Frisbee Celebrates Its 50th Birthday(AP) SAN FRANCISCO The Frisbee is celebrating a five-decade milestone this weekend.
It was 50 years ago Sunday that Emeryville-based Wham-O changed the name of the beloved flying disc from the Pluto Platter to the Frisbee.
Frisbee is now name as synonymous with flying discs as Google is with searching on the Internet, or Kleenex is with tissue.
Frisbee's name is a spin-off from a Connecticut bakery called the Frisbie Pie Company. New England college students used to toss empty pie tins around for fun -- a habit that led them to refer to the Pluto Platter as a "frisbie."
Wham-O's co-founders obtained the marketing rights to the Pluto Platter in January 1957 and six months later changed its name to Frisbee.
Its inventor, Walter "Fred" Morrison, says he originally thought Frisbee was a terrible name. He's now 87 years old, lives in Utah and collects royalties from his invention.
1 comment:
I heard a piece on NPR about the 50th anniversary of the Frisbee, and how the inventor hated the name. I'm willing to bet he doesn't hate it so much now...
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