Reddy for Halloween – October 1962

Here's an appropriately Halloween-themed ad for Ohio Edison featuring our pal Reddy Kilowatt. The ad ran in the Journal back on October 23, 1962.

It's kind of an odd ad. Are those trick-or-treaters in the illustration? Or real ghost kids hovering overhead? Either way, their mother endorses electric drying.

At first I thought Reddy was getting into the (no pun intended) Halloween spirit, dressed like a desert sheik. But apparently his unusual garb was supposed to reinforce the idea of dry heat. Here's Reddy in another ad in the campaign, wearing the same duds. This one ran in the Journal on October 16, 1962.

This ad isn't just odd. It's fairly bizarre, with the happy housewife firing an antique cannon at some huge, anthropomorphic clothespins – female ones at that, with lipstick and false eyelashes. And they don't seem to mind being under attack.

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Here's another ad with Reddy, this time with a fall theme. It appeared in the Lorain Journal back on October 12, 1953.

After a quick look online, I determined that there seems to be a lot of Colonial Premier lamps that have survived over the years (unlike the company). Unfortunately, I couldn't find any lamps that looked like the ones in the ad.

Seeing the little image of Reddy at the bottom of the ad reminded me of something that Mom told me. She said she remembered Grandpa Esterle (my father's grandfather) telling her once during a visit that he saw a little man come out of the electric outlet – like a leprechaun or something.

Could Grandpa have been a Reddy fan like me?