[b][citation needed] In 1963, a seven-inch (18 cm) 33 rpm EP, "When Pea-Pickers Get Together", featuring Tennessee Ernie Ford and the Green Valley Singers was released.

[15] In 1999, the marketing industry's leading publication, Advertising Age, posted a list of the twentieth century's top ten advertising icons, and placed the Green Giant third (behind the Marlboro Man and Ronald McDonald, and ahead of Betty Crocker, the Energizer Bunny, the Pillsbury Doughboy, Aunt Jemima, the Michelin Man, Tony the Tiger, and Elsie [the Borden cow]).

[16] In 2005, the Jolly Green Giant was shown in MasterCard's "Icons" commercial during Super Bowl XXXIX, which depicts advertising mascots having dinner together.

"[citation needed] Sixty miles (97 km) further south on US 169, in the city of Blue Earth, Minnesota, stands a 55-foot (17 m) fiberglass statue of the Jolly Green Giant.

Keeping in mind how the prospect of seeing the Green Giant fired the imaginations of the children who passed through Blue Earth with their parents each summer, in 1977 Hedberg contacted Thomas H. Wyman, President of Green Giant, to see if the company would allow a statue of their corporate symbol to be erected in Blue Earth to draw the attention of the steady stream of travelers who would be utilizing the new interstate.

In his autobiography, The Time of My Life, Hedberg recounts how Wyman was receptive to the idea – on the condition that funds for the project were raised locally, and that the company had to give approval to the final design.

The statue was not delivered fully assembled – the pose Wyman approved had the Giant standing with hands on his hips, but he was then too wide to fit on a flatbed truck so his two arms were transported separately to be attached upon arrival in Blue Earth.

Every Christmas season Santa still visits the Giant, in the bucket of a Blue Earth fire truck, to put a long red scarf around his neck to keep him warm for the winter.

[34] Blue Earth is at the end of the Minnesota River Valley and still has a canning plant formerly owned by Green Giant that continues to can peas and corn each summer.

[citation needed] Blue Earth's major summer festival is Giant Days, held annually on the weekend following the Fourth of July.

In 2014, in honor of the 35th anniversary of the Green Giant statue's installation on its base, Paul Hedberg was asked to serve as Grand Marshal of the parade that culminates the festivities.