The 1970s produced an unusually dense cluster of genuine, sourced product phenomena — from a rock sold in a box to the console that created the home video game industry. Seven real ones, no filler.
Invented as a personal 3D-geometry exercise, not a commercial product. 450 million+ sold since, and still moving over 5 million units a year today.
Literally a rock in a box with a tongue-in-cheek care manual. Sold over a million units in a few months before burning out almost as fast.
Unpatented pseudoscience jewelry that hit $15 million in sales by December 1975 — and collapsed just as fast once every jeweler started copying it.
Invented by the same engineer who built the first home video game console, and debuted at Studio 54 in 1978. Hasbro's still reinventing it today.
The "Ch-ch-ch-Chia!" planter that's sold 25 million+ units since 1977 — and, unlike most novelty fads from this decade, never actually stopped selling.
Launched in 1977 and sold over 30 million units, effectively creating the cartridge-based home video game industry as we know it.
The 1979 device that made portable personal music a mainstream idea decades before an iPod or a phone could do the same.