Pop-Cultured Catholic #9: Gary Dahl’s “Pet Rock”, “The Gospel of Work”, and the Emptiness of Life Without Work or Responsibilities

Many years ago, I used to watch the very early seasons of Seth Macfarlane’s “Family Guy” and mostly got a kick out of them. During one such episode, “Emission Impossible”, Peter Griffin is reopening a box of old belongings and finds a particularly memorable item: “It's our pet rock. Ah, I remember the first day we brought it home”. We cut to a flashback, with Peter and Lois standing disappointed over a puddle on the floor: “See that? Huh? Huh? Bad rock. Bad! We do that outside! Look at him. He knows what he did”. Later on in the episode, Peter is playing the guitar and turns back to his pet rock, which actually starts to wet the rug on-screen, to Peter’s dismay.

Imagine the surprise I felt in my High School Social Studies class on recent American history, when I learned that the “Pet Rock” was not just a gag made up by “Family Guy”, but an actual real thing which was marketed. As summarized by Wikipedia, “Pet Rock is a collectible toy made in 1975 by advertising executive Gary Dahl. They were rocks packaged in custom cardboard boxes complete with ventilation holes and straw bedding imitating a pet carrier. The fad lasted about six months, ending after a short increase in sales during the Christmas season of December 1975. Although by February 1976 they were discounted due to lower sales, Dahl sold over one million Pet Rocks for $4 each, and became a millionaire”. According to other sources, the rocks even came with parody pet manuals for how to “care for“ and “train” it.

When I further looked up information on the fad’s history, Dahl’s “Pet Rock” idea supposedly began as a joke, regarding how much people complain about the work that goes into raising and caring for a pet. “Gary Dahl, as California advertising man, was having drinks with his buddies one night in April 1975 when the conversation turned to pets. As a lark, Mr. Dahl informed his friends that he considered dogs, cats, birds, and fish all a pain in the neck. They made a mess; they misbehaved; they cost too much money. He, on the other hand, had a pet rock, and it was an ideal pet - easy and cheap, and it had a great personality.” Also, “A rock would not need to be fed, walked, bathed, or groomed, and it would not die, become sick, or be disobedient. Dahl said that they were to be the perfect pets and joked about it with his friends before eventually producing Pet Rocks as toys”. When I read through certain social media forums looking back on the Pet Rocks, numerous people asked why anyone would pay money for something they could just find in their yard, while others saw this as evidence that people can get swept up in any empty dumb fad. Of course, others pointed out that the main draw of them was just the silly joke appeal of its merchandise, etc. rather than anything to be taken seriously as valuable, cool, etc.

Recently, my Catholic Men’s Group finished watching and discussing a video series, “The Gospel of Work”, in which people’s reluctance to find fulfillment and meaning in their life’s work was a recurring topic. That series of short videos on Formed DOT ORG summarized different ways to glorify God in the your workplace, in terms of how you interact with others, take pride in the work you are doing, and understand how the work you do plays a part in our wider interconnected world. Rather than seeing all work as a drudgery which keeps people from becoming the person they want to be or having the life they desire, one should look for opportunities to treat work as a means to help become the man they were born to be and whom they can be proud of. To quote the Word on Fire article of the same name, "Love, which for a Christian can be defined as freely willing another’s good after the manner of Christ crucified, transforms all work into an opportunity to grow in perfection by glorifying God and serving one’s neighbor. For a person of faith, all work, regardless of how arduous, menial, tedious or toilsome, when it is suffused by love-from-the-cross, overflows with meaning and purpose." I am also attaching a screenshot showing two additional quotes cited in the article, from Martin Luther King Jr. and Saint John Paul II.

While listening to the video series, I suddenly remembered what spawned the “Pet Rock” idea in the first place and asked my Men's Group if it could make for a good analogy. The Pet Rock was created as a joke answer to people complaining that so many pets needed a great investment of work and responsibility. Yet, we know how the real pets that require work to be put into them are the ones, which can truly give back a meaningful experience for their owners, beyond just a fleeting joke. So if one wants to have a life without any work or responsibilities to put into it at all, then isn't one basically asking for his whole life to just be the equivalent of owning a Pet Rock? Sure, one might get some relaxing ease and fleeting superficial fun out of it, but how much meaningfulness and joy is one genuinely going to get out of such a life? And how much is such a life really something to be proud of?

This was a much simpler post today in my pop-culture series, which could be a welcomed break from how complex my previous one has been. Take care, God bless, and here links to the "Family Guy" clips and some cited sources:

1.) Family Guy's Cutaway Gag With the Pet Rock
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra_r7UGbj44

2.) The Family Guy Gag's Later Payoff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljvIbkYgDRQ

3.) The Wikipedia Page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Rock

4.) The "Pet Rock Page"
https://www.virtualpet.com/vp/farm/petrock/petrock.htm

5.) Link to Formed DOT ORG's Video Series on "The Gospel of Work"
https://watch.formed.org/gospel-of-work

6.) The Word on Fire Article of the Same Name
https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/the-gospel-of-work/