Neil from New York City is into Reddy Kilowatt. Enough to get a damn nice tattoo.

He was inked by Zoe at Modern Age Tattoo, 184 West 4th St.

Check it out:

Here’s a recollection of Reddy from the StoryCorps project on New Hampshire Public Radio: “Rebecca Boothman recounts stories of her childhood growing up in Randolph, NH and reveals what life was like for her mother when her father went off to fight in World War II.”

We never had a television. If we were real good on Wednesday nights we could go up to [inaudible] house. He had the first television in Randolph and we could watch Walt Disney. And if we were really, really good we stay and watch the Reddy Kilowatt hour. And that was a kind of mystery sort of thing hosted by Reddy Kilowatt who was the electric icon with lightning bolt arms and legs. I can remember Dad took us fishing up to Leadmine Pond which meant that we had to walk up across the bridge and behind the power plant and he said as an aside, “You know, Reddy Kilowatt lives in there.” Well, you’re walking behind the plant; there’s all these windows and l couldn’t…I just spent all my time looking through the windows looking for Reddy Kilowatt. But, I didn’t see him.

There’s a pool on Flickr dedicated to signs featuring Reddy. As of August 2009 there are 160 photos posted.

Here’s a quick remembrance of Mr. Kilowatt at a Lorain County Nostalgia site. Ohio Edison was the power company where I grew up (not far from Lorain County, actually).

Since I spend a lot of time in the Lorain Public Library pouring over microfilm of newspapers from the 1950s and 1960s, it seems that almost every day or so there was an ad for Ohio Edison featuring — who else? — Reddy Kilowatt! I even seem to recall even seeing his image on some of the local electric utility buildings, such as up on the Ohio Edison building on Lake Avenue in Elyria Township.

There’s another Reddy sighting here, from a 1968 Cleveland Indians scorecard. Nice.

Inventing Green: The Lost History of Alternative Energy in America has a good piece on Reddy (and other industry mascots). It gives an overview of how electricity needed to be sold in the early days (everyone used clotheslines before dryers and washed dishes by hand before dishwashers), which might seem unbelievable now, but definitely took some work back then.

…before we get into the cult of Reddy and the story of his battle with a knockoff, Willie Wiredhand, we should talk about why these mascots are important.

It’s funny to laugh at these weird, old animated figures, but they clearly meant something to the companies who used them. They were — first and foremost — effective marketing gimmicks. That should make us wonder: if electricity was so obviously great, as most technologists would contend, why did the utilities have to push it with lame mascots? Wasn’t it just, like, something people wanted?

Well, the investor-owned utilities in the cities and suburbs had a very specific task. They needed to promote electricity demand so they could justify building new plants. That was how they got paid, so they had to get people to abandon other ways of doing work and providing heating and cooling.

Hey now, Reddy wasn’t “lame!” He was just a little dorky.

On that note, here’s BrandlandUSA’s list of America’s Top 20 Advertising Mascots.

South Texas little buddy.

Originally uploaded by Draplin

See by the unstoppable Draplin at First Monday Trade Days in Canton, Texas.

Nice old deck of Reddy Kilowatt playing cards here.

I acquired these playing cards a few years back and had forgotten all about them until going through some boxes of stuff this weekend.

Nice.

Check out this “The Smell Of Progress” t-shirt by Tank Theory…

Hmmm. $30 for a t-shirt?!

Also, Reddy as the smiling deliverer of death?

Connecticut Light and Power Company Reddy Kilowatt Logo

Originally uploaded by KaizenVerdant

Spotted on Flickr: “This CL&P / Northeast Utilities Logo features Reddy Kilowatt and is from 1970.”

For sale on eBay:

~~~ A COOL LITTLE REDDY KILOWATT ZIPPO WITH BOX FROM 1963~~~
BRADFORD IN TOP LEFT, PA. IN TOP RIGHT
ZIPPO SCRIPT IN THE CENTER
2 DOTS ON THE LEFT, 1 DOT ON THE RIGHT
PAT. 2517191 CENTERED ON THE BOTTOM
LIGHTER WORKS FINE CONSIDERING THE OUTER APPEARANCE
~~~SUPER CONDITION FOR A COLLECTOR~~~

Also noted: Reddy Kilowatt auction items, including a frisbee, beanie baby, golf balls, cooler, hat, t-shirt and mousepad. Donated by Xcel Energy. Retail value of $250.00.