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For a lot of little girls, the '80s were all about MTV, psychotic eye makeup and ear-splitting bubblegum pop. Hasbro knew that, and cleverly dreamed up a pink-haired, rock n' roll competitor to Mattel's Barbie: Jem.

In her truly outrageous Saturday morning cartoon, Jem was the alter ego of Jerrica Benton,a music producer who also (remarkably!) found time to run a foster home. When she touched her star-shaped earrings, she was transformed into the lead singer of the all-girl, multicolored hair-band The Holograms (with the help of a computer named Synergy). Despite looking exactly alike, nobody was in on the fact that Jerrica and Jem were one and the same -- not even Jerrica's boyfriend Rio, who was clearly smitten with Jem (kinda sleazy, considering he didn't know she was already his girlfriend).

Of course, The Holograms needed a rival band. Enter The Misfits (not to be confused with Danzig and co.): Pizzazz, Roxy, Stormer and their conniving manager, Eric Raymond. The Misfits were truly formidable nemeses: They had bigger hair and better songs.

Larger in size than Barbie and with more points of articulation (Their knees bent! Their wrists twirled!), Jem dolls wore fashion-forward outfits and came with cassette tapes with songs from the show. Jerrica/Jem even had LED earrings that flashed just like they did on the TV program. What little girl didn't wish they had their own personal holographic supercomputer to dress them up and transform them into a rock star like Jem?

Show's over, Synergy.

Pamela Jaye blogs regularly for Lemondrop as well as at her personal site, Somewhere in Middle America.