Sam Petrucci (December 22, 1926 – September 27, 2013) was an American

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

who is known for his uncredited box art for the original ''

G.I. Joe ''G.I. Joe'' is an American media franchise and a line of action figures owned and produced by the toy company Hasbro. The initial product offering represented four of the branches of the U.S. armed forces with the Action Soldier ( U.S. Army), Ac ...

'' figures. He also created ''The Land of Ta'' stickers for Dennison.

Personal life

Sam Petrucci was born in Medford

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

on December 22, 1926, to Salvatore and Mary Petrucci (née Dunn). He worked as a

bellhop A bellhop (North America), or hotel porter (carrier), porter (international), is a hotel employee who helps patrons with their luggage while check-in, checking in or out. Bellhops often wear a uniform (see bell-boy hat), like certain other Page (a ...

at the

Ritz Carlton The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC is an American multinational company that operates the luxury hotel chain known as The Ritz-Carlton. The company has 108 luxury hotels and resorts in 30 countries and territories with 29,158 rooms, in addit ...

as a teenager. Petrucci joined the Navy at the age of 16; he became a

radio operator A radio operator (also, formerly, wireless operator in British and Commonwealth English) is a person who is responsible for the operations of a radio system. The profession of radio operator has become largely obsolete with the automation of ra ...

on the USS ''Willard Keith''. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he studied art at Vesper George School of Art. He married Leona Petrucci and together they had five children: Maureen, Ken, Lisa, Linda, and Steven. Leona Petrucci died in 2008.

Career

Sam Petrucci's career as an artist began in the 1960s. His early work was for the Hassenfeld Brothers Toy Company (Hasbro) where he illustrated board games for

Superman Superman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, and debuted in the comic book ''Action Comics'' #1 (cover-dated June 1938 and publi ...

, ''

The Mighty Hercules ''The Mighty Hercules'' is an animated television series based loosely on the Greek mythology character of Heracles, under his Roman name Hercules. It debuted on television in 1963. The show ran until 1966, coinciding with the sword-and-sandal ge ...

'', and ''

The Banana Splits ''The Banana Splits'' is an American television variety show produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and featuring the Banana Splits, a fictional rock band composed of four costumed animal characters in red marching band hats with yellow plumes. ...

''. He also illustrated the packaging for

Mr. Potato Head Mr. Potato Head is an American toy brand consisting of a plastic model of a potato "head" to which a variety of plastic parts can attach — typically ears, eyes, shoes, hat, nose, pants and mouth. Mr. Potato Head was invented and manufact ...

. A 1978

Lassie Lassie is a fictional female Rough Collie dog and is featured in a short story by Eric Knight that was later expanded to a full-length novel called ''Lassie Come-Home''. Knight's portrayal of Lassie bears some features in common with another fic ...

lunchbox A lunch box (alt. spelling lunchbox) refers to a hand-held container used to transport food, usually to work or to school. It is commonly made of metal or plastic, is reasonably airtight and often has a handle for carrying. In the United ...

he designed for

Thermos A vacuum flask (also known as a Dewar flask, Dewar bottle or thermos) is an insulating storage vessel that greatly lengthens the time over which its contents remain hotter or cooler than the flask's surroundings. Invented by Sir James Dewa ...

is displayed at the

National Museum of American History The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center collects, preserves, and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific, and military history. Among the items on display is t ...

of the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

. He did design work on the team yearbooks for the

Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight ...

and

Boston Bruins The Boston Bruins are a professional ice hockey team based in Boston. The Bruins compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. The team has been in existence since 1924, making t ...

in the 1960s and 1970s. Sam Petrucci founded two design studios: Thresher & Petrucci followed by Sam Petrucci & Associates. He later worked for Gunn Associates in Boston where he designed packaging and company logos for at least 25 years. He retired in 1994.

''G.I. Joe''

Sam Petrucci designed the original logo and box art for Hasbro's ''

action figure An action figure is a poseable character (arts), character model figure made most commonly of plastic, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, military, video game or television program; fictional or historical. These figures are ...

toy line in 1964. According to his Gunn Associates colleague John Filosi, Petrucci turned down Hasbro stock and accepted a flat payment for his art. Petrucci was a regular guest at ''G.I. Joe'' conventions. He attended GIJoeCon in 2009 and 2011. In 2002, he appeared in ''G.I. Joe Documentary: The Story Of America's Movable Fighting Man'' and created the original cover art for the documentary.

Design and logos

Sam Petrucci designed packaging and logos for numerous companies, including

Charleston Chew Charleston Chew is a candy bar consisting of marshmallow flavored nougat covered in chocolate flavor coating. It was created in 1925 by the Fox-Cross Candy Company, founded by stage actor Donley Cross and his friend Charlie Fox. The candy was n ...

, Ocean Spray,

Veryfine Veryfine is a juice beverage brand currently owned by Sunny Delight Beverages. The company was started as Standard Vinegar Co. in Somerville, Massachusetts, in 1865. Arthur Rowse bought the company in 1900, changed the name to New England Vinegar ...

Gillette Gillette is an American brand of safety razors and other personal care products including shaving supplies, owned by the multi-national corporation Procter & Gamble (P&G). Based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, it was owned by The Gil ...

Newport Newport most commonly refers to: *Newport, Wales *Newport, Rhode Island, US Newport or New Port may also refer to: Places Asia *Newport City, Metro Manila, a Philippine district in Pasay Europe Ireland *Newport, County Mayo, a town on the ...

Titleist Titleist (pronounced "title-ist") is an American brand name of golf equipment produced by the Acushnet Company, headquartered in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, United States. The Titleist brand, established in 1932 by Phillip E. Young, focuses on gol ...

Marshmallow Fluff Marshmallow creme (also called marshmallow fluff, marshmallow stuff, marshmallow spread, or marshmallow paste) is a marshmallow confectionery spread similar in flavor, but not texture, to regular solid marshmallow. One brand of marshmallow crem ...

Converse Converse may refer to: Mathematics and logic * Converse (logic), the result of reversing the two parts of a definite or implicational statement ** Converse implication, the converse of a material implication ** Converse nonimplication, a logical c ...

Polaroid Polaroid may refer to: * Polaroid Corporation, an American company known for its instant film and cameras * Polaroid camera, a brand of instant camera formerly produced by Polaroid Corporation * Polaroid film, instant film, and photographs * Polar ...

TJ Maxx TJ Maxx (stylized as T•J•maxx) is an American department store chain, selling at prices generally lower than other major similar stores. It has more than 1,000 stores in the United States, making it one of the largest clothing retailers in ...

, Prince Spaghetti,

Salada tea Salada tea is a Canadian brand of tea currently sold in Canada by Unilever and in the United States by Salada Foods, a division of Redco Foods, Inc. History The Salada tea business was founded in Toronto in 1892 by Montreal-born businessman Pet ...

Bose Bose may refer to: * Bose (crater), a lunar crater * ''Bose'' (film), a 2004 Indian Tamil film starring Srikanth and Sneha * Bose (surname), a surname (and list of people with the name) * Bose, Italy, a ''frazioni'' in Magnano, Province of Biella ...

BASF BASF Societas Europaea, SE () is a German multinational corporation, multinational chemical company and the List of largest chemical producers, largest chemical producer in the world. Its headquarters is located in Ludwigshafen, Germany. The ...

, the

World Wildlife Fund The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the Wo ...

Friendly's Friendly's is a restaurant chain on the East Coast of the United States. Friendly's was founded in 1935 in Springfield, Massachusetts, by the brothers S. Prestley Blake and Curtis Blake. It has 10,000 employees; George Michel is the CEO. It offe ...

Poland Spring Poland Spring is a brand of bottled water, produced in Poland, Maine. It is named after the original natural spring in the town of Poland, Maine it was drawn from. Today it is a subsidiary of BlueTriton Brands, formerly Nestlé Waters North Ameri ...

Smokey Bear Smokey Bear is an American campaign and advertising icon of the U.S. Forest Service. In the Wildfire Prevention Campaign, which is the longest-running public service announcement campaign in United States history, the Ad Council, the United St ...

, Sunkist,

Dunkin' Donuts Dunkin' Donuts LLC, also known as Dunkin' and by the initials DD, is an American multinational coffee and doughnut company, as well as a quick service restaurant. It was founded by Bill Rosenberg (1916–2002) in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 195 ...

, Gorton's Fishsticks, the

Massachusetts Lottery The Massachusetts Lottery was established on September 27, 1971, following the legalization of gambling by the Massachusetts General Court, the legislature of the Commonwealth. The Lottery is administered by a commission of 5 members, who includ ...

, Venus Crackers,

Jose Cuervo Jose Cuervo is the best-selling brand of tequila,Dana Cimilluca, Paul Sonne and Simon Zekaria“Diageo Ends Its Attempt to Buy Jose Cuervo Tequila,”''Wall Street Journal'', December 11, 2012. selling a fifth of the tequila consumed worldwide. ...

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Liberty Mutual Liberty Mutual Group is an American diversified global insurer and the sixth-largest property and casualty insurer in the United States. It ranks 71st on the Fortune 100 list of largest corporations in the United States based on 2020 revenue. Ba ...

, and

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

''The Land of Ta''

''The Land of Ta'' was a short-lived series of

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...

stickers produced by the

Dennison Manufacturing Company Avery Dennison Corporation is a multinational manufacturer and distributor of pressure-sensitive adhesive materials (such as self-adhesive labels), apparel branding labels and tags, RFID inlays, and specialty medical products. The company is a ...

in 1981 to 1982. The first two sticker sheets titled ''The Land of Ta'' (1981) were illustrated and painted by Sam Petrucci, who was not credited. Sheet #80-218 featured original characters named Zoltan, Harry, Iggy, Tokar, Geedis, and Erik. Sheet #80-219 featured six more original characters: Hermann, Eris, Uno, Shimra, Radon, and Stefan. An unknown artist illustrated the third sticker sheet (#80-224) titled ''Women of Ta'' (1982); it featured female characters named Cecily, Astrid, Sybil, Amneris, Ursula, and Rimelda. Sam Petrucci did regular artwork for stickers produced by Dennison Manufacturing Company. This included sticker sheets for spaceships, cartoon baby animals, holiday stickers. Also in 1981, Petrucci did the artwork for ''

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Several different editions of the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D'') fantasy role-playing game have been produced since 1974. The current publisher of ''D&D'', Wizards of the Coast, produces new materials only for the most current edition of the ga ...

'' rub-down transfers produced by FNR International Corp.

Geedis

Geedis is a bear-like creature with a pig nose, horns, and yellow eyes included on the first ''Land of Ta'' sticker sheet. Geedis became an

Internet meme An Internet meme, commonly known simply as a meme ( ), is an idea, behavior, style, or image that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. What is considered a meme may vary across different communities on the Internet ...

in 2017 when comedian Nate Fernald discovered an enamel pin of the character on

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...

and tweeted on June 21: On August 1, a scan of ''The Land of Ta'' sticker sheet that included Geedis was rediscovered on a

Flickr Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and professional ...

page. Speculation about the pins and stickers being merchandise for a wider

media franchise A media franchise, also known as a multimedia franchise, is a collection of related media in which several derivative works have been produced from an original creative work of fiction, such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or ...

grew but no further information about ''The Land of Ta'' or the identity of the artist was available on the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. Fernald bought upwards of 80 Geedis pins from the eBay seller and posted a video of his pin collection to his Facebook page on December 1, 2017. On

Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...

, the subreddit r/Geedis was created on September 4, 2017, and became dedicated to solving the origins of Geedis. A June 3, 2019 post on r/UnresolvedMysteries and a subsequent June 8 comment on an r/AskReddit thread caused the r/Geedis subreddit to increase from 250 subscribers to over 15,000 subscribers. In 1990, Dennison merged with Avery International Corporation and became

Avery Dennison Avery Dennison Corporation is a multinational manufacturer and distributor of pressure-sensitive adhesive materials (such as self-adhesive labels), apparel branding labels and tags, RFID inlays, and specialty medical products. The company is a ...

. In 2014, the Framingham History Center in

Framingham, Massachusetts Framingham () is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Incorporated in 1700, it is located in Middlesex County and the MetroWest subregion of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The city proper covers with a popu ...

opened an exhibition about Dennison after receiving the archives from Avery Dennison This included ''The Land of Ta'' sticker sheets. The Reddit-focused

WBUR-FM WBUR-FM (90.9 FM) is a public radio station located in Boston, Massachusetts, owned by Boston University. It is the largest of three NPR member stations in Boston, along with WGBH and WUMB-FM and produces several nationally distributed programs ...

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

''Endless Thread'' discovered the Geedis mystery from the growing r/Geedis subreddit. In their August 23 episode "Geedis: An Internet Mystery For The Ages... Gets Solved!", co-hosts Amory Sivertson and Ben Brock Johnson interviewed Nate Fernald, r/Geedis Redditors, Framingham History Center staff, and former Dennison staff. The duo contacted former Dennison Art Director Tom Manguso and his son Bill recognized the ''Land of Ta'' stickers as the work of Sam Petrucci. Petrucci was a coworker of Bill Manguso at Gunn Associates and a peer of Tom Manguso at school. Tom Manguso was the one who brought in Petrucci to work for Dennison. Sivertson and Johnson discovered the 2013 obituary for Sam Petrucci and successfully contacted all five of his children. They met with Linda Petrucci in

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

at the family lake house that was designed by her father. There they saw much of his original artwork, including the pencil sketches titled ''The Fantasy Land'' and the final mounted artwork for ''The Land of Ta'', which included his signature. In the interview, former Dennison General Manager Lou D'Amaro recalled a coworker regularly used the term "geetus" as slang for money, giving a possible origin to the name "Geedis". Former staff members on a Dennison Alumni Facebook page claimed Dennison never produced enamel pins. The creator of the Geedis pins remains unknown.

Death

Sam Petrucci died of natural causes on September 27, 2013, in

Scranton Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Petrucci, Sam American artists 1926 births 2013 deaths People from Medford, Massachusetts United States Navy personnel of World War II