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,
The Mighty Hercules, and
The Banana Splits. He also illustrated the packaging for
Mr. Potato Head. A 1978
Lassie lunchbox he designed for
Thermos is displayed at the
National Museum of American History of the
Smithsonian Institution. He did design work on the team yearbooks for the
Red Sox and
Boston Bruins in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1981, Petrucci did the artwork for
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rub-down transfers produced by FNR International Corp. He retired in 1994. 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 Petrucci designed packaging and logos for numerous companies, including
Charleston Chew,
Ocean Spray,
Veryfine,
Gillette,
Newport,
Titleist,
Marshmallow Fluff,
Converse,
Polaroid,
TJ Maxx,
Prince Spaghetti,
Salada tea,
Bose,
BASF, the
World Wildlife Fund,
Friendly's,
Poland Spring,
Smokey Bear,
Sunkist,
Dunkin' Donuts,
Gorton's Fishsticks, the
Massachusetts Lottery, Venus Crackers,
Jose Cuervo,
Boston College,
Harvard University,
Liberty Mutual, and
Hewlett-Packard This included
The Land of Ta sticker sheets. Fernald bought upwards of 80 Geedis pins from the eBay seller On
Reddit, 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. The Reddit-focused
WBUR-FM podcast 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. 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 ==