Toy company Wham-O produces the first Frisbees - January 23rd, 1957

On this day in 1957, the Wham-O toy company produced its first batch of plastic, flying discs — now known to fans of all ages as Frisbees.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show for those interested in the big and small
moments of history. I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're looking

(00:24):
at how an empty dessert plate inspired one of the
most iconic toys in the history of outdoor play. The
day was January seven, the Whammo Toy Company produced its

(00:46):
first batch of plastic flying discs, now known to fans
of all ages as Frisbees. The idea of throwing around
a flat flying disc goes all the way back to
the discus in Anxious, Greece, but for the modern incarnation
we can look to nineteen thirty seven. That's the year

(01:06):
when a seventeen year old named Walter Fred Morrison and
his girlfriend were playing a game of catch with the
lid from a popcorn tin. Apparently, they had such a
good time with the game that they started looking for
something more durable to toss back and forth. That's when
they came across one of Fred's mom's pie tins, which

(01:28):
quickly became the couple's disc of choice. In fact, it
was that very pie plate that they were playing with
on a beach When a passer by noticed how much
fun they were having, he asked Fred if he'd be
willing to part with the pie tin for a quarter,
and since it had only cost a nickel to buy
brand new, Fred happily agreed. Soon after the encounter, the

(01:52):
teen went into business selling flying cake pans all along
the beaches of southern California. Fred's beach side business had
to be put on whold during World War Two so
that he could serve overseas as a fighter pilot, but
all the while he kept thinking of ways to improve
the flying disks that he and his girlfriend, who was

(02:14):
now his wife by that point, had had so much
fun with. By the time the war was over, Fred
had his answer. He found that by adding a sloped edge,
his disks would fly better and stay in the air
longer too. Today, that same slope is found on all
official Frisbees, and it's still known as Morrison's Slope in

(02:38):
Fred's honor. Of course, the famous frisbee name was still
a few years off at that point, though Fred did
try a couple different names in the meantime, Hoping to
take advantage of the growing space craze in the US.
He dubbed his new disc the Flying Saucer, before eventually
changing that to the much more alliterative Pluto Platter. Armed

(03:02):
with this far catchier brand name, Fred traveled up and
down the California coast, peddling Pluto Platters out of the
back of his station wagon at beaches and local fares. Then,
in nineteen fifty five, his fairly modest sales caught the
attention of the founders of the Whammo Toy Company, the

(03:23):
proud creators of the sling Shot and the Hula Hoop.
They quickly snapped up the rights to Fred's disk and
released their own plastic version of the Pluto Platter on
January twenty three, nineteen fifty seven. Within the year, the
company had sold a million discs. Wammo kept Fred Morrison's

(03:44):
space theme name during the first year of production, but
in nineteen fifty eight they decided it was time for
a change. According to legend, the Wammo founders were interested
in Fred's disc partly because they had recently taken a
trip to New England, where they had witnessed some Yale
students playing catch with pie pans from the local Frisbee

(04:07):
Baking company. The students would take the empty pans from
the dining hall and toss them back and forth while
yelling Frisbee to warn of an incoming pan. The practice
supposedly dates as far back as the nineteen twenties and
was pretty common in both Connecticut and New York. But
that said, even Wammo's own website admits that the founders

(04:31):
might just as easily have been inspired by a comic
strip from the era called Mr. Frisbee. Whatever the reason,
Wammo relaunched their flying disc under the name Frisbee in
nineteen fifty eight, and it immediately caught on at playgrounds
and college campuses all over the country. In the following decade,

(04:51):
Wammo began marketing frisbee playing as a whole new sport,
leading to sales of over a hundred million units by
nineteen Today, the official Frisbee is owned by the Mattel Company,
who bought the toy from Whamo in According to them,
more than three hundred million discs have been sold since

(05:14):
the product's debut in the nineteen fifties, which is pretty
impressive for a pastime that got its start as aerodynamic garbage.
I'm gay Bluesier and hopefully you now know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. If you
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(05:37):
Instagram at t d I HC Show. You can also
drop us a line by writing to this Day at
I heart media dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for
producing the show, and thank you for listening. I'll see
you back here again tomorrow for another day in history Class. Yeah.

(06:04):
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