The commercial that never was…

“I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.” ~ Maya Angelou ~

Eleven years before Phil Lord and Chris Miller directed last year’s hit family film, CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, these two brilliant entertainment hyphenates concocted a television commercial that never made it to Saturday mornings – the “Brontë Sisters Power Dolls “

According to Lord and Miller, from their YouTube page, “This was a fake commercial we made in 1998 for a series of educational shorts about action figures based on historical figures. Its educational value was somewhat suspect. It was never aired.”

The commercial parody featured everything one would see in a typical cartoon break, which included kid-friendly action figures slugging it out for dominance of good over evil. The only difference were the action figures, they were based on three Victorian women writers, Emily, Charlotte and Anne Brontë, all who initially wrote under the pen names, Ellis Bell, Currer Bell and Acton Bell respectively. (Such was the fashion of the literary era and the non-acceptance of women as writers.)

How myopic times were then, as all three women produced some of the most enduring and popular novels of all time – Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey.

Too bad the commercial below was never allowed to inspire legions of young girls – it’s something, in my humble opinion that Gloria Steinem would relish.

Talk about smashing the glass ceiling with a “Brontesaurus.”