Truly sad news, sports fans. The inventor of the Frisbee, Walter Frederick Morrison, has died at the age of 90 at his home in Utah. Aside from a plain ol’ ball, has there ever been a more universal toy?
The Frisbee, which is technically a brand name, was originally called the Pluto Putter, and was first released in 1948. Morrison sold the rights to the disc in 1957 to Wham-O.
If blogs were around back then, you’d be seeing stories like: “Say goodbye to your free time: Hands-On With Wham-O’s new Frisbee toy.”
As always, necessity is the mother of invention (a claim I dispute, but it fits so well here): Morrison was trying to devise ways to better throw cake pans on a California beach. Thus resulted the Frisbee.
Morrison seems to have lived a pretty fulfilling life, too. He was a pilot in the Air Force in the Second World War, which is certsinly more than I can say; I play WoW when not doing CG.
And what’s with the name, Frisbee? Turns out that what college kids were calling the Pluto Putter, naming it after a local New England pie shop.
