lovely nyt obit about the inventor of the pet rock. &ldquoi taught my p.r. guy to impersonate me." httpwww.nytimes.com20150401usgarydahlinventorofthepetrockdiesat78.html &hellipthe inventor of the pet rock died last week at the age of 78 and nobody seemed to notice. on tuesday, however, the new york times rectified this with an obituary of gary dahl who in 1975, while working as an advertising copywriter, created some of the u.s.&rsquo original viral content when he packaged and sold pet rocks for just under 4 a pop. if you assumed there couldn&rsquot possibly be a market for, as the times describes it &ldquoa plain, ordinary, eggshaped rock of the kind one could dig up in almost any backyard,&rdquo you&rsquod be wrong. more than three million were sold over the course of several months making dahl a millionaire and creating pop culture history.here&rsquos more from the times on the birth of the fad that predated the viral agedahl recruited two colleagues as investors, visited a buildingsupply store and bought a load of smooth mexican beach stones at about a penny apiece. 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. mr. dahl&rsquos droll masterstroke was his accompanying manual on the care, feeding and house training of pet rocks&hellippet rocks hit the marketplace in time for christmas 1975. they were soon featured on &ldquothe tonight show&rdquo and in a blizzard of newspaper articles. in a matter of months, some 1.5 million rocks were sold&hellip while pet rocks were the musthave gift of the 1975 holiday season, they soon went the way of all fads. the idea&rsquos very simplicity proved its undoing though mr. dahl trademarked the name, there was nothing to stop someone from putting a rock into a box and selling it, and many did.pet rock inventor gary dahl dies at 78 httpthr.cmszm1dl petrock rip 
