It was a craze to rival the Hula-Hoop, and even less explicable. For a mere $3.95, a consumer could buy ... a rock -- a plain, ordinary, egg-shaped rock of the kind one could dig up in almost any back yard. The wonder of it was, for a few frenzied months in 1975, more than 1 million consumers did, becoming the proud if slightly abashed owners of Pet Rocks, the fad that Newsweek later called "one of the most ridiculously successful marketing schemes ever." Gary Dahl, the man behind that scheme -- described variously as a marketing genius and a genial charlatan -- died on March 23 at 78. A down-at-the-heels advertising copywriter when he hit on the idea, he originally meant it as a joke. But the concept of a "pet" that required no actual work and no real commitment resonated perfectly with the self-indulgent '70s, and before long a cultural phenomenon was born.

Pet Rocks made Dahl a millionaire practically overnight.

Though the fad ran its course long ago, the phrase "pet rock" endures in the American lexicon, denoting a useless entity or a meteoric success. Dahl's brainstorm began, as many do, in a bar. One night in the mid-1970s, he was having a drink in Los Gatos, the Northern California town where he lived for many years. At the time, he was a freelance copywriter ("that's another word for being broke," he later said), living in a small cabin as a self-described "quasi-dropout." The bar talk turned to pets, and to the onus of feeding, walking and cleaning up after them. His pet, Dahl announced in a flash of alcohol-fueled inspiration, caused him no such trouble. The reason? "I have a pet rock," he explained. A pet rock, Dahl quickly realized, just might have legs. He recruited two co-workers as investors, visited a building-supply store and bought a load of smooth Mexican beach stones at about a penny each.The genius was in the packaging. Each Pet Rock came in a cardboard carrying case, complete with air holes, tenderly nestled on a bed of excelsior. Dahl's droll masterstroke was his accompanying manual on the care, feeding and house training of Pet Rocks. "If, when you remove the rock from its box it appears to be excited, place it on some old newspapers," the manual read. "The rock will know what the paper is for and will require no further instruction. It will remain on the paper until you remove it." In a matter of months, some 1.5 million rocks -- more than 2 tons -- were sold. Though the rock made him wealthy, it also made him wary, for he was besieged ever after by hordes of would-be inventors, seeking his advice on the next big thing. "There's a bizarre lunatic fringe who feel I owe them a living," Dahl told the Associated Press in 1988. "Sometimes I look back and wonder if my life wouldn't have been simpler if I hadn't done it."

-- New York Times

http://www.twincities.com/nation/ci_27824993/gary-dahl-inventor-pet-rock-dies-at-78?source=most_viewed

Gary Dahl will now go onto the list of nominees for Bedlam's "Greatest Contribution to Society" award.

An even better idea than the thick book some guy sold a million copies of, titled: What Men Think About Other Than Sex."

Inside: 350 blank pages.