Gary Dahl, Inventor of the Pet Rock Dies

[LiberalElite]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/01/us/gary-dahl-inventor-of-the-pet-rock-dies-at-78.html?action=click&contentCollection=N.Y.%20%2F%20Region&module=MostEmailed&version=Full®ion=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article

"It was a craze to rival the Hula-Hoop, and even less explicable. For a mere three dollars and 95 cents, a consumer could buy ... a rock — a plain, ordinary, egg-shaped rock of the kind one could dig up in almost any backyard.

The wonder of it was, for a few frenzied months in 1975, more than a 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.”"


For you younger folks, this is not an April Fool's joke or satire.

I don't know why I didn't buy one of these things. I did have a Mood Ring, after all....

[Major Nikon]

1. Despite following all the included directions, my pet rock died after 3 weeks

[JimDandy]

2. Mine did too. Granite, I didn't follow the full slate of instructions.

I left it on the mantle where it didn't get a tonalite...was tuff on my son.

[OriginalGeek]

13. A mystery! Better call Sherrock Holmes.

Sedimentary, My dear Watson!

[pinboy3niner]

3. Now I feel so badly for taking him for granite

[struggle4progress]

5. I always thought he was full of schist

I guess that's not gneiss

[Art_from_Ark]

7. That's just oreful

[clarice]

10. Pinny, is it my imagination...or are you getting boulder? nt

[struggle4progress]

4. Adjusted for inflation, the 1975 cost of $3.95 was worth over $17 in today's currency

[malthaussen]

6. I remember at the time thinking the world had gone mad.

It still remains for me one of the more inexplicable phenomena of my life.

Must have had something to do with how often people were stoned in 1975.

-- Mal

[Dont call me Shirley]

8. Gary...

I adopted one of your pet rocks many years ago. It brought me great pleasure. Thank you. RIP.

[Yavin4]

9. You youngins can laugh at us all you want about this marketing scheme

I'll take a million pet rocks over the Kardashians!

[KamaAina]

11. That should make for an interesting Google Doodle

tomorrow.

[Liberal_in_LA]

12. ..

[Special Prosciuto]

14. He must have died LHAO. n/t

[Capt. Obvious]

15. I believe the pet rock was the father of the tamagotchi