FATHER'S DAY

Jem and the Holograms

Season 2 (1987)

I consider myself a child of the 80s as well as the early 90s, but the Jem and the Holograms cartoon was never much on my radar growing up.  My only true association with the show was the fact that my sister owned a Jem doll and once (Defense: I was very young!) I smacked her in the face with it and gave her a bloody nose.  The “Jem doll incident” is part of our family lore but aside from that I never had much of a Jem connection.  Now Jem is having something a renaissance, with a upcoming live-action movie that I will definitely not be seeing, an amazing new comic book adaptation that I can’t recommend enough, and a new audience via Netflix streaming.

I’ve started watching the show and instantly became a fan.  It encompasses all of the neon glamour and excess of the 80s that I love and is camp of the highest order.  What I didn’t realize is how bonkers some of the storylines are—the show goes far beyond rock stars and holograms and features a weird blend of action adventure and real-world issues, including but not limited to: the lost city of Shangri-La, desert islands, illiteracy, runaway trains, drug addiction, zombies, Yugoslavia, and time travel.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Jem also has a Father’s Day-themed episode.  Father’s Day episodes, unlike Mother’s Day episodes, are few and far between, usually because most shows have already ended their seasons by June.  It’s doubly surprisingly that Jem, of all shows, has a Father’s Day episode because it’s a cartoon about female rock stars aimed at a young audience.  Since I’ve been enjoying my recent exploration of the Jemverse I happily settled in to watch Season 2’s “Father’s Day.”

One thing I’ve grown to appreciate about the show is that episodes often focus on the many supporting characters, such as members of rival band the Misfits or friends of Jem and the Holograms.  In “Father’s Day” the focus is on Clash, the Misfit’s number one fan and hanger-on, and Video, the Hologram’s videographer (in the world of Jem you will mostly likely be named after your primary occupation/characteristic, such as videographer Video or dancer Danse.  I guess my Jem named would be Editorix?  Bloggera?).  Video and Clash are cousins who grew up on the same street, but as adults they’ve allied themselves with rival bands, as happens in life.  In this episode, both of them return to their hometown for its annual Father’s Day Banquet, bringing the Holograms and the Misfits and a whole lot of trouble with them.

While Video and Clash fight for the spotlight and the admiration of the locals, Jem and the Holograms are preparing a special song to perform in honor of Video’s dad.  Band member Kimber, however, refuses to write the song since she misses her own (deceased) father.  Kimber eventually pulls a Gerald O’Hara, angrily riding a horse that bucks her off, and then has a change of heart when she meets the father of Pizzazz, the bitchy lead singer of the Misfits.  Just when things are looking bad for Video at the Father’s Day Banquet (which has no food or even tables and looks like a high school dance), the Holograms make a splashy entrance, arriving in Pizzazz’s dad’s private jet.  They perform their song but, surprisingly, Pizzazz and her dad do not reconcile by the end of the episode.

The best part of any Jem episode, aside from the amazing outfits the characters wear, are the music video segments.  Two to three times an episode the Holograms and Misfits will break into song, accompanied by psychedelic imagery.  In this case we’re treated to Kimber’s lament for her late father, “Something Is Missing In My Life,” as well as the Misfits’s unfortunately named “Let’s Blow This Town.”  The finale song and ode to fatherhood is “You’re Always In My Heart.”  I love the songs mostly because they are extremely literal and the lyrics usually just repeat the song’s title ad nauseum—a character will say something like “I’m thirsty” and suddenly the music video text appears and they start singing “I’m thirsty/So thirsty/Life makes me thirsty/I’m sooooo thiirrrsssttttyy!”

This episode didn’t exactly move me to tears but it had all of the elements that make Jem such a fun and highly watchable show.  The animation is terrible but the nostalgia factor is high, and you may find yourself humming “Let’s Blow This Town” after watching.

I hope all you dads out there have a truly, truly outrageous Father’s Day!

Father’s Day Quotient: 3

Own It, See It, Skip It?: You may not be able to convince your dad to sit and watch with you, but this one is worth seeing.

FILM FOCUS: PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES

For every 20 or so Christmas movies there’s maybe 1 Thanksgiving equivalent.  TV shows are less discriminating when it comes to Christmas’ less commercial cousin, but the movie industry really hasn’t tapped into the November holiday.  I wrote at length last year about Home for the Holidays, one of the notable exceptions to this rule.  But if you were going to ask an Average Joe (or Jane) to name a Thanksgiving movie, most would probably mention Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

I’d seen only snippets of this 1987 film over the years, via its many showings on, so I was excited to finally sit down and watch the whole thing.  Surprisingly, I wasn’t aware that John Hughes wrote and directed it, though I quickly picked up on this while watching.  It has all of the Hughes hallmarks.  It co-stars John Candy and also features Edie McClurg, both of whom crop up in several of his films.  The storyline and humor, derived from a trip gone wrong at every turn, are reminiscent of other Hughes films like the National Lampoon series and The Great Outdoors (also starring Candy).   There’s even an idyllic red-brick, snow-bound house in the Chicago suburbs that is the virtual twin of the house seen in Home Alone.

Hughes’ movies may share many common themes but don’t get me wrong—I’m a huge fan of his work, both his writing and directing.  He had a unique gift of balancing the woes of modern life and sometimes brash or outright crude characters with a surprisingly sweet sentimentality.  This tone is perfectly struck throughout Planes, Trains and Automobiles, as acerbic businessman Steve Martin and a loutish (yet lovable) salesman played John Candy clash and then bond during their attempts to get home in time for Thanksgiving.

Predictably everything goes wrong for the two, from cancelled flights to rental cars bursting into flames.  They also encounter a delightful series of oddballs and enemies played by a who’s who of character actors from the 1980s.  The aforementioned Edie McClurg, always a favorite, has a memorable scene as a foul-mouthed rental car clerk.  Another favorite actress of mine, Susan Kellerman, plays a garishly made-up waitress.  I love movies that send me to IMDB after watching to look up the filmographies of various bit players.  And some not so bit players—a youngish Kevin Bacon has a small scene early on.

It’s not a perfect movie by any means; I’d rank it somewhere in the middle of Hughes’ oeuvre.  One of the film’s better known scenes, in which Martin and Candy share a bed, relies on dated gay panic “humor.”  This scene can be forgiven in light of the entire movie, which is ultimately a rather sweet love story between these two straight guys (with the aforementioned gay panic scene to reassure moviegoers that nothing physical is going on-- though Steve Martin is surprisingly foxy in this).

But wait—what about Thanksgiving?! Well, it’s around.  The whole movie takes place a couple days before the holiday, and ends on Thanksgiving Day, when we’re treated to a few fleeting, yet tantalizing, flashes of the perfect family gathering.   There’s lots of snow and Edie McClurg talks about preparing Thanksgiving dinner in her one scene.  And like any good Thanksgiving movie there’s a touch of Christmas as well—when the men eat in a diner there are already Christmas decorations in the background.  This pleases the yuletide fanatics like me, who know that Thanksgiving is just prelude to the holiday main event to come.