Buzz
In 1937, 17-year-old Fred Morrison and his girlfriend, Lucile Nay, were entertaining themselves at a family picnic by tossing the lid of a popcorn tin. Enjoying their game so much, they began exploring other objects to enhance their play. Morrison eventually raided his mother’s collection of pie tins, which proved far sturdier than the flimsy popcorn lid. It was during one beach outing when a bystander, impressed by their fun, offered Morrison a quarter for the tin, which had only cost a nickel. Seizing the opportunity, Morrison began selling 'Flyin’ Cake Pans' along California beaches.
A decade later, after serving as a fighter-bomber pilot in WWII, Morrison remained fixated on perfecting the flying disc. He refined its design, adding a sloped edge that enhanced its flight, a feature still recognized today as Morrison’s slope. Influenced by the UFO craze, he stamped the names of planets around the edge of the disc, naming it the 'Pluto Platter'.
An Introduction to Flying Discs
Walter Frederick Morrison promoting his Pluto Platters, the forerunner of the Frisbee. | Connecticut State Library, Wikimedia Commons // Public DomainAlthough you might assume that flying discs are self-explanatory, early models came with instructions printed on the underside, just in case users needed guidance: “Play catch. Invent games. To fly, flip away backhand. Flat flip flies straight. Tilted flip curves. Experiment!”
By 1957, Morrison had sold enough Pluto Platters to catch the eye of the emerging toy company Wham-O. After acquiring the rights, Wham-O rebranded the disc as the 'Frisbee', inspired by the Frisbie Pie Company. The name came from Yale students who had begun tossing the company's pie tins around for fun. The Yalies' new sport even led to the closure of the Frisbie Pie Company after they lost at least 5000 reusable pie plates. While Frisbie closed in 1958, the Frisbee's popularity soared. In 2016, Connecticut's Dan O'Connor, a Frisbee enthusiast and historian, revived the Frisbie Pie Company, restoring its original recipes.
Since then, Wham-O has sold approximately 300 million Frisbees, a remarkable success for a pastime that started with a simple empty dessert plate.
