This is what he told me about the item:

Reddy Kilowatt, the renowned corporate mascot of the Alabama Power Company has been around for almost a century. This very rare patch was used during Vietnam by members of the 592nd Engineer Detachment, which was a unit beneath the U.S. Army Engineering Command during the war. The patch is 3.7 inches across and was used in the mid to late 1960s.

Here’s a shirt with the patch on it:

And here’s a closer look at the patch:

Credit: “Sergeant Richard Johnson, author of “Tiger Patterns” and Seeds of Victory.”

Thanks Richard!

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

Check it out:

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.

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.

…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.

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

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.

Hmmm. $30 for a t-shirt?!

Also, Reddy as the smiling deliverer of death?

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