January 23

1957 : Toy company Wham-O produces first Frisbees

On this day in 1957, machines at the Wham-O toy
company roll out the first batch of their aerodynamic
plastic discs--now known to millions of fans all over
the world as Frisbees.

The story of the Frisbee began in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where William Frisbie opened the Frisbie
Pie Company in 1871. Students from nearby universities
would throw the empty pie tins to each other, yelling
"Frisbie!" as they let go. In 1948, Walter Frederick
Morrison and his partner Warren Franscioni invented a
plastic version of the disc called the "Flying Saucer"
that could fly further and more accurately than the
tin pie plates. After splitting with Franscioni,
Morrison made an improved model in 1955 and sold it to
the new toy company Wham-O as the "Pluto Platter"--an
attempt to cash in on the public craze over space and
Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).

In 1958, a year after the toy's first release,
Wham-O--the company behind such top-sellers as the
Hula-Hoop, the Super Ball and the Water
Wiggle--changed its name to the Frisbee disc,
misspelling the name of the historic pie company. A
company designer, Ed Headrick, patented the design for
the modern Frisbee in December 1967, adding a band of
raised ridges on the disc's surface--called the
Rings--to stabilize flight. By aggressively marketing
Frisbee-playing as a new sport, Wham-O sold over 100
million units of its famous toy by 1977.

High school students in Maplewood, New Jersey,
invented Ultimate Frisbee, a cross between football,
soccer and basketball, in 1967. In the 1970s, Headrick
himself invented Frisbee Golf, in which discs are
tossed into metal baskets; there are now hundreds of
courses in the U.S., with millions of devotees. There
is also Freestyle Frisbee, with choreographed routines
set to music and multiple discs in play, and various
Frisbee competitions for both humans and dogs--the
best natural Frisbee players.

Today, at least 60 manufacturers produce the flying
discs--generally made out of plastic and measuring
roughly 20-25 centimeters (8-10 inches) in diameter
with a curved lip. The official Frisbee is owned by
Mattel Toy Manufacturers, who bought the toy from
Wham-O in 1994.

history.com/tdih.do