—and decides to use a new version of Techrat’s “time machine” to travel back in time and replace the original “Misfits” with “The Gangsters”. This results in a change universe. Eric in control of Starlight Music—and Raya still lives with her father. With help of an outer-space alien, the Misfit nicknamed Stormer, and a futurist government agent saves Synergy from Zipper’s gang. Synergy has been bouncing back and forth between the time-lines—the old one in which Jem win against the Misfits—and the new one in which the Gangsters killed Jem. Life goes back in time with the alien and the government agent work events in Jem’s favor. After saving the Holograms, Stormer goes back in time—to just after Eric hired the Misfits in the first place and remarked a familiar: “You won’t be able to work in this town again—if you drop the Misfits!”

Failing to change time, Eric gets a brave idea—he adds the “Gangsters” to the Gangster Records—keeping the Misfits on as a balance act. The future agent tells “Life” to collect a few pals of her own—thought in audience find that the future agent is the decent of “Life”.  “Life” creates her own band to protect Jem from both “Gangsters” and “Misfits”

Jem had a good third season—but it was still the last one air. 

#3 – DIFFERENT MOVIE ORDER

OUR UNIVERSE: Hasbro released “My Little Pony” and “Transformers” into the theaters in 1980s-but the resulting flop of “Transformers”-put the “G.I. Joes” movie on VHS—and canning the “Jem” movie.

D.M.O’S UNIVERSE: 

Hasbro had four big toy/cartoon series in 1986, “My Little Pony”, “Jem”, “G.I. Joe”
 and “Transformers”. Their first movie in the spring time of 1986 was “My Little Pony”—the critic didn’t give that movie a fair shake—but the parents of little girls helped make decent—but Hasbro was just getting WARM UP. 
The next movie was animated “Jem” movie. The movie forced on twin rock stars with metal powers. The results of the movies had a lot of changes for Holograms—the biggest changes from having Stormer leaving the Misfits and joining the Holograms, and Rio revealing that he’s been playing dumb since Jem asked that question on the yacht. This was really a male writer upset with Christy Marx using Rio’s temper as a way to explain why Jem could spill the beans—and he got the explain scene—and since it contained no Holograms other then Jem program—it wasn’t saw by Christy Marx until the movie’s release. Christy checked the scenes in which Synergy’s holograms that weren’t Jem program at all were placed correctly and acted logical—she didn’t check the reveal portion didn’t because the only hologram in the reveal was the Jem program. Bad news for Christy—this critics and the fans love this reveal scene and assumed that she did it—and it wasn’t until 2007 that Marv Wolfman he had written it—he got angry at not getting of his second ‘Jem’ story from Rio’s point of view—but the holograms in the climax of this episode broke the rules Christy placed forth—that it was canned. When Rio put the episodes out on DVD—this script was a DVD-Rom extra.

When the fourth season comes up, Christy come up with—by revealing Rio were twins, when Jerrica trips over one of Rio’s tombstone on the way to pay respect to late Emmett Benton. We learn that Rio were perfect goody-two-shoes twins—until a Rio died. The one that dead asked to accuse Jerrica of lying to her about Jem’s identity—but it turns out the other Rio couldn’t get chance—Jerrica was pretty busy with the Fifth Avenue Boys.  Lucky, Shana told Rio to vacuum the second den. This Rio found Synergy and asked what happen if Jem told HIM that he was Rio. This Rio has no problems with people lying to him—and Synergy shows him and Jem kissing. Rio knowing that Misfits have been a pain-the-neck for the Holograms—told her to add a rule to her program: “For protection of herself, if Jerrica or Jem asked for a test illusion of Rio—make an upset Rio!” 

She had a good laugh at herself—and recalled that she saw a birthmark on Rio and not the on the other. Both Rio know audio systems like the back of their hands, but the Rio had that a crush on Jem was the one that died—but Jem and Rio decide to kept this information away from the other Holograms for a while—thought midway though the fourth season—they learn Rio was not the original Rio that they kept Jem’s secret from.

The final episode was aliens discovering Synergy in the future—and going back to time to prevent accidently expose from one of the biggest plots Eric Raymond ever pull. In the new change future, Synergy reveals that even since final Benton passed away a few centuries—she had been giving Jem Star earrings to other aliens that reminded her of Jem—but the latest one died as she was returning the Jem Star earrings. The aliens decides to take Synergy with them—and become the latest version of “Jem and the Holograms” 

The next movie release was “G.I. Joe”. G.I Joe dealt with Cobra-La—and Duke died. Not one person made a big fat fuss about Duke’s death—but most G.I. Joe fans took it well. The next movie was “Transformers” and dealt with the mysterious arrival of Unicron—the vile eating-planet transformer.  Prime is in a comma for much of the movie—but comes out of it just after the Autobots defeat Galavatron and Unicron. Not much change for the Autobots—but a lot for the Decepticons during the Transformers’ fourth and final season.

They are more universes then you can shake a microphone phone—in some universe, Jem failed and in others—she was an outrageous success.  If you want to add more your idea to possible universe dealing with Jem, e-mail at docmailster@gmail.com or docpoke@yahoo.com. 

Logging off,
Dr. Thinker