History Of Frisbee | Who Invented Frisbee?

Who invented Frisbee? Many inventions only have one or two inventors but in the case of Frisbee, there are many claims or stories behind its invention. Today’s Frisbee evolved from Frisbie Baking Company’s pie tins. Some say that college students in New England played with the empty pie tins by tossing and catching it. For a clearer history of Frisbee, here are some of the highlights.

1820 – There was an undergrad Yale student named Elihu Frisbie who played with tray collections by tossing them around the campus. According to some people, ‘Frisbee’ was coined from Elihu’s last name; the ‘ie’ of Frisbie was changed to ‘ee’ and became Frisbee. Although this was the most approved claim, it still met lots of protest.

1871-1958 – as mentioned earlier, Frisbee was also believed to have originated from Frisbie Baking Company. The name of this company was engraved on the pie tins they delivered to the campuses of New England. Frisbee is then derived from the name of the pie company. Many college students loved the pies and after they consume the pies, they play with the empty tins by tossing and catching them. Many students found the game very funny and exciting and so it became very popular in many campuses in New England.

1948 – Two of the fans of the ‘pie tins’ made a plastic version and they called it Pluto-platter. It was sold as a toy in the market and it gained a lot of sales since UFOs were also quite popular that time. The persons responsible for creating the plastic version of the Frisbee were Warren Franscioni and Walter Frederick Morrison. However, Franscioni left and it was only Morrison who pursued the project. Many people thought that the Pluto-platter was far better than the pie tins and so they patronized it. Besides, the new toy flew higher than the pie tins and it exhibited speed and accuracy. Soon, Morrison had his toy patented and named it the ‘Morrison Slope’.

1955 – A hula hoop manufacturer, Wham-O, convinced Morrison to sell his design and rights to the toy.

1957 – By this year, Wham-O started to produce the Pluto-platter

1958 – The pie company, Frisbie Baking Company, closed or shut down; in the same year, Morrison was able to collect millions of dollars for his design

1964 – The sales of the Pluto-platter went down and so Wham-O decided to rename it and then re-introduce it to the market as a new toy. The company found out about the story of the Frisbee and so they decided to introduce the toy as a new sports game and called it ‘frisbei-ing’. The players of the game called it Frisbee.

At present, there are already different kinds of Frisbee and Ultimate Frisbee is just one of them. Ultimate Frisbee came from ‘frisbei-ing’.

So you see, Frisbee has undergone a lot of changes and modifications. There is no specific inventor of the game or sport because it was created through the joint efforts of various individuals and companies. The years 1820 to 1964 are quite significant because it is within these years when Frisbee was being conceptualized.

Frisbee is a very exciting game and it helps to know who created or invented it. The game will not exist today if one of the companies or individuals is missing. Thanks to their joint efforts, people today have a healthy and challenging sport to play.

Warning: include(twpauctions.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/ultimate/public_html/history-of-frisbee/who-invented-frisbee.php on line 157

Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening 'twpauctions.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/ultimate/public_html/history-of-frisbee/who-invented-frisbee.php on line 157