Last night, here in 1957, Dwight D. Eisenhower was sworn in, for his second term as President of the United States. I think listening to this speech and possibly having a discussion about it might be worth a post in its own right later on.
The story goes he and his then girlfriend were having Thanksgiving at her mother’s home in California in 1937. They began tossing a popcorn maker lid around to entertain themselves. The lid bent, so they snatched a cake pan from the kitchen.
They then sold these at beaches and parks until Mr. Morrison went off to WWII as a bomber-pilot. After the war, he and his wife settled in Southern California and due to the various craze for UFO sightings and all things ‘space age’ he made a plastic version and the toy was officially born. This was called the ‘flyin-saucer’ and he and his business partner sold them around at fairs and such events.
By the mid 1950’s he had designed and made his section edition of the flyin-saucer dubbed: the Pluto Platter, stamped with the names of all the solar system’s planets around its rim. He would go to fairs dressed as you see him above and demonstrate and sell the item.
The famous Toy company WHAM-O got wind of it and In 1957 Mr. Morrison signed over the Pluto Platter rights to Wham-O in exchange for lifetime royalties.
The name “Frisbee” came a little later when some of the Toy company executives were on a trip out to the East coast they noticed college students playing the same game with pie tins from the famous Frisbie Pie Co. in Bridgeport, Conn. These pie tins had long been popular for tossing on New England college campuses. With a change of spelling to avoid trademark trouble, Wham-O’s Frisbee was born.
