Transcript: THE JEM JAM - Episode 1 - "The Beginning"

(Listen to the episode here.)

Kit: I’m gonna be honest all of my notes for this–there’s just an entire page that says “GUITAR MOTORCYCLES.” Like that’s page one, and then page two is the rest of my notes.

[Title Music]

Annie: Hey there, I’m Annie.

Kit: I’m Kit.

Maq: And I’m Maq.

A: And this is The Jem Jam, where we do an episode-by-episode recap of the 1980s cartoon Jem and the Holograms, because it is truly, truly outrageous. And also truly, truly insane. We are starting with episode one of season one, aptly titled “The Beginning.” And last episode–if you want to check that out–we also mentioned how we got into Jem, what our thing is, what is up with the music videos, some of the history… so if that’s what you’re interested in before just jumping right in and want some context, I would give that a listen first.

“The Beginning” is the first of a four- or five-parter that was released as a miniseries. I believe in some of the airings they were actually cut up by episode break, which is why so many of them end on insane cliffhangers. These were all written by Christy Marx, the creator of the show. Her screenwriting stuff–she tended to only come in for the beginning and the end. But when you’ve got a Christy Marx episode, you know you’re in for some very high quality soap opera garbage. Shall we dive right in?