Gary Dahl

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Gary Dahl conceived the idea of selling rocks to people as Pet Rocks, complete with instructions. The 1975 fad only lasted about half a year, but that was enough to make Dahl a millionaire. Anti-shirt inventor Kyle Boné was heavily influenced by Dahl and frequently cites the inventor as an inspiration.

In 2000, Dahl won the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, the San José State University sponsored competition that awards authors for crafting particularly bad "purple prose." Dahl's winning entry:

The heather-encrusted Headlands, veiled in fog as thick as smoke in a crowded pub, hunched precariously over the moors, their rocky elbows slipping off land's end, their bulbous, craggy noses thrust into the thick foam of the North Sea like bearded old men falling asleep in their pints.[1]

Gary Dahl was also featured in a 70's documentary film by Orofino High School students as a man with large 70's style glasses and a deep voice.