Super Reddy Kilowatt Ad – April 2, 1971

Well, it’s the middle of April, so it’s about time I feature our old pal Reddy Kilowatt here on the blog for the first time in 2021.

Since I regularly look at things from a 50-years ago perspective, it’s not too surprising that he hasn’t shown up here yet this year. By 1971, Ohio Edison didn’t have to encourage Journal readers to buy electrical appliances any more, so Reddy was no longer seen in the paper almost every day like he was in the 1950s.

But Reddy did pop up now and then, as he does in the above ad, which ran in the Journal on April 2, 1971.

The ad is certainly evocative of its era. By 1971, the Marvel and DC superhero characters, like the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and Superman, were enjoying massive popularity thanks to animated TV productions and comic books. Thus it’s not surprising that some advertising copywriter saw Reddy as the ‘original’ all-powerful superhero and created an ad to that effect.

Add to that some modern, dimensional comic book style lettering, and our favorite electrical sprite was suddenly ‘current’ again.