The banana itself is, of course, the handiwork of Andy Warhol, who crafted the image and slapped it on the cover of his pet band’s first record in 1967. Warhol served as the manager and patron saint of the now iconic art rock band that surprisingly sold just 30,000 albums in its first five years.

The original album cover allowed fans to peel back the banana skin as a sticker, revealing the fruit of a nude-colored banana underneath. The sexually-charged effect was difficult for manufacturers to pull off, but MGM deemed it warranted, since Warhol’s stamp of approval was bound to go far in the 1960s.

He just made it possible for us to be ourselves and go right ahead with it because he was Andy Warhol.

Alas, the record was hardly a commercial success. It was only in the decades after VU’s breakup that the band became a cult favorite, transforming their vintage peel-off sticker album into a rare collector’s item and a symbol for the protopunk genre. In fact, nearly 50 years after the release, the band and the Andy Warhol foundation would battle over who reserved the right to market the now-coveted banana as their own.