Pie Plates

A few days ago I read how Frisbee got named and thought it might be a fun thing to include in a post. The story has roots on both the west coast and the east coast. On the east coast in 1871 a man named William Frisbie bought a bakery and called it the Frisbie Pie Company. The bakery was passed down through the generations. Eventually Yale students found you could play catch with the empty pie tins and would call out to the catcher Frisbie! to alert them.
On the west coast in 1938 Fred Morrison and his future wife were at the beach playing catch with a cake pan and were offered 25 cents for it. Morrison decided there was money to be made if a cake pan worth 5 cents could be sold as a toy for 25 cents. Their business was interrupted by World War II but Morrison was busy with ideas for improvements for the Whirlo-Way. In 1954 he formed his own company and paid a plastics company to produce Flyin-Saucers. In 1955 he found he could produce the discs more cheaply himself and designed a new model called the Pluto Platter. In 1957 he sold the rights to the Pluto Platter to Wham-O where they decided to rename it Frisbee after learning that was what college students called Pluto Platters. Next time you toss a Frisbee around you can amaze your friends with a brief history! or not.