Wham-O Celebrates Golden Anniversary Of Frisbee's Name

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE The Associated Press

Published: Jun 17, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO - Wham-O Inc. changed the name of the Pluto Platter to Frisbee 50 years ago today, flinging a new word into the cultural ether that still conjures images of carefree fun in the park and breezy days at the beach.

Walter "Fred" Morrison, the inventor of the beloved disc, thought the new moniker would never fly.

"I thought Frisbee was a terrible name," said Morrison, now 87. "I thought it was insane."

Frisbee instead became insanely popular, making the name synonymous with flying discs.

Wham-O doesn't allow the Frisbee name to be thrown around indiscriminately.

When the Emeryville-based company sees Frisbee used to describe discs made by other manufacturers, lawyers dispatch legal notices seeking to protect the trademarked term.

Frisbee's name is a spin-off from a now-defunct Connecticut bakery, the Frisbie Pie Co. New England college students often tossed around empty pie tins for fun, a habit that led them to refer to the Pluto Platter as a "frisbie."

Wham-O co-founders Rich Knerr and Arthur "Spud" Melin obtained the marketing rights to Morrison's invention in January 1957.

Less than six months later, Knerr made the fateful decision to embrace the nickname that college students had given the Pluto Platter. He evidently was unclear on how to spell frisbie, giving birth to a new word.

Morrison began experimenting with flying objects in his teens.

He says he first tossed around a popcorn lid at a Thanksgiving gathering in 1937 and later graduated to cake pans.

When he started to think of designing a flying disc, Morrison called it the "Whirlo-Way" in a tribute to the racehorse Whirlaway, which won the 1941 Triple Crown.

By the time Morrison scraped up enough money to develop a mold for his concept, there had been reports of a spacecraft crashing in Roswell, N.M. Morrison ended up calling his first line of discs "Flyin' Saucers."

After upgrading his design, Morrison dubbed the disc the Pluto Platter.

Wham-O has been trying to capitalize on the Frisbee's 50th anniversary by releasing collector's editions of the early models.

Meanwhile, Morrison, who lives in Richfield, Utah, still is collecting royalties off a name he didn't really like.

"It just goes to show I am a bad judge of names," Morrison said.