Interview with Christy Marx on Jem and the Holograms

Hi, this is Christy Marks, 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 Jem, the Truly

Outrageous Complete Series, getting released

this coming Tuesday. This is the update interview

where Christy will be talking to us about the

DVD, The Resurgence. She recently went to a JemCon

over there in Holland. With me is Michael Wilson.

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 Christy Marks. We'll be

right back. 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 Peacon Court Michael. Hello. Hey, how's it

going? It's going, and yes, Christy Marks, the

creator, head writer of Gem in the Holograms,

is our first ToonCast Beyond interview. Hello,

Christy, how are you? First! Yes. I get to call

first. No idea how many YouTube people do that.

Well, why should I be any different? Exactly,

exactly. So we are here today to talk about several

things. We're going to hit the legacy of Jem,

Jem coming out on DVD. You recently just went

to a JemCon over 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 gem 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? Since I haven't actually formalized

anything, I'd rather not. Ah, okay. 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, you know, the DVD set is amazing. I got

my copy a couple weeks ago. I know they sent

you a copy, and I remember watching it as a kid,

but I remember watching it behind Mask or behind

another boys' 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's 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 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 Shout 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 of royalty

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.

Britta Phillips and Samantha Newark, yep. Yeah,

and I know they even went to the fans. 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. Oh, okay. Mind you, the

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

they're hard to come by, plus they're like $50,

$60, $70, $80, $100. Yeah. Damn you, Rhino. Anyway.

Blame Rhino. Hey, it's the truth. I can sit there

and look at eBay, and I'll look at Transformers

and G .I. Joe and Beast Wars, and all those Rhino

DVD sets will be anywhere from $30 to $500. 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 – 25,

30 -minute drive between the two cities. Holland

overall not being 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. You know, 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 Mandurah 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, 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, a film named

Italo. Italo Ianti, 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 Stingers 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. 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 doll collection. Mainly Stefan's enormous

doll collection that he got to exhibit finally

because it's not something he can drag to Gemcons

in the United States. So he got to show off a

lot of cool stuff that he's collected besides

the dolls and 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. And I met some of these people

at previous cons, of course. That's how I got

to know Stefan and Rob from previous cons. And

I got to know Ilana 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. And, yeah, I talked. did

a couple of days' worth of panels talking about

Gem and just answering questions and so forth

and 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 mean, 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. Yes, yes. 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 mother,

who was just one of the most darling people I've

ever met. And they both dressed up in gem costumes

for the Saturday night party. And I'm sorry that

I'm not better with names, but this woman did

a gem song. There was Karaoke, of course. And

this woman did gem signing. She signed the gem

song because she does signing as part of it.

Wow. So that was a lot of fun. That was very

cool, too. Who else was there as far as, like,

was Samantha there? Was Britta there? Were other

gym people there? Or was it just you? Yeah, it

was just me. 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 nice. Yeah. That would be great

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

every year, right? Or every couple of 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.

In a couple of days. Yeah. That would be great.

Honey, we're going to 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. 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. It's 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 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 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 the 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. Where do you see Mafia Wars

2? You know, and 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 this 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. Okay. I believe it's just about

to launch, if it hasn't launched yet. Yeah, it

is. I think Monday, if I recall correctly. That

should be interesting. Very, very interesting.

Now, do you yourself, I mean, I know amongst

your job you have to be able to play and test

these, but I mean, 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 and be 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 get into the role

-playing stuff. Yeah, my wife and I used to play

games together, and then we had kids, and that

kind of ended that. Yeah, it makes it a little

tough, yeah. 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 don't

need to sleep. I'm good until about two. Good

night, honey. Yeah. Sorry I can't play games

with you now. That's so funny. That's just so,

so funny. Do we have anything else we want to

ask her, Michael? Because I think that was it.

I mean, 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 Jem, 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 Sunbow

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 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 were like, whoa,

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, 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 Gilvezan

voiced, Spider -Man, the 1981 series, right?

Right. Yeah. Yeah, that was some of my earliest

animation work, learning to write animation,

one of the earliest series that I worked on.

And lately, I've just been getting a lot of response,

a lot of email and response from people about

that show. And I'm like, wait, where is this

coming from? It's like, whoa. And it's also getting

a very, has a very strong response from people.

It's quite interesting. Yeah. Yeah, that was

a great show. Yeah, and see, the funny thing

you mention 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 and reruns

when I was like six or seven years old in 86,

87. So I remember hearing Dan Gilvezan Bumblebee

as Spider -Man. Right. When the trailer for Shattered

Dimensions came out, the Spider -Man Shattered

Dimensions video game, it's Gil Vazan in the

2099 Spider -Man, the dark, really, really dark.

So I loved how they went back and got 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. Yeah. 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. Highly creative.

I've worked with Stan at a number of different

occasions in my career. A 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, it never got made. It's

always great working with Stan. He's just intensely

creative. Yeah, 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 Christy 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 Christy

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,

as I get information about those, I will be posting

those to the Christy 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 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. This month, I think it's October 14th to

the 16th are the dates. I think that's when it

is. And supposedly they're going to be announcing

something about Jem. So she doesn't know what

exactly. She wasn't informed, but supposedly

there's going to be an announcement about Jem.

Everybody's wondering, what could it be? Is it

a movie? Is it a new TV show? Cartoon? Video

games? Toys? We don't know. Wow. I just can't

see a gem video game in the High Moon Studios

fashion. That would be kind of weird. Well, they're

completely lacking red lasers and blue lasers.

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

to Christy for taking the time with us. Thank

you for taking your time out of your Saturday

to do this with me. Oh, anything for Christy.

Not so much for you, but, you know, to talk to

Christy. Yeah. There you go. 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 with Christy

Marks. We're going to go before we start cracking

each other up and it turns into a train wreck.

So ToonCast Beyond Episode 1, the Superhero Squad

show, will be premiering November 11, 2011. 11

-11 -11. We did talk about it. Superhero Squad

a little bit with Tom Kenny recently. Yes, yes

we did. We did. So for ToonCast Beyond, you are

Michael Wilson. And I am TFG1Mike and we will

catch you next time.