Frisbee: That Lucrative Pie Tray

I've made some very good friends when I joined an Ultimate Frisbee team some years back. One of my former teammates informed me last week that Walter Frederick Morrison, the inventor of the beloved flying disc, passed away at 90 years old.

His story reminded me of an earlier post about a friend who made money by tearing a rusty and dilapidated boat and sold it as scrap metal for 20 times its original price. It takes a complicatedly simple form of creativity to see anything potential out of that, the same way Morrison heard the kerching ring in his head after seeing the empty tins fly back and forth across university lawns.

See, it all began when Morrison decided to turn the remains of Frisbie Baking Company's pie tray into something officially fun since university students would toss the piece of tin after eating some pies. It looked like fun and soon it became a past-time. That was around the time people were captivated by the UFO and flying saucer hype.

Then, something clicked in Walter Frederick Morrison's brain who was then a building inspector in 1948.

The first plastic Frisbee was invented with his partner, Warren Fransiscioni. Although the partnership didn't pan out too long, Morrison proceeded with his Pluto Platter --- the first basic form of today's Frisbee. Wham-O toys liked what they saw and bought the rights from Morrison. Wanting a cooler sound for better marketing, they borrowed the name from the by-then defunct baker, proceeded to larger production and began the 50 -year old love affair with the world-famous flying disc that goes by the name of Frisbee.

Wham-O sold over one hundred million units before selling the toy to Mattel.

Morrison was awarded over one million dollars in royalties.

All these started because of William Russell Frisbie's pies in the 1870s :)