“Hi!”

So says Reddy Kilowatt. Reddy is a friendly mascot for the electrical industry, orginally created by the Alabama Power Company in 1926. Reddy is mostly electricity, as you can see, but he’s got a light-bulbous nose and a socket in his ear.
Reddy even has a Yahoo groupfan club.
There is, however, something wrong with this friendly picture. This is a detail from a larger photograph; read on to see the big picture.

Somehow it doesn’t seem like Reddy is the right guy for this job. This is a sign indicating that serious harm is possible, so shouldn’t they be using some scary image instead of Mr. Friendly here? There are an awful lot of good scary symbols that help to convey threats in an a manner that transcends language and age barriers. Of course, if none of these work, you could always try some other strategies as well.

I’ve always been partial to Mr. angry cloud of electricity. (Does anyone know what his name is?)

We’ve seen a couple of other good signs recently, with more stick figures in peril. The following three pictures are of warning labels that were on a dumpster. Check out the frightening text on the first one!