Bill Sanders (1940-1990) a famous award winning advertising executive, and two friends/collaborators Joe Hyland (1935-2001 (a former Hasbro marketing executive and freelance toy designer) and his wife Barbara Hyland (an advertising executive and freelance toy designer) went to Hasbro with a idea of a new doll line, to compete with Barbie. Bill thought Barbie was boring and no fun.

Hasbro had Sunbow Production, Inc. develop a cartoon to promote the Jem dolls. It started as fifteen (seven minute) segments on a show with several boy's cartoons called "Super Sunday", or "Super Saturday", airing in October 1985. Because of the black lash against animated shows developed to sell toy lines, Hasbro purposely had the show released around six months before the doll line came out. Hasbro was hoping that would make it look like the cartoon came first.

When Hasbro had to give "M" a new name. The name Jem came from the Jemstar earrings M wore. The name of the band became the Holograms. The idea for the name came from the Holographic image that changed an ordinary girl Misty (or Morgan) into "M". And during this time the male band became two females ... with their names changing from Aria to Aja to Kimber, Jade to Aja. Shana came a little later, with names Beverly and Chandra. One name for Roxy and/or Stormer at this time was Rue.

One playset was being developed for "M" was a jet. Like the released Jem playsets, it was to have a cassette player and speaker. It also could be transformed into a stage. This playset may have been dropped for the Rockin' Roadster, Star Stage, and Rock Backstager. Elements from this M jet were used in all three 1986 produced playsets. The most likely reason this playset was dropped was cost, because it might have been to costly of a playset to include in the first year of a brand new toyline.

Usually it starts with a hint of the new line in the Pre-Toy Fair Catalog. But not in 1986, Hasbro actually excluded Jem and released limited number of the 1986 Pre-Toy Fair Catalogs just to make Mattel think Hasbro was dropping the Jem line -- it didn't help, or Mattel was not fooled, as Mattel continued the release of Barbie and the Rockers. (source)

Barbie’s sales had been low for most of the 70s and 80s, so Hasbro thought they could take her place as the number one selling fashion doll. Jem wasn’t the number one selling doll. But thanks to Jem, Barbie and the Rockers put Barbie back on top with externally high sales.

Eight dolls, three playsets and twenty-four fashions started the doll line.

Those 15 "Super Sunday" segments were put together into a 90-minute "Truly Outrageous!" movie in 1986 and shown to kick off the new "JEM" animated series. At the same time those 15 segments where extended and included as the first five part episode of the "Jem" cartoon. The five part episode started airing in April of 1986. 4-1/2 minutes was added to three "Super Sunday" segments to fit the new Jem episode running time. "Starbright" soon followed in, July 1986, as 3 part episode. Between April of 1986 and the March of 1987 Jem had 26 full episodes.

Three new Jem dolls, three new Holograms were added to the "New Look" Holograms, two new Misfits were added to the reissued Misfits, Synergy, three Starlight Girls along with three playsets (one new playset), the updated roadster, four stage playset attachments, a waterbed and twice as many fashion where added to the line. (1987)

"Glitter'n Gold" was the new doll theme and the 26th episode "Glitter and Gold", aired in March 1987 -- it was the first look at the new 1987 fashions and dolls, with the exception of Raya and Jetta. After the summer break, Raya and Jetta made their first appearance in September with "Talent Search" part 1 and 2. Jem was now being aired Monday through Friday. Between September of 1987 and the May of 1988 Jem had 39 full episodes. Sadly, Flash'n Sizzle Jem/Jerrica's fashion, the new look Holograms and Synergy along with Krissie and Banee's doll looks never appeared in the series.

The Rock’n Curl Jem fashion was designed by Girls’ Soft instead of Girls’ Hard who designed the rest of the boxed doll fashions.

Glitter'n Gold was originally the Hollywood/glamour theme and was put on the Toy Fair cover as a least attempt to get the sales Hasbro was expecting for Jem. This was to be a new direction for Jem and was an attempt to gain confidence with the buyers for the toy stores and toy departments. Hasbro was disappointed with the 1986 sales of Jem, but did not want to give up on her, and look like they completely failed. The 1987 orders for Jem did not meet Hasbro’s expectations so even though Jem was sold in 1987, all development stopped on the doll line around March or April of 1987 ...

The Stingers, a "basic" and "scented" version of Hollywood Jem, a high end red dress "Ruby Red Jem?", a new Jem/Jerrica and Wedding Kimber & Male were waiting in the wing, but the regular fashion assortments were not – Hasbro shut development down in March 1987, before the themes could be expanded in fashion assortments. A Stinger fashion assortment was never started and the Hollywood Jem assortment never made it to the prototype stage. On Stage Fashions, Flipside Fashions, Smashin’ Fashions, Rio Fashions, Glitter’n Gold Fashions and Music is Magic fashions were being unofficially updated, but no order was placed to develop the 1988 lines. Even without being ordered the fashion department still updated some of these lines and possible new 1988 On Stage and Smashin' Fashions ended up on ebay. The only 1988 known fashion set was "Video Costumes" or "Mardi Gras Fashions" which were in development before new development stopped around March 1987. The International/World Tour Fashions never made it past the Marketing Departments approval.

So there should have been at least five new Jem dolls:

• Rockin' Romance Jem - 4004 (US 1988 Pre-Toy Fair catalog),
• American Beauty Jem - 4007 (US 1988 Pre-Toy Fair catalog),
• unknown Jem? missing sku number of 4008
• "scented" Hollywood Jem - 4009 (French 1988 Pre-Toy Fair catalog-wrong doll pictured), and
• Jem - 4010 (1988 store inventory list and price changes -- original the Misfits assortment sku)
  ("basic" Hollywood Jem was another 1988 release, along with high end red dress "Ruby Red Jem?" doll and a 1988 Jem/Jerrica "redo")

Wedding Kimber & Male (unknown male doll)

Two new Holograms:

• Astral - original name was Magic (US 1988 Pre-Toy Fair catalog),
• Regine - original name was Paris (US 1988 Pre-Toy Fair catalog), and
• reissue of Video and Danse with long hair.
  (US 1988 Pre-Toy Fair catalog-changes not pictured)

A new group the Stingers - assortment number 4012: (French 1988 Pre-Toy Fair catalog/Media Guide)
The Stingers prototypes surfaced on ebay featuring brand new head molds for Riot and Rapture

• Riot - original name was Chaos -- male,
• Minx - original name was Fiasco -- female,
• Rapture - original name was Jazz -- female.

And Rama Llama was going to be Jem's pet and was going to be available as an in box mail-in offer

Most of these new dolls appeared in the cartoon sometime in the fall and winter of 1987/1988. "Red Dress" Pizzazz and the new Misfit Graphix were put on hold for the 1988 line early on, and never appeared in the show. The new mix match outfits, along with many other new fashion sets were originally planned for 1988, but for assortments that were not officially ordered before development stopped.  Some of the new dolls and possible new fashions. A rumored new Rio was also developed, "Rio Oh' Boy," but never appeared in the series.

Hasbro made Jem to expensive to compete in the marking place. Hasbro expected Jem to make over $30 million a year, but the sales were not there – not when the customer had a cheaper alternative to choose from. Hasbro made Jem too realistic, too articulate and with flashing earrings and/or a cassette tape, the costs were just too high to compete. The fact that Jem was not sculpted to fit Barbie’s clothing did not help either. The biggest complaint was that Jem's clothing was too big for Barbie.

Another reason for Jem's demise as surfaced from Hasbro -- the size of the boxes. It seems that the 14-1/2” tall doll boxes was a big issue to retail stores in most areas. Doll aisles were set up to hold the 11-3/4” Barbie boxes. Because of the larger size, one of two things happened – either the dolls would be sat on their side, or one shelve would have to be removed and the other shelves adjusted to accommodate the larger boxes. These are not issues that customers would see, but stores would see the display as looking sloppy and reflecting badly on the store or see it as loosing valuable shelf space. A retail outlet would see taking out the shelf as a loose of revenue -- overstock and backroom storage is seen as a negative in retail.

not confirmed: Hasbro, or more importantly Stephen Hassenfeld, saw that Jem had some marketing issue, and wanted to fix them. When Stephen found out that he was dying, he decided to cancel the line. Stephen felt like he did not have enough time to fix all the issues with Jem, and was afraid that Hasbro, under his brother Alan Hassenfeld, would not fix them after he was gone. The decision was to black out Jem completely, so it was like she never existed. All posters, dolls and anything Jem related were removed from Hasbro. Any remaining merchandise, included Rockin’ Romance Jem may have been shipped over seas.

Stephen Hassenfeld passed away on June 25, 1989.

March 2010 Updated/Correction: By the time the doll line was canceled the show was already rapping up. Hasbro was canceling all the Sunbow shows to save money -- Jem was the last one to be canceled, finishing out the 65 episode syndicated contract. The Jem cartoon may have even had a longer run thanks to the doll line being canceled. Hasbro promised the vendors they would continue the show after the line was canceled to help move (1987) product from store shelves. If the Jem doll line continued into 1988 more then likely Hasbro would have broken the contract with Sunbow dropping the Jem cartoon in Oct/Nov of 1987.

G. I. Joe and Transformers had hit the 65 episode mark.

• G. I. Joe was canceled at 20 episodes after the first 65 --
  just 4 episodes shy of another 26 episode contract (two 13 contracts)
  after the original 65 episode contract = 85 of 91
  (last episode was on Nov 20, 1986)
• Transformers was canceled 33 episodes after the first 65 --
  just 6 episodes shy of one 26 episode contract and one 13 episode contract (three 13 contracts)
  after the original 65 episode contract = 98 of 104
  (last episode was on Nov 11, 1987)

Hasbro contracts with Sunbow were for 65 episodes followed by 13 or 26 episode contracts beyond the first 65.This information is from a former Sunbow employee, it seems to conflict with the idea of G.I. Joe and Transformers continuing with 30 episodes contracts/seasons after the original 65 episodes. The Hasbro contracts for episodes (13, 26, etc.) might have little to nothing to do with the distribution of the episodes (30 episodes in a season).

A smaller doll called Maxie ended up replacing Jem. Maxie was a high school girl, with her high school friends. The line was the same size as Barbie and the fashions could be swapped with Barbie fashions. This line only lasted three years.

Maxie was not a true replacement for Jem because Hasbro originally was going to release both Jem and Maxie in 1988. Maxie was a produced because Hasbro acquiring the rights to Sindy in the European market, but was not able to release Sindy in the states because of licensing issues. Hasbro designed and prototyped the dolls and but only prototyped the fashions because Hasbro decided to use the Alberts to design the fashions. Hasbro also outsourced most many of the larger playsets to Meritus.

Maxie was going to have a band in the fall 1990, but Hasbro canceled Maxie before the dolls hit the stores. This Maxie band would have featured Jem instruments in new colors.

• Rockin' Pretty Bianca - a blue Roxy guitar,
• Rockin' Pretty Maxie - a purple Shana guitar,
• Rockin' Pretty Ashley - a blue "Show Me The Way" Video Madness tambourine, missing the Jem logo, and
• Rockin' Pretty Carly - a light green Kimber keyboard

Maxie was quickly followed by the New Kids on the Block dolls. That included two sets of dolls and a stage playset. New Kids dolls came with a black version of Jem’s microphone, and like Maxie’s Rob the body was an updated and less articulate version of the Rio body.

Many of Jem’s accessories also landed in the Sindy line that Hasbro manufactured and distributed in Europe -- including the Rockin’ Romance Jem dolls jewelry and the Rock’n Roses guitar.