More Utility Company Mascot Fun

A few days ago, I featured Reddy Kilowatt and Ohio Edison here on the blog. So, to close out the week, I'll move on to another utility – the telephone system – and its mascot.

You might remember that I did a big post on the Bell Telephone System’s mascot (above), a sort of a moon-faced fellow with a telephone for a body. He appeared in full-page magazine ads throughout the 1940s and into the 50s.

Sometimes he had arms, and other times he didn’t.

Well, here he is doing a local gig in a 1963 Elyria Telephone ad (below) that appeared in the pages of the Chronicle-Telegram that spring.

It’s kind of interesting that the Elyria telephone customer received a punched card printed on heavy paper along with their regular itemized bill. The punched card had to be returned along with the payment as part of the processing. I guess that was the latest technology at the time.

Anyway, the mascot in the Elyria Telephone ad looks an awful lot like the Bell mascot. He’s got to be the same guy.

I wonder if the mascot that the Lorain Telephone Company was using about the same time (below) was supposed to be an updated version of the same character. Or was he a phone-y?