The Land of Ta: Setting Inspiration by way of an Internet Mystery

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TristramEvans

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On June 21, 2017, a comedian by the name of Nate Fernald posted the following on Twitter

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Little did he know that he was setting off one of the most unusual internet mysteries of the last few years.

“I was looking for a pin of the band The Jam,” Nate explained in an interview with Atlas Obscura “I came upon this eBay seller who had thousands and thousands of pins from the ’70s and ’80s, and I went down this weird rabbit hole. I bought a whole bunch of them, because they were old and weird and made me laugh.”

Amongst this collection was the aforementioned "Geedis" pin.

“I didn’t really think about it at first, but then it just kept popping in my head, like, what is that?”

Internet searches provided no answers, making the mystery of who or what Geedis all the more enticing. “The more obscure the thing became the more it made me laugh,” Nate said “Then I bought it and became more obsessed with it.”

He contacted the seller to see if they had any information on the pin, with no luck. Soon, Nate came across 3 more Geedis pins from different sellers, but none could tell him anything about them or where they’d come from. This is what led him to post the question to his social media.

Nate’s Tweet caused a storm of replies. Many had the vague sense they had seen the character before. Comparisons were made to everything from Where the Wild Things Are...

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...to Ninja Gaiden

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One poster pointed out that alphadictionary recognized "geedis" as 90's slang:


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Meanwhile, Urban Dictionary defines “geedis” as “"A word for money, like dollars, quarters, etc", a usage that apparently originated with The Three Stooges in the 1940’s.

None of this seemed even tangentially related to the character on the pin, however.

It wasn’t until someone found a sticker sheet featuring the character that things really took off…

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"The Land of Ta" is the apparent fantasy setting providing the theme for this 1981 set of stickers, with Geedis in all his glory alongside a number of other curious characters. Swiftly following this revelation, two other sheets of Land of Ta stickers were found

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Armed with this new information, a more intensive search was undertook, with “The Land of Ta” curiously leading to the music world

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Nadieh’s album “The Land of Ta” can be found in it’s entirety on YouTube, but curiously there seems to be no relation to the stickers nor mention of Geedis or the other characters.


Moreover, a seemingly completely unrelated song also called “Land of Ta” was released by the band Smith & Dragoman in 2007, ten years before this search began.



Despite being curious coincidences, this avenue seemed a dead end.

The stickers themselves had been posted to the Flikr album of a collector named Donald Deveau, and one poster contacted him asking “What the hell is The Land Of Ta?” Deveau eventually answered:

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By this point the mystery had found it’s way to Reddit, and more and more people became fascinated by the mystery of Geedis and The Land of Ta. The logical next step was to contact the company that had produced the stickers, Dennison (which was now “Avery-Dennison” after a merger). A Reddit user named “AskedMeAboutSharks” managed to get a response:

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This seemed to have led to another dead end, but it was only a few days later that a Twitter user named “Rimramruff” aka Carrie Zinn posted about a book she remembered from her childhood titled Tomb of the Dragonspeaker by Kenneth Famea that featured several characters from the Land of Ta, including Geebis!

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All hell broke lose, especially as, again, no one could find any information online about a book by that name, the author, even the company “Rendstrom Books” that according to Carrie’s pics of the indicia published the book in 1982.

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Furthermore “Shuntbridge, Ohio”, the place where the book was published, does not exist!

Because internet, this caused speculation to take a turn into The Mandela Effect and proof of parallel universes. However, the explanation for all this became clear when Carrie posted the full page pic a few days later:

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disclaimer: this book is a work of fiction, as is its author. The book was not actually published in 1982, but constructed by me in 2017. I am happy to continue the tale of the elussive Mr. Famea and his work for anyone who may be curious, but i have no desire to actually decieve anyone. thanks for reading! -carrie z

Yep, this was a hoax. Some people praised Carrie for it, others got angry about it. But no one was any closer to unravelling the mystery of Geebis.

This is essentially all the concrete information we have to this day about Geedis and The Land of Ta. Since then, there’s been numerous speculations, theories, and uncomfirmed testimonials that range from plausible to obvious trolls.

Some think it originated as a pitch for a toyline or children’s cartoon that never left the development stage. Some think it was simply nothing more than a sticker artist exercizing their imagination, like fanfic in merchandise form. Others maintain the belief that there is something more to be uncovered, a secret franchise that fell into obscurity long before the internet archived every minutia of pop culture. Some have even claimed the entire thing is an elaborate hoax perpetrated by Nate Fernald, who produced the pins and stickers himself!

You can find a summary of every theory here:

Currently, an attempt is being made to find the artist of these stickers, but as of this writing there’s been no luck in this regard.

However, consider myself one who revels in the mystery without answers. There’s an allure to Geebis and Ta, something familiar yet undefineable, with plenty of space to fill in with one’s own imagination.

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I'm gonna guess that the pins were made up to promote the sticker books. There was an obscure fantasy toy line of bendy rubber fantasy characters including a bunch of egg shaped people called "mogs" that would fit right into the theme and style. Though even with the three sticker sheets, the style varies from one to the next.
 
If you pull too hard you might unravel this world and reveal the land of ta....
 
If you pull too hard you might unravel this world and reveal the land of ta....

I say make the Ta you want it to be - and don't worry about the mystery. It's in your mind - MAKE IT HAPPEN! Just call it the Domain of Ka or something.
 
There was an obscure fantasy toy line of bendy rubber fantasy characters including a bunch of egg shaped people called "mogs" that would fit right into the theme and style.


Are you talking about Arco's The Otherworld?

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I had a ton of these guys growing up. Still remember clearly when I got Castle Zendo

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I'm not clear on what's inspiring about a transparent internet hoax.
 
I'm a sucker for mysteries and find weird shit like this strangely compelling. It gives my brain something to chew on in the background as I go through my day.
 
I love weird pop-culture mysteries like this... jetsam from before the internet that has little or no discernible provenance.

10857

My first guess is that the art is character designs from some obscure video game (that might never have seen the light of day)... with non-sequitur names attached by the sticker company who somehow obtained the art (I think people were generally a little bit less uptight about IP back then).
The art on the 'Women of Ta' sheet doesn't match the other two... maybe it was created to have 3 sheets in the package... though it does share the element of characters having snakey dragon pets.

Still, makes you wonder who made the pin. There's an odd little place here in Vegas that makes pins like that to order, for collectors and companies and whatnot.
 
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They were like a poor man's Blackstarr

Whereas Blackstarr was like a poor man's Masters of the Universe...crossed with Buck Rogers and Snow White
Whoah man, you are pulling memories out of deep deep storage. That was a long time ago, I remember faithfully watching this show back in 1982 when I was 6!
 
Whoah man, you are pulling memories out of deep deep storage. That was a long time ago, I remember faithfully watching this show back in 1982 when I was 6!

Igrew up in Canada in the early 80s, where we got the toy lines but more often than not we didn't get the cartoons up here, so most of the toys we just extrapolated the mythologies from the packaging.

This tended to be hilariously different from the cartoons once I actually saw them (and if you ask me, my cousins and mine imaginations were light years ahead of most TV writers).

Maybe that's part of what appeals to me about Geedis so much - that blank slate to fill in like when I was a kid.
 
I'm not clear on what's inspiring about a transparent internet hoax.
Do you feel vigorously alive, pardner:gunslinger:?

Igrew up in Canada in the early 80s, where we got the toy lines but more often than not we didn't get the cartoons up here, so most of the toys we just extrapolated the mythologies from the packaging.

This tended to be hilariously different from the cartoons once I actually saw them (and if you ask me, my cousins and mine imaginations were light years ahead of most TV writers).

Maybe that's part of what appeals to me about Geedis so much - that blank slate to fill in like when I was a kid.
So the Land of Ta is a metaphor for the lost time of our childhood:shock:?
 
So the Land of Ta is a metaphor for the lost time of our childhood:shock:?


Now there's a Changeling: The Dreaming campaign concept if I ever heard one. Or even a fantasy hack of Tales from the Loop...
 
Isn't ta a short-hand for yes in Scotland?
 
Not directly related but somewhat similar

As very young child I was gifted with a Rock Lord to complement my beloved Dinobots. For decades I've had running arguments with friends that Rock Lords were actually a thing that existed (even after showing off my Rock Lord) and not a fever dream of a somewhat boring nature.
 
Not directly related but somewhat similar

As very young child I was gifted with a Rock Lord to complement my beloved Dinobots. For decades I've had running arguments with friends that Rock Lords were actually a thing that existed (even after showing off my Rock Lord) and not a fever dream of a somewhat boring nature.


I remember Rock Lords. More than that I remember the Rock Lords movie. But if I recall correctly, perhaps the reason Transformers fans don't remember them is that they were Go-Bots!
 
A lot of Britain. It's also an alternate name for the Middle Eastern city of Tehran
Yeah but the Land of Yes is a pretty perfect name for a fantasy world.
 
I remember Rock Lords. More than that I remember the Rock Lords movie. But if I recall correctly, perhaps the reason Transformers fans don't remember them is that they were Go-Bots!
Bless you:angel: for remembering the humblest of the Go-bots.


True they are Go-Bots but ever since the Tonka buyout of 1991 Go-Bots are part of the Transformers universe with mentions in the comics. The transformers universe is surprisingly diverse with quickly forgotten lesser luminaries, BattleBeasts were/are also transformers even if nobody remembers those Woolworth's treasures anymore.
 
Igrew up in Canada in the early 80s, where we got the toy lines but more often than not we didn't get the cartoons up here, so most of the toys we just extrapolated the mythologies from the packaging.

This tended to be hilariously different from the cartoons once I actually saw them (and if you ask me, my cousins and mine imaginations were light years ahead of most TV writers).

I somehow ended up with a huge collection of Smurf toys when I was living in Kuwait, and I came up with some vast Tolkieneque backstory for them.

Then I saw the cartoon after moving to the States, and that was the end of that.
Isn't ta a short-hand for yes in Scotland?
It means "thanks" in Australia.
 
Bless you:angel: for remembering the humblest of the Go-bots.


True they are Go-Bots but ever since the Tonka buyout of 1991 Go-Bots are part of the Transformers universe with mentions in the comics. The transformers universe is surprisingly diverse with quickly forgotten lesser luminaries, BattleBeasts were/are also transformers even if nobody remembers those Woolworth's treasures anymore.

Heh, I referenced BattleBeasts in a thread on Martial Arts here a while back. Loved the whole Elemental Rock Paper Scissors battles
 
Yeah 'Ta' is an extremely casual way to say 'thank you' here in Australia, also 'please give me that, thanks'.
It's pretty juvenile, often used mainly with children, although occasionally others will bander it around.
It's not all that common anymore, but you do hear it from time to time.

Strangely enough you might hear it in a pub when a bartender gives a patron their drink. In this case the patron may say 'Ta!' which is like 'Thanks and Cheers" elsewhere :drink:

Yep it's got absolutely nothing to do with this 'Land of Ta', heh heh :grin:
 
My dad's Scottish secretary used to say it as either 'yes' or 'thanks'. I'd forgotten the thanks version. Thanks for reminding me. She was a nice lady. Died too young.

She used to say the only thing dumber than an Irish man was an irish woman for marrying them. To which I would reply "Isn't your husband irish?". Then she'd do her best to give me the finger but the rhumitoid arthritis kept her from effectively doing it.

I learned a lot about England in the 50's from her.
 
Yeah 'Ta' is an extremely casual way to say 'thank you' here in Australia, also 'please give me that, thanks'.
It's pretty juvenile, often used mainly with children, although occasionally others will bander it around.
It's not all that common anymore, but you do hear it from time to time.
Yeah, I mainly associate it with my grandmother (whose father was Scottish, now I think about it).
 
I somehow ended up with a huge collection of Smurf toys when I was living in Kuwait, and I came up with some vast Tolkieneque backstory for them.

Then I saw the cartoon after moving to the States, and that was the end of that.


This is why I'm thankful I never saw an Astrosniks cartoon, if there was such a thing

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Baulderstone Baulderstone and TristramEvans TristramEvans

GTFO you guys, seriously? The only people I knew who collected M.U.S.C.L.E. were my little brother and I; they were pretty cool and weird. I can't for the life of me remember the popular toys back then; probably Transformers, Garbage Pail Kids, and Go-Bots.
 
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