Interview with Christy Marx on Jem and the Holograms DVD Release and Her Career in Animation and Games

Showtime synergy! Hi, this is Kristi Marx, the

writer of Gem and the Holograms and Beast Wars,

and you're listening to Geekcast Radio Network.

I am the worst podcaster in the world, ladies

and gentlemen. I agree. Shut up! Nobody asked

you! Welcome to the tooncast beyond interview

of Christy marks. This is the update interview

with Jim the truly outrageous complete series

getting released this coming Tuesday This is

the the update interview where Christy will be

talking to us about about the DVD the resurgence

She recently went to a gym con over there in

in Holland With me is Michael Wilson. I am The

fucking goofy one, Mike, I guess. Okay. I'm Michael.

Hey, how's it going? As the crowd responds, hi,

Michael. So yes, anything we want to say before

we get to this interview? No. Okay, then. Okay,

then. So without any further ado, here is our

interview with Kristy Marks. you Hello and welcome

to the first interview on the Tooncast Beyond

feed. Tooncast Beyond is the continuation of

Tooncast Classic. I am one of your hosts, TFG1

Mike, and joining me is Pecan Court Michael.

Hello. Hey, how's it going? It's going and yes,

Kristy Marks, the creator, head writer of Gem

in the Holograms, is our first Tooncast Beyond

interview. Hello Kristy, how are you? First!

Yes. I get to call first! No idea how many how

many YouTube people do that all Exactly exactly

so we are here today to talk about several things

we're gonna hit You know the legacy of gem gem

coming on a DVD you recently just went to a gem

con over in in Amsterdam And we'll talk about

some other stuff as well. So why don't you fill

the listeners in on what you have been up to?

What projects you've got coming up or anything

that you might be able to reveal to us? There's

probably not a whole lot I can talk about. I'm

working at Zynga, which is the large game company

that makes games for Facebook such as Farmville

and Frontierville and Cityville and Mafia Wars.

And I'm working on a new game project for them.

Therefore, unfortunately, I can't talk about

it. But I am learning all about making Facebook

games, which is a fascinating new area of game

design. Very interesting for me. I have something

else in the wings, but unfortunately, I haven't

signed a contract on it yet, and I can't talk

about it. But it will also be quite exciting.

It is not gem -related. I will put that rumor

to rest right now. Oh, so it's not that Jim movie

we've been waiting 25 years for. Not yet. Can

you hint at it? Is it a video game? Is it a TV

show? Is it a cartoon? Since I haven't actually

formalized anything, I'd rather not. Ah, OK.

It's a secret project. But it's something really

cool. Awesome. All right, so what What are your

feelings? How are you feeling about the resurgence

of GEM and the fact that it was announced a few

months ago that it was going to be appearing

on Hasbro's hub network. We're getting the DVD

release of the complete series. Finally, we're

getting all three seasons. What are your thoughts

on just the resurgence of the fandom and stuff?

I'm amazed, actually, that it continues to be

as strong as it is. It's gratifying. It's surprising.

It's fascinating, just from a purely cultural

point of view, the impact that GEM has had and

where it keeps popping up in the culture and

how frequently I encounter people who remember

Jim and really react to remembering Jim and so

forth. And so it's just tremendously gratifying.

Yeah, I bet. I mean, the DVD set is amazing.

I got my copy a couple weeks ago. I know they

sent you a copy. I remember watching it as a

kid, but I remember watching it behind mask or

behind another boy's franchise. I don't know,

I have a weird memory sometimes when it comes

to my childhood. But I didn't really remember

besides the first story of how Jerika gets her

powers, or not her powers, her synergy and all

this and all that. I didn't remember any of the

story other than the beginning and I've been

going through and watching the set and it's just

The show is amazing. It just is Well, I think

for one thing when we talk about the DVD release

I would like to really give props to Brian Ward

who was the the person at shot Factory who really

shepherded that project And just was absolutely

devoted to making that an excellent DVD release

and putting as much into it as he possibly could.

He really, really went above and beyond the call

of duty, I think, on that DVD to make it the

best and most special thing that he could. So

good for him. And he was great to work with,

obviously. On the DVD set, there is what they

call the video jukebox. And it's pretty much,

I think it's almost every song that was ever

in the series. And it's spread over all 11 discs

of the DVD. I'm wondering, can Shell Factory

turn that into a CD version and make gem albums

or digital versions and make gem albums for audio?

Because that would be a cool thing for Shout

Factory to do. Well, I know it's something that

the fans would love to have. It's a whole different

issue, I think, when you're talking about putting

out just a music CD. And, of course, there are

costs involved in doing that because the people

who created the music are protected by BMI or

ASCAP so that they get the residuals or royalties

or however that works. unlike, unfortunately,

writers or voice actors or other people on the

series. Wow. So tell us a little bit about the

bonus features that she recorded. Well, I did

about a one -hour interview that's on there.

So I didn't do commentary on any particular episodes,

but they sat me down and we did a video interview

that's on there. That's for my part. And then

I know they interviewed other people. I mean,

I can't tell you everything that's on there myself.

It'd be Britta and Samantha both, I believe.

Yeah, and I know they even went to the fans,

and it was very nice of them and very smart of

them, I think, to go and get fan involvement

on the project as well. Now, would you have wanted

to do commentaries on any of it? It would have

been okay, but I already did do commentaries

on the previous DVD sets, so I don't know that

I could have added much of anything new. My the

other DVD sets are hard to come by now, but Well,

they're hard to come by plus. They're like, you

know 50 60 70 80 $100. Yeah Damn you Rhino anyway

play Rhino. Hey, it's the truth. Don't I can

sit there and look at eBay and I'll look at Transformers

and GI Joe and Beast Wars and all those Rhino

DVD sets will be anywhere from 30 to 500 dollars.

Yeah Scarcity. Mm -hmm. That's too bad. But yeah,

I suppose I would have just said the same things

over again. Yeah. But then again, maybe it would

be more accessible, so who knows? Tell us about

your trip to Amsterdam. The GemCon that took

place, it actually was in Rotterdam, which is

about a, I don't know what the exact number of

kilometers are apart, but it's maybe a... 25

-30 minute drive between the two cities. Holland

overall not being, you know, terribly huge, of

course. So things do tend to be relatively close

together. But the International Airport is in

Amsterdam. And then there's another more European

-oriented airport in Rotterdam. So I arrived

a day ahead of time and the guys that organized

it, they were... cousins, Stefan and Rob Spearings,

and they did an absolutely amazing job of organizing

this con. These two guys were just fantastic,

and they had help from their long -suffering,

very patient, and wonderful partners, and just

organized this thing. Every second was just perfectly

organized. They were so good. picked me up at

Amsterdam airport along with some other fans

that had arrived from the United States and they

had shuttles and picked us up and shuttled us

to the hotel and looked after us and took care

of us and these guys were, I just can't praise

them enough, these guys were absolutely wonderful.

And we had an entire day of just touring places

within Holland and we went to a place called

That's if I can remember the name of it now because

the name of it always eludes me, but Manjurama,

I mean Manjura Dam, I think is what it's called.

And basically what it is, it's a huge kind of

theme park that was built and it opened in 1952,

I believe. And it's scale size, about 125th scale

size replicas of all of the famous buildings

and landmarks in Holland. And so you just walk

around on paths around this absolutely amazing

theme park and you see all of these churches

and community buildings and the entire port of

Rotterdam and canals all over the place and windmills

and they're amazing. They're these beautiful

recreations. It's just an absolutely amazing

place. So we did a tour of that and then they

took us for a tour of some... 300, 400, 500 -year

-old windmills that are still functioning, that

are still actually operating as commercial windmills,

and we got to go tour those and go inside them

and so forth, and that was very, very cool. And

then we wrapped up that day's tour in Amsterdam,

walked us around Amsterdam, got to see the interesting

districts of Amsterdam, and then went and...

No partaking now. It's legal there. So why not?

You know, I come from the 60s. Anyway, and then

we had a delicious dinner there in the evening,

and it was just absolutely wonderful. So we had

this fantastic day of getting to tour, and Holland

is a beautiful country, really beautiful, and

all these gorgeous little canals all over the

place, and very green, and lots and lots of brick,

like lots of brick streets, and beautiful brick

buildings. Just absolutely a gorgeous place.

The con itself was small, cozy, and intimate.

And they had people from, let's see if I can

remember all of the countries. I hate to leave

anybody out. Obviously, we had the United States

represented in various parts of the United States.

And then we had Dutch people that were there.

And of course, we had a guy who made a DVD, little

short gem film, a guy from Chile named Italo.

It's a little yanty. And he made this film using

the dolls. And he took audio from some of the

episodes and mixed them together into a little

bit of a new story. I think it ran about 40,

45 minutes. And then he used dolls and sets and

fashions and things that were made. And they

even recreated Stinger's dolls and made this

movie specifically for the Gem. It was just GemCon.

Just made it for the GemCon. So he was terrific.

So he was there from Chile. And his mother came

along too, in fact. And so we played the film

for everybody, and it was great fun. And then

we had a gentleman from Italy, and we had people

from Belgium, and France, and England, obviously,

and Scotland. And it was wonderful. Terrific

people, lovely people to be around. There was

one room for the panels. Little seminar things

that they did and showing the movie and then

one room for the dolls doll collection mainly

Stefan's enormous Doll collection that he got

to exhibit finally because it's not something

he can drag to gem cons in the United States

Yeah, so he got to show off a lot of cool stuff

that he's collected besides the dolls and you

know other Memorabilia and cells that he's collected

and drawings that he's collected production drawings

and things like that and other people bringing

some of their dolls and fashions and so forth.

So there's a huge doll collecting contingency,

as well as people who are interested in just

the animation part of it. So there's this mix

of this. And because it was small and intimate,

I got to spend a lot of time close up. Oh, Canada,

I forgot to mention Canada. I'm sorry, Alana.

Forgive me, I forgot to mention Canada. And Alana

shows up and does an absolutely fabulous minx.

She does the whole costume and the accent and

everything. Oh, interesting. Oh, she's great.

Thanks. And I met some of these people at previous

cons, of course. That's how I got to know Stéphane

and Rob from previous cons. And I got to know

Elana from previous cons. And two lovely ladies

from Scotland have shown up at previous cons

and so forth. So some of those same people were

here. did a couple of days worth of panels talking

about Jim and just answering questions and so

forth and spending, just getting to spend time

with the people, really. It was just a tremendous

amount of fun. So what was the turnout for an

Amsterdam con versus a U .S. con? I can imagine

it would be a lot smaller. Oh yeah, like I said,

it was much smaller, much more cozy, more intimate.

We probably had about 30 people, round about.

I think that's the smallest convention I've ever

heard of. That's like a large family gathering.

That's what it felt like, and that was actually

what was so wonderful about it. That would be

nice, actually. Yes, because everybody just gets

to sit around and chat up close, and we had lunches

and dinners provided at the hotel, so we all

just got to sit around and eat lunches and dinners

with one another. There was one lovely lovely

woman from the states with her her mother who

was just one of the most darling people I've

ever met and they both dressed up in gem costumes

for the for the Saturday night party and and

I'm sorry that I'm not better with names but

but this woman did a gem song there was Kara

okay of course and this woman did gem signing

she signed the gem song because she does signing

as part of wow Fashion so that was a lot of fun.

That was very cool, too Who else was there as

far as like like did was Samantha there was Britta

there were other gym people there or was it?

Yeah, they was just me they they they couldn't

afford to bring anybody else over I was the one

person that they settled on To bring over so

I got to hog the limelight That would be great

if they did one. And I know they do one of these

every year, right? Or every couple years? Yeah,

the next one's in St. Louis, if I remember correctly.

Nice. Road trip, Michael. That's not that far

away. We were just talking about driving to St.

Louis not too long ago. There you go. You should

go and cover it. Yeah. That would be great. Honey,

we're gonna drive to St. Louis to the JumpCon.

Well, it's better than flying to California every

year for BotCon. Well, that's the sad thing is

I skipped it in California both years. I know.

Yeah, I'd go to one in St. Louis. Anyhow. So...

Besides Jim, you're not just known for Jim, you're

known for other things as well. When I first

did the research on you for getting this, well,

technically third interview, you mentioned earlier

that you're working at Zynga. How did that come

about? Well, let's see. It basically came about

because of another game designer who was working

at Zynga who knew me and knew that they were

looking to add narrative designers to the design

teams. A narrative designer being someone in

the games business, a relatively new title for

what's been done in the games business for a

long time but never had a specific title. But

basically a narrative designer is someone who

designs how to bring story into the gameplay,

how to mesh story and gameplay, how to handle

integrating story, how to visually tell story

or through text tell story or whatever means

you find to put story into gameplay and do the

writing and so forth. And Zynga had recently

discovered that, hey, adding a little bit of

story to the games really improves the games.

Exactly. they began looking around and hiring

narrative designers. And so this woman who works

there and who knew me said, hey, are you interested?

Do you want to come on over? Because they're

looking for people with your kind of qualifications.

And what had happened to me is that I'd been

moved up to the Bay Area in 2007 to work on an

MMO project. Big time MMOG with with a famous

game designer named John Romero who was heading

it up and I ended up working on that for two

and a half years and then the project was killed,

which unfortunately is a really common sort of

occurrence in the games business. It seems to

happen a lot to Romero. Yeah, I mean this certainly

It's typical. It happens in the business. It

really does. Unfortunately, it's the nature of

the video game business. It's a common thing.

There I was living in the very expensive Bay

Area and lost the job that I had. So I spent

about a year working on independent projects.

I worked on a virtual world project with a company

in Switzerland, got a trip to Switzerland out

of it, which was very nice. And then I was doing

some story editing and writing on Lord of the

Rings game for Snowblind Studios, which is part

of Warner Brothers. So when she brought this

up to me, I said, yeah, that sounds like a good

idea. So I came in and actually now it's a little

bit more roundabout than that. One of the people

who was hiring narrative designers is also a

very well -known I will even say perhaps a legend

in the game design field called Bob Bates. And

I've known Bob for about 20 years in the games

business. And so Bob was one that brought me

on board initially as a consultant. And I began

working on the Facebook games as a consultant.

And then finally I went full time back in April.

So that's what I have been doing. It's quite

a demanding line of work. I haven't been doing

much else than that. Yeah, those Zynga games

are very, very popular and very, very addicting.

They certainly can be. Well, Michael knows. He

plays Mafia Wars all the time. I play a lot of

Mafia War. Yeah, I really do. Where do you see

Mafia Wars 2? You know, that brings me to the

next question here. I've seen at least three

Zynga games pop up since the last time we talked.

And I keep thinking, is this the one Christy's

working on, or is there something new that we

haven't seen yet? When I first started working

there, I was working on the Mafia Wars 2 project.

And then I switched over to another new project

that I can't talk about. Ah, OK. I believe it's

just about to launch, if it hasn't launched.

Yeah, it is. I think Monday, if I recall correctly.

That should be interesting. Soon. Very, very

interesting. I know amongst your job you have

to be able to play and test these, but just in

your own spare time, do you have any Zynga addictions

or any Facebook game addictions yourself? I play

a number of the games, obviously. There's a fairly

new one out called Adventure World, which I've

been having a lot of fun playing. And Cityville

is one that I liked a lot. So, you know, obviously

as a part of my job, you're expected to play

these games and to know you're familiar with

them. And then I'm still very much a World of

Warcraft player. I still come home and, you know,

relax by playing World of Warcraft. I wouldn't

have guessed that, to be honest. Oh, yeah. No,

my husband and I have been a team for about five

years or more, actually, on World of Warcraft.

Nice. That's awesome. That is one game I just

can't get into. I don't know. I'm more so the

type of person that I like the first -person

shooters or that kind of stuff. I don't really

like the role -playing stuff. Yeah, my wife and

I used to play games together, and then we had

kids and that kind of happened. Yeah, it makes

it a little tough. Yeah, it's a little hard for

her to find time. I still find time, but she

likes to sleep. Funny that yeah, it's like I

I don't need to sleep. I'm good until about two

Sorry, I can't play games with you now Do we

have anything else we want to ask her Michael

because I think that was it I mean it's the the

point of the interview today was to you know

get the gem stuff out because As we said, the

DVD is coming out this coming Tuesday. But anything

else that we want to talk about? In addition

to playing GEM, of course, The Hub has also been

running Conan the Adventurer, which was another

series that I did with Sunbow and Jetlag Productions.

So that's another 65 half hours that I worked

on. So it's kind of funny, they've got both the

Gem series running and the Conan series running

at the same time. So two of my shows being represented.

And if they show some of the old G .I. Joes,

that'll be represented. Conan was an interesting

show to work on because it started out being

a Sunbeam Productions show for like the first

13 half hours. And then for whatever reason,

it ended up going to a different production company.

kind of a different setup. But what was interesting

about that, I researched all of the original

Robert E. Howard Conan stories. I went back to

the source. And everything I drew from, I drew

only from his stories, his original material.

But of course, I still had to come up with something

that would work for animation. So that was an

interesting challenge, because when they first

said to me, we want you to do a Conan animation

series, I'm saying, but he's a big barbarian

with a sword that kills people. You can't do

that. What are you going to do with that in animation?

So that was a very interesting challenge to come

up with. And he was no longer a loner. Of course,

he had a bunch of friends and buddies that would

hang out with him. But it was a lot of fun. Had

a good time with that. Another thing that was

unusual about my experience on that series is

that I was the only story editor and they wanted

three scripts a week. Which meant that I meant

that I didn't have time to do a lot of writing

on that particular one It also meant that I was

having to turn around three premises three outlines

and then do my editing passes on three scripts

every week, every single week for the production

of that series for 65 half hours. So that was

probably some of the toughest work I have ever

had to do just in terms of sheer hours and the

amount of work that was involved. That actually

sounds like voice work in the 80s where you go

into a Wally Burr session and you end up being

there for 15 hours rather than four. I was going

to say, I've never seen the Conan show before,

but I have read a few of the original stories,

and that doesn't seem to me like something that

would translate well into a children's show.

Like I said, it was a challenge. It was very

tricky. But we managed to pull it off, and it's

running, so you can watch it now. Yeah, we just

got the hub. It was strange because we haven't

changed our cable package. But when the hub first

came out, we didn't get it, and then we got it.

for about a month and then we didn't get it and

now we've got it again inexplicably. So yeah,

yesterday my kids were introduced to Strawberry

Shortcake for the first time. You know, they

thought it was really cool. They're like, well,

this is different. I've never seen this before.

But yeah, we're definitely going to have to watch

Jam as soon as it comes on. We might even record

Conan. I'd like to see that. And then another

thing that has resurfaced recently, I'm not sure

exactly how or where it's showing up. You know

when it whether it's on the hub or whether it's

somewhere else But I have suddenly been getting

a lot of response to spider -man and his amazing

friends. I Think it's on Netflix. I'm not sure

if it's on The hub, but I think it is in the

United States Netflix instant watch Because that

was the series that Dan Gilbertson voiced spider

-man then I see any one series, right? Right.

Yeah That was some of my earliest animation work,

learning to write animation, one of the earliest

series that I worked on. Lately, I've just been

getting a lot of response, a lot of email and

response from people about that show. I'm like,

wait, where is this coming from? It's like, whoa.

It has a very strong response from people. It's

quite interesting. That was a great show. Yeah,

and see the funny thing you mentioned about that

is that, was it last year or was it the year

before? The game before the current one, it was

Spider -Man Shattered Dimensions. I remember

watching Amazing Friends in reruns when I was

like six or seven years old in 86, 87. So I remember

hearing Dan Gilvazan Bumblebee as Spider -Man.

Right. When the trailer for Shattered Dimensions

came out, the Spider -Man Shattered Dimensions

video game, it's Gil Vizan in the 2099 Spider

-Man, the dark, really really dark, so I loved

how they went back and got all, some of the original

voice actors, but they put them in the different

Spider -Man roles, because obviously in the 1981

series, Spidey's all kind of happy -go -lucky,

it's not really dark humor. Where in the video

game that they did, He is voicing a completely

dark spider -man and I just love the transition

of hearing his voice between the two, between

the animation and between the video game now,

and it was just amazing. Oh, that's very cool.

I'm glad they did that. I was especially hearing

from people who were fond of the Firestar origin

story and were asking me about that. Because

I was the person that got chosen to come up with

the origin story for Firestar, so that was a

lot of fun. Oh, so that was actually an original

character to that show. Yes. Yeah. And then didn't

they move her into the comics after that? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Hey, there you go. She had her own

comic there for a while. Yeah. So that was a

cool thing. I got to work with Stan on that and

bring that together. What was that like? Working

with Stan. Well, I had already known Stan through

the comics book business and he's a wonderful

person He's a warm sweet delightful person to

work with very very creative man, obviously Yeah,

highly creative. I've worked with Stan on a number

of different at a number of different occasions

in my career Number of years back my husband

and I who also write as a team Wrote a movie

for Stan. It was going to be an animated feature.

Unfortunately never got made but It's always

great working with Stan. He's just intensely

creative. Every time I see him in anything, I

just get a laugh because he is just so awesome.

That's an interview I would love to do. I know

a lot of people would love to interview Stan,

but that is an interview that would be awesome.

So I think we're going to wrap this up. I'd like

to thank Kristy Marks for joining us here on

Tooncast Beyond for the very first Tooncast Beyond

interview for this feed. Remind everybody again

what you can talk about as far as upcoming projects.

Is there anything that you would like to pimp

out or anything that people should be on the

lookout for in the future? Well, people might

want to go to Facebook and check out the Kristy

Marks Clubhouse, which is where I will be announcing

things when there are things to announce. And

I've done a number of interviews with other sources

recently for the DVD release, so as I get information

about those, I will be posting those to the Kristy

Marks Clubhouse as well. Nice. Awesome. So thank

you very much. We'll ask you to hold the line

and we'll be back after this. Yeah, it's always

good to talk to Christy She's just an amazing

amazing interview She has such such insights

on stuff and it was just great to talk to her

again. Yeah, that was great One thing that we

didn't get into the interview Was that she had

mentioned off -air and she told us we can say

this That Hasbro is going to have a very strong

presence at the New York Comic Con uh... this

uh... this month i think it's october fourteenth

to the sixteenth is where it is are the dates

i think that's when it is uh... and supposedly

they're going to be announcing something about

jam so she doesn't know what exactly uh... she

wasn't informed but supposedly there's gonna

be an announcement about jam everybody's wondering

what could it be yes is it a movie is it a new

tv show cartoon video games toys Wow, I I just

can't see a gym video game in the High Moon Studios

fashion. That would be kind of weird They're

completely lacking red lasers and blue lasers.

Yes So, you know again, thank you very much to

Christie for taking the time with us Thank you

for taking your time out of your Saturday to

do this with me. Oh Anything for Christie not

so much for you, but you know to talk to Christie.

Yeah I love you, man. You're not getting any

of my transformers. Stop stealing that stuff

from Target. That's right. Stop breaking into

the back room. So yes, this has been the Tooncast

Beyond interview of Kristy Marks. We're going

to go before we start cracking each other up

and it turns into a train wreck. So Tooncast

Beyond episode one, the superhero squad show

will be premiering at November 11th, 2011. 11,

11, 11. We did talk about. Superhero squad a

little bit with Tom Kenny recently. Yes. Yes,

we did We did so for tune cast beyond you are

Michael Wilson and I am TFG1 Mike and we will

catch you next time