…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.

Big, big thanks to GFHS alum Kari H. for the bit of trivia and for sending in these photos!

A school folder.

A graduating class.

A homecoming pin.

A GFHS sign.

A vintage drawing of Reddy.

Memorabilia from 1978.

Once upon a time, Northland TV stations made their own children’s show. The kids who watched those shows are now in their 40′s and 50′s but still fondly remember names like Captain Q and Mr. Toot. Dave Anderson tells us how a pair of fans is trying to preserve those memories…

“I’ve been doing research on this subject for nearly a decade now.” The biggest find was some actual Mr. Toot with Reddy Kilowatt footage found on an archaic reel to reel video tape. “We had to track down a company that had one of those old machines that could actually play that type of tape and have it transferred.”

“I bet I know what your favorite fish is. Electric eels!”

But it was another favorite lost to history that Duffy likes best, the “Reddy Kilowatt” mascot for Pacific Power’s downtown office where her father worked, “a little man with lightning bolts for arms and legs, a light bulb for a nose and wall outlets for years.” If that neon sign were still shining somewhere in Portland, I’d have to draw from the cheerful rhetoric of Rachel Ray: “How good does that look?”

Over the years, Reddy has gone above and beyond the call of duty. He has not only warmed the hearts of adult consumers, but also got kids to play with electricity.

Emphasis mine.

Walter Tetley was a prolific character actor in the mediums of film, radio, and animation for many years… Walter Tetley had the voice of a pre-pubescent schoolboy. Born with a rare hormonal disease that prevented him from fully experiencing the changes that puberty normally brings, Tetley’s voice is best remembered today as the bespeckled cartoon nerd Sherman, boy companion to Mister Peabody on The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show. Many would surely be surprised to discover that the brainiac dog’s boy companion in all ninety-one segments of Peabody’s Improbable History was actually a man in his late forties.

The character debuted in promotional materials for Alabama Power dated March 11, 1926. He was offered to other electrical utilities under license and quickly appeared in consumer billings, promotional giveaways, billboards, stationery, advertisements, comic books and educational films across the country and around the world. In Spain he was called “Don Kilovatio”. He was “Zet Kilowatt” in Brazil and “Le Bon Genie de L’Electricite” in Belgium)

In popular imagination, the 20th century metropolis is an indestructible giant—all those skyscrapers and subways, all that steel, stone and glass, all that raw, corpuscular power. But the modern city, New York included, is really a huge, rubbery shell. In the dead of night it collapses just like a deflated balloon, and each morning it is pumped back to life again, not with air but electricity. As little Reddy Kilowatt—the power companies’ coy public-relations name for juice—swarms all over town, subways scuttle, elevators shoot, lamps light, machines sew, write, add, cool, talk, sing and growl…