Long before computer animation, one fire-breathing dragon convinced millions of Americans that chow mein belonged on the dinner table.
Part of The American Time Capsule — preserving the people, places, products, traditions, and everyday moments that shaped growing up in America before the digital age. This article explores the commercials, jingles, slogans, brands, and advertising campaigns that became part of everyday American life.
If you grew up in the late 1960s or early 1970s…
you remember him.
Delbert.
The La Choy Dragon.
The First Commercial That Ever Made Me Laugh
I’ve watched thousands of television commercials over the years.
Most disappeared from my memory almost as soon as they ended.
Television had a strange ability to plant sounds and images permanently in our memories. The same thing happened with the opening music from our favorite programs, something I remember in The TV Themes We Never Forgot.
They sold soap.
Cars.
Beer.
Cigarettes.
I couldn’t tell you much about any of them today.
But there was one commercial that did something no other commercial ever managed to do.
It made me laugh out loud.
Not smile.
Not chuckle.
Laugh.
It wasn’t because the special effects were spectacular.
By today’s standards, they were pretty simple.
It wasn’t because I suddenly developed a craving for chow mein.
It was because of one unforgettable character…
Delbert, the La Choy Dragon
What got me wasn’t simply that La Choy had put a dragon in a commercial.
It was what the crazy thing did.
Delbert wasn’t some majestic, frightening dragon.
He was a complete goofball.
He’d lumber around knocking things off shelves with his tail, causing chaos everywhere he went.
He had that goofy voice, a ridiculous chef’s hat, one lonely tooth sticking out of his mouth, and those huge bug-eyed eyes that made him look completely bewildered by whatever disaster he’d just caused.
And then there was his special contribution to Chinese cooking:
dragon fire.
Why bother with a stove when you’ve got a fire-breathing dragon in the kitchen?
The whole thing was ridiculous.
And that was exactly why it worked.
Most commercials were trying desperately to convince you that their product would make your life cleaner, happier, healthier or more sophisticated.
Delbert just showed up, wrecked the place, cooked with dragon fire…
and made me laugh.
More than fifty years later, I can still picture that goofy one-toothed face.
🎬 Watch the Original Commercial
⭐ Ad Time Capsule
📦 Product
La Choy Chow Mein
📺 Television Era
Late 1960s–1970s
🐉 Why We Remember It
Delbert the Dragon
🎭 Created By
Jim Henson
🏆 Lasting Legacy
One of the most memorable character-driven commercials of its era—and the only TV commercial I remember making me laugh out loud.
Behind the Scenes
Television commercials in the 1960s didn’t have computer graphics.
If advertisers wanted something to fly…
explode…
or breathe fire…
they had to build it.
La Choy wanted people talking about its chow mein again, so the advertising agency made an unusual decision.
Instead of another smiling family gathered around the dinner table, they hired a young puppeteer named Jim Henson.
Working under an incredibly tight deadline, Henson created Delbert the Dragon, a life-sized puppet whose antics transformed an ordinary food commercial into something people actually looked forward to watching.
It was one of the earliest examples of a television commercial creating a memorable character instead of simply selling a product.
The goal wasn’t just to convince people to buy chow mein.
It was to make sure they remembered La Choy the next time they walked down the grocery aisle.
Food advertising was becoming increasingly good at making kids want things their parents might never have considered buying otherwise, part of the changing food culture I remember in When Fast Food Was an Event
The campaign worked. Sales climbed, and Delbert quickly became one of television’s most memorable advertising mascots.
Mission accomplished.
I asked Mom to buy it at the store and we liked it as a break from tuna on Fridays.
We liked to put the noodles on top and even ate them out of the can as a snack.
More than half a century later, I still remember the dragon…
but I couldn’t tell you what La Choy charged for a can of chow mein.
Of course, television had a much easier time getting our undivided attention in a world before smartphones, social media and a second screen were competing for it, a very different kind of everyday life I remember in Life Before Smartphones
That probably tells you everything you need to know about the power of great advertising.
💡 And Did You Know?
- 🐉 Delbert wasn’t a movie star—he was a salesman. His entire job was convincing Americans that canned chow mein could be fun.
- 🎭 Jim Henson’s work on the La Choy campaign came years before The Muppet Show turned his characters into worldwide television stars.
- 🔥 Those fire-breathing scenes weren’t computer effects. Everything had to be built, performed, and filmed the old-fashioned way using practical effects.
- 📺 The commercial proved something advertisers still believe today: people may forget your product, but they’ll remember a great character.
- 😂 More than fifty years later, Delbert still holds a unique distinction in my own television history.
⭐ Sarge’s Verdict
Still funny after all these years?
You bet your sweet chow mein it is.
💬 Your Turn
Did a television commercial ever make you laugh out loud?
Not smile.
Not chuckle.
Laugh.
If so, which one was it?
And is there a commercial you can still quote word for word fifty years later?
Tell us in the comments below. There’s a good chance someone else remembers it too.
📺 Continue Exploring Television, Advertising & Pop Culture
Delbert wasn’t alone. Television gave us characters, jingles, heroes and shared experiences that somehow stayed in our memories long after the programs—and sometimes even the products—disappeared.
-
🎵 The TV Themes We Never Forgot
A few familiar notes can still transport us back to the programs and living rooms of our childhood. -
📡 When TV Had Three Channels and Everybody Watched the Same Thing
Before streaming and personalized feeds, millions of Americans watched the same shows—and sat through the same commercials. -
🤠 What Time Is It, Kids? It’s Howdy Doody Time!
Howdy Doody, Buffalo Bob and the Peanut Gallery helped introduce a generation of American children to the magic of television. -
🚬 When America Smoked Everywhere
A look back at an era when cigarette advertising and smoking were woven into everyday American life.
← Return to 🇺🇸 The American Time Capsule
🪖 BUNKER RULE
If you can remember the commercial fifty years later but can’t remember what the product cost, the advertising probably worked.
The best commercials didn’t just interrupt the program.
They gave us characters we recognized, jingles we sang, slogans we repeated and sometimes something so ridiculous that it actually made us laugh.
Delbert didn’t need sophisticated computer animation.
He had a goofy voice, a chef’s hat, one tooth, big eyes, dragon fire and a tail that seemed capable of destroying everything around him.
That was apparently enough.
Great advertising sells the product.
Unforgettable advertising sells you the memory.
📌 BUNKER NOTICE
This article is part of the Ad Time Capsule, a recurring feature of The American Time Capsule preserving the television commercials, advertising characters, jingles and slogans that became part of America’s shared memory.
Long before streaming, targeted advertising and the ability to skip commercials, millions of Americans often watched the same programs—and the same advertisements between them.
Some commercials sold products.
Some annoyed us.
Some became running jokes around the house.
And a very few became so memorable that we can still picture them more than half a century later.
Delbert the La Choy Dragon earned his place in my Time Capsule for one very simple reason:
He made me laugh then.
And he still makes me laugh today.