[2] Though, in his youth, Petrillo played the trumpet, he finally made a career out of organizing musicians into the union starting in 1919.
Petrillo was unique among AFM presidents in that he was well known to the US and Canadian general public, especially during and after the 1942–1944 recording ban and was frequently referenced in pop culture of that era.
On another occasion Rochester is asked to blow the car horn by putting it in his mouth, and he replies "Petrillo won't let me!"
In the 1945 Crosby/Bergman film, The Bells of St. Mary's, when Crosby's character, Father O'Malley, is asked how he was successful in tracking down a long-missing musician, he points to the sky and quips, "I went straight to the top—Petrillo!"
In 1945 or 1946, Robertson Davies had his "alter ego" write in a newspaper column, later collected in The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, "Then to a party, where I showed my prowess at those games where you have to fill out forms saying who Cain's wife was, and whether it was Lincoln or Petrillo who said 'We must save the Union at all costs.
"[citation needed] Jon and Sondra Steele referred to Petrillo as "Little Caesar" on the B-side of their 1948 hit, "My Happiness", on the song called "They All Recorded To Beat The Ban".
In the 1950 burlesque revue Everybody's Girl, the comedians Bobby Faye and Leon DeVoe, playing anti-nudist street preachers, mention that the Devil has "two horns."
On the November 12, 1950 radio broadcast of the NBC variety program The Big Show, Groucho Marx, hosting a parody of his game show You Bet Your Life, makes a joke about bandleader "Abe Lyman of Illinois" becoming president; Composer and bandleader Meredith Willson replies, "That must have been before Petrillo.
Slim Gaillard's 1951 song "Federation Blues" (which is entirely about the musician's union) begins: "You may play an instrument and think that you're a killer / But you still ain't get nowhere till you see J.C.