Cartoon Wardrobe





You have to give those involved with Jem credit for the mind boggling array of fashions shown on the cartoon. They were nearly always consistent in look and who wore them, not to mention that each main character (there were up to 10 main characters per show!) changed an average of three times per episode, quite often more regularly than that. I'm not sure if there's another American TV cartoon out there that rivals Jem for the sheer diversity of fashions depicted on screen!

Whether any of these outfits were intended to be produced as toys or not is conjecture. At this point, I simply do not know. I am

the people responsible for the cartoon-only fashion designs are Debbie Pugh and Paula La Fond. So a huge kudos for their inspiration and talent!

Model Sheet Numbers



All fashions worn on the show had a model sheet number. While the first 5 episodes (The Beginning to The Battle of the Bands) started out fairly simply, with the character's name and a number to signify the fashion, by the Starbright series they had a more precise numerical system for designating the Marvel Production code, and they proceeded to back-log the older fashions in the new format -making some artistic changes along the way; most obviously Roxy's main outfit change. The top left corner had a small box with several numbers. "5205" was the number for the Jem series in general. Following that was the number that designated the episode; for example, Hot Time in Hawaii's production code is MP 5205-18. Since the numbering system occurred around the Starbright era, the system is slightly anachronistic as far as the first 13 episodes are concerned, but by the time of The Music Awards, the numbers sort themselves out and the production codes numbers are roughly in line with the airing order. Following the production code and episode number came the abbreviation of the character's name (JR would be Jerrica, J is Jem, RX is Roxy and so on) a dash and the fashion number. The fashion number would get higher as the series continued, so J-1 would *always* mean Jem's original pink outfit, no matter which episode it was shown on. By the time we get to episode 43 (Middle of Nowhere), Jem is already up to her 80th unique fashion. Usually, elsewhere on the model sheet, would be the same numbers in a slightly revised order. The model sheet shown left shows the hand written fashion number in the middle of the page J (for Jem)-41 (for the 41st Jem fashion) -18 (the episode number). The J-41-18 number would then be used by the storyboard artists as shorthand, to explain to the animators which fashion they wanted Jem to be wearing in that particular scene.The "videos" often had fashions in them that would be needed only for the narrative for that specific video and would more often than not never be seen or used again. They were also often created by the videos' directors, not the main fashion designers for the show. Many of the "video" model sheets are designated with a "SONG" # in their codes. Of course with any project that has as many people working on it as Jem did, there are a few goofs such as the same fashion number being used twice, Jetta/Raya episodes having earlier production codes than the Talent Search episodes - but for the most part it's a fairly consistent system!Of course, this is all just general terms - the system if far from being 100% foolproof! It should be noted that post "Glitter and Gold" (or MP 5205-26, if you've been paying attention! ;) model sheets have been very difficult to find so I really can't comment too authoritatively about them, yet.



So far there are two ways to view the cartoon wardrobe;

and

By Episode- You'll notice a certain logic in which episodes went where- each "batch" starting with a 2 or 3 parter by Christy Marx, the head writer. You'll also see where the art changes dramatically (the first five episodes compared to the Starbright episodes), when they started recycling songs & using "B" team (a Korean studio, as opposed to the Japanese studio) animation ("season 3") I believe what happened was that the first 5 shows listed here (Beginning through Battle of the Bands) were not turned into episodes until the series was picked up after the success of the Super Saturday 7 minute clips- which explains the unusual production codes that Sunbow assigned them.

Please note this section is still under major construction (ie: the links in

font), it will be some time before it is complete!



Season 1: Episodes comprised of the Super Saturday 7 minute clips







Season 2

Season 3.

(Sunbow #48)

(Sunbow #37)

(Sunbow #52)

(Sunbow #54)

(Sunbow #55)

(Sunbow #56)

(Sunbow #57)

(Sunbow #58)

(Sunbow #59)

(Sunbow #47)

(Sunbow #53)

(Sunbow #51)

(Sunbow #60)

(Sunbow #61)

(Sunbow #64)

(Sunbow #65)

(Sunbow #66)







By Character (this section will be behind the show wardrobes until I'm finished). Column one has full sized drawings, in airing order. Column two is by model sheet number without revisions added, thumbnail sized.









Thanks very much to everyone who has helped, I hope to have credited you all correctly in the appropriate pages. Special thanks to Walter, whose production model sheets have been an inspiration (and some I've actually used here, coloured in). As well, some of the faces have been taken from his production sheets as well, the rest (vast majority) outfits have been hand drawn by me.

A huge thanks also to

and sunnday for generously allowing me to use so many of her drawings here and letting me slack off from drawing myself a bit ;) It is so much appreciated! Thanks also to Sarah & Tiffany for various emails and fine tuning on this page. Thanks also to

for making so many of these model sheets and storyboards available in the last few years. It has been enormously helpful!