A Kinder Gentler Reddy

Reddy Hotpad (from my own collection)



Back of Reddy Hotpad


An Open Conversation with Reddy Kilowatt:

Hey Reddy, can you hear me? Are you back in the storage area under a bunch of broken stuff? Come on in here!

Ah, there you are. Hey listen Reddy, I know you've been bought and sold and morphed, but please tell me your spirit lives on ... Ok? Great, glad to hear it.

Now Reddy, while you were back in the storage shed hibernating, one of your distributors, Xcel Energy in Colorado, was trying to make things better by upgrading some of those transmission towers over there just west of the Platte. You remember? Ok, Well, part of that route goes through Ruby Hill Park, you know, that old Indian lookout?

Well, some of the folks who live there kinda wanted you to improve the situation while you were at it, and, you know, put the lines underground? Expensive you say? Hey come on Reddy, give us a break here. You know that eventually that the way its gonna be...huh? At least until we get "the free energy from the vacuum*" thing figured out.

So come on Reddy, do the right thing here. That's it, shake the cobwebs out of your noggin and get that smile goin' again. Make a big deal out of it, you know how to do it! It's either 5 million for a positive campaign or 2 million to fight it and get 3 million worth of negative, you know, with women and kids blocking bulldozers and all. Reddy - I'm tellin' ya - discharge that negative now!
Thanks Reddy, I knew you had it in ya.

From Wikipedia - Reddy Kilowatt is drawn as a stick figure whose body and limbs are made of "lightning-bolt" symbols and whose bulbous head has a light bulb for a nose and sockets for ears, Reddy was created at the Alabama Power Company by Ashton B. Collins Sr. and debuted March 11, 1926. He was subsequently licensed by some 200 electrical companies looking to sell homes on using the relatively new technology. He was featured in a 1947 comic book produced by the studio of Walter Lantz [1]. Reddy Kilowatt was a frequent presence in publicity material until energy conservation replaced energy production as a national goal with the growth of the environmental movement and the OPEC oil embargo. He is now rarely seen. In 1998, Reddy was bought by Northern States Power Company, which created an entire subsidiary, Reddy Kilowatt Corp., to manage the cartoon.[1] That company later created Reddy Flame, a character promoting natural gas.