Gary Dahl, Pet Rock Inventor, passes away at 78

Gary Dahl, the inventor of the phenomenon known as the Pet Rock passed away at the age of 78. He helped popularize an idea and a trend that spread like wildfire.

Like the Hula Hoop, Gary Dahl’s Pet Rock too caught on like crazy and had a generation going mad for a meaningless entity. All it consisted of was an ordinary roughly-polished pebble that could be found in any garden. You had the shopkeeper put it in a nestled space inside a box and you had to cough up $3.95.

The fad started way back in the mid 70s and the rest as they say is history. Over a million customers frequented the shops and bought Pet Rocks and thus became proud owners of what appeared to be a stone nside a box.

Newsweek termed it a ridicuously extreme marketing scheme. The man behind the mission, Gary Dahl was lionized as a hero and labeled as a charlatan in equal measures. He passed away recently. And that too at the ripe age of 78.

According to NYTimes, Gary Dahl used to be a copywriter who came up with the funky idea of a pet that didn’t need any food or pooper-scoopers. For the sybaritic 70s, this seemed to be a dream come true. So they settled for what appeared absurd to the extreme… even Dadaistic come to think of it. 

This later on inspired several spinoffs such as a Stone Soup by P.T. Barnum. It made Dahl a millionaire virtually in the span of 24 hours. And though the fad has long since gone the way of the trash can, it is now a fixed part of the vocabulary of American heritage.

The whole idea began in Dahl’s brain when he was a dropout and failed copywriter who was having a drink in a pub. Contemplating his failure status, he took a little too much alcohol and declared before the crowd in the pub that he would have a Pet Rock that neither pooped nor was such a high maintenance thing as dogs and cats were.

Gary Dahl and a few others who tagged along bought many smooth beach pebbles from a Mexican factory at dirtcheap prices and then came the packaging part. They put these pebbles in beautiful cardbox boxes with holes and ventilation.

The rocks were nestled in a soft fuzzy substance. And Dahl even provided a manual for the upkeep and training of the Pet Rock. Soon Mr. Dahl was a rich man and Pet Rocks were the talk of the town.

And although he will be always known with reference to his bizarre invention, he later on partially regretted his decision since it had attracted a bunch of lunatics and psychos towards his personality. They wanted to ask Gary Dahl what next fad they should invent and he was at a loss for words.