Set in the United States Army, Sad Sack depicted an otherwise unnamed, lowly private experiencing some of the absurdities and humiliations of military life.

[1] Originally drawn in pantomime by Baker, The Sad Sack debuted June 1942 as a comic strip in the first issue of Yank, the Army Weekly.

Harvey also published the one-shot Army giveaway comic Sad Sack Goes Home in 1951, meant to encourage soldiers to stay in the armed forces.

When Senator Homer E. Capehart complained that Sad Sack Goes Home amounted to "socialism" by demonizing the business world, Army units were forced to destroy much of the press run.

[citation needed] In the mid-1950s, Harvey Comics and Baker brought in Paul McCarthy to draw the Sad Sack titles, followed by Fred Rhoads, Jack O'Brien, and Joe Dennett.

[citation needed] La Prensa, a Mexican publisher, released the Spanish language editions of the Sad Sack comics under the title Tristán Tristón.

Sponsored by Old Gold Cigarettes, The Sad Sack radio program ran in 1946 as a summer replacement series for The Frank Sinatra Show.

Dick Joy was the announcer for the series which began June 12, 1946, with the episode "Sack Returns Home from the Army" and continued until September 4 of that year.

At Paramount Pictures, Baker's strip was adapted by screenwriters Edmund Beloin and Nate Monaster for George Marshall's film The Sad Sack (1957), in which WAC Major Shelton (Phyllis Kirk) has the assignment to turn bumbling Private Meredith C. Bixby (Jerry Lewis) into a good soldier.