The secrets of the Jolly Green Giant

More than you'd ever need to know about the oddities of this mascot.

An audio version is here for paying subscribers.

This is my sixth inductee into the Attic of Fame, the home of seemingly normal people, places, or things with hidden oddities.

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One hundred years ago, the Minnesota Valley Canning Company discovered a new type of pea in England. It was called the Prince of Wales pea after Edward who went on to abdicate. And it was huge. (Relatively huge. Not so huge you could only fit one in a tin, unfortunately.) But how were they going to persuade people to eat these massive peas? Well, it was obvious really. Invent a giant mascot. Three years later, this guy appeared on all the tins:

He is not green or obviously a giant. In fact, he looks more like a tiny person carrying a regular-sized pea pod. But I guess advertising was in its infancy a century ago.

He’s also very much missing the jolly element. He’s a moody-looking caveman in a bear skin. He looks like he might headbutt someone for asking for directions. To be fair, he wasn’t called the Jolly Green Giant back then. And he didn’t turn green until 1930. Thirty-two years before the Incredible Hulk.

He had another makeover in 1935 when legendary ad man Leo Burnett was hired to make him more appealing. Not a particularly tricky task. But Leo had a great C.V. having created Tony the Tiger, the Marlboro Man and Pillsbury Doughboy. I wonder if he didn’t like women. So what did he do to make the giant more appealing? He made him smile. And added the word ‘Jolly’ to his name. It must’ve taken him ages to think of that. Here’s what he looked like now.

He still doesn’t have any actual clothes but the bearskin has been turned into a leaf dress. I suppose it’s hard to find clothes when you are a giant.

I do wonder why his dress is one-shoulder though. There are a lot of leaves in the world. It wouldn’t be too much extra hassle to do another one. It’s still a bit caveman. Why did cavemen always wear one-shoulder clothes? One shoulder must have always been cold. And they’d have got weird tan lines. They should’ve gone for a bandeau top if they couldn’t do two shoulders.

Anyway. The revamped Jolly Green Giant’s dress is also very short. It’s actually quite surprising that there’s nothing poking out the bottom so he must be wearing briefs. Are they made of leaves too?

It’s also interesting that there are leaves on his head. Does he grow leaves instead of hair or is he wearing a homemade leaf wig? So many questions.

It wasn’t until the 1960s that he got his catchphrase of ‘Ho, ho, ho’, which is blatantly stolen from Father Christmas. And the Sixties was also when something weird happened. The Kingsmen, who’d had a massive hit with Louie Louie, released a song about the Jolly Green Giant.

It reached number one in Canada and number four in the US, where it was held off the top spot by The Stooges’ ‘Snap Crackle and Pop’, The Troggs’ ‘Ronald McDonald’ and Jefferson Airplane’s ‘Sun-Maid Raisin Girl’.

It was not released in the UK. Probably because it’s quite weird for a 1960s American garage rock band to sing about a pea/sweetcorn mascot. But after Louie Louie, it was their biggest hit.

The lyrics to ‘Jolly Green Giant’ are not what you’d expect. It’s hard to imagine Green Giant being very happy about it. In the first verse, we have:

He's so big and mean (artichoke hearts)
He stands in his valley with his hands on his hips
And then he hits you with a can of beans

The song then goes on to explain why he’s so mean. It’s because he can’t find a woman his size. This doesn’t feel like a good excuse. Greg Davies is 6’8 and he seems lovely.

He then takes matters into his own hands and goes to the Amazon to find all the Amazonian women. And reading between the lines of the line, ‘He touched her once, she slapped him silly’, he basically assaulted her.

Different times.

The Seventies had my favourite Jolly Green Giant.

What a guy. You’ve got to love someone whose hand is bigger than their head. I don’t want to be narrow-minded but this is the best evidence I have ever seen that everybody was just on drugs in the Seventies. They haven’t even coloured him in properly.

The 1970s was also the era of a very exciting expansion in the Jolly Green Giant world. I think it’s all too common to buy a tin of vegetables and see the company mascot and think – ah man, I wish they did a teddy of this. Well, in this decade, all your dreams came true as there was a Jolly Green Giant teddy.

And if you’re thinking, yes but it’s a bit small. Well, how about a four-foot-tall rag doll?

Or maybe you just want a T-shirt?

They really wrung the merch side of things dry in the Seventies. And like Godzilla and Scooby-Doo and no food mascot ever, the Jolly Green Giant also got a sidekick then, Little Sprout.

Don’t worry, there was a teddy of him too.

Is there any other food mascot with such a rich history? Is there any other food mascot with their own four-ton, fifty-five-foot-tall statue on the side of the road in Minnesota? It is the tenth tallest free-standing statue in America. And a very appropriate tribute to one of the all-time great mascots.