The man who made millions creating and marketing the 1970s “pet rock,” died recently at his Oregon home at the age of 78, loved ones said.
Gary Ross Dahl launched one of the decade’s most curious fads with his tongue-in-cheek “pet” – a smooth, building-supply-store rock that was packaged with written instructions for “care and feeding.”
The pet rock was no joke at the bottom line, selling 1.5 million pieces at $4 a pop in late 1975 and early 1976.
Dahl said he came up with the idea after hearing friends complain about all the work needed to maintain a pet.
Fame and fortune came with at least a few headaches.
Wife Marguerite Dahl said after the pet rock became a big deal, “people would come to him with weird ideas, expecting him to do for them what he had done for himself. And a lot of times they were really, really stupid ideas.”
Gary Ross Dahl told The Associated Press in 1988 that he shunned interview requests for years because media exposure would always lead to “a bunch of wackos” coming out of the woodwork to hassle him with lawsuits and other threats.
“Sometimes I look back and wonder if my life wouldn’t have been simpler if I hadn’t done it,” Dahl once said.
Dahl died March 23 in the southern Oregon town of Jacksonville, where he and his wife settled in 2006.
The couple enjoyed sailing on San Francisco Bay. His wife plans to scatter his ashes in the bay in May.
Dahl is survived by his wife, sister, two daughters, a son, a step daughter and grandchildren.