Fred Morrison launched his leisure lifestyle with his amazing plastic flying saucers.
His contributions to global recreation came to prominence after he escaped death by piloting a steel missile over Europe during World War II.
Morrison, a Southern California Beach Boy, first named the spinning disc the “Flying Cake Pan,” then the “Whirlwind,” and today it is known worldwide as the Frisbee.
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“It became an instant phenomenon,” Tristan Lin, brand director for Wham-O, told Fox News Digital.
“Before we knew it, all the college students in America were playing Frisbee.”
It shows Frisbee inventor Walter Frederick Morrison promoting the Pluto Platter, the precursor to the Frisbee. (Connecticut State Library/Public Domain)
California-based Wham-O popularized a variety of wacky inventions, including the hula hoop, the Superball and the Morrison’s Frisbee.
The great thing about Frisbees is “their simplicity,” Lin said.
“It was an instant phenomenon.”
Morrison was actually inspired by the simple act of tossing a baking pan into the air, a popular recreational activity before Frisbees became flying.
“The Frisbee was nothing more than a vessel for carrying the pie,” reports Illumina Magazine, an online engineering publication from the University of Southern California, which analyzed the flying disc’s physical properties.
Emma, a Border Collie, catches a Frisbee during the “Freestyle Flying Disc” competition at the Purina Pro Plan Incredible Dog Challenge on June 8, 2018 in Huntington Beach, California. (Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images)
“Eventually it became a very popular and internationally recognised toy.”
The Frisbee has proven to be more than just a plastic toy: it’s a symbol of a confident, optimistic, victorious America.
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“To me, the Frisbee represents America,” says Wham-O’s Lynn. “It represents patriotism. It represents American culture and creativity, and it represents America as a laid-back, playful, yet competitive world.”
After the horrors of war, there was something that motivated America’s war heroes to bring happiness to America.
The Frisbee has proven to be more than just a plastic toy: it’s a symbol of a confident, optimistic, victorious America. (iStock)
Morrison’s story overlaps strikingly with that of another combat hero, pilot Frederick Arnold, the American inventor of the folding beach chair.
Kick the can in the air
Walter Frederick Morrison was born on January 23, 1920, in rural Litchfield, Utah.
His father, Dr. Walter F. Morrison, moved his optometry practice and family to Los Angeles when the future toy giant was just 11 years old.
During the Great Depression, even the most ordinary objects offered opportunities for play. The origins of the Frisbee can be traced back to an aerial version of kick the can.
Four young friends jump for a Frisbee on Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio on July 28, 2015. (Angelo Merendino/Corbis via Getty Images)
“The story of the Frisbee began in college,” wrote the National Museum of Play, which inducted the plastic Wave-and-Sand flying disc into its Toy Hall of Fame in 1988.
“In the late 19th century, students at Yale and other New England universities played catch with pie plates made by the Frisbee Baking Company in nearby Bridgeport, Connecticut. They would yell ‘Frisbee!’ to warn passersby to stay away from the spinning disc.”
The campus tradition began in 1937 on the sunny beaches of Southern California.
According to a popular industry legend, a teenage Morrison was tossing around a five-cent cake mold with his girlfriend, Lucille, when another sunbather approached him and offered to buy the mold from him for 25 cents.
Model, author and actress Rachel McCord holds a Frisbee in Los Angeles, California on July 30, 2016. (TSM/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)
The couple quickly realized the profit potential.
“Soon the ‘Flying Cake Pan’ was available on beaches and in parks throughout Los Angeles,” Phil Kennedy wrote in an online article about Morrison’s life.
In 2006, Kennedy co-authored the book “Flat Flip Flies Straight!: True Origins of the Frisbee,” with the inventor himself.
The couple quickly realized the profit potential.
Sales from the disc “provided enough money for a date and, eventually, wedding rings. Fred and Lou got hitched.”
The war separated them, and Morrison enlisted in the Army Air Corps, flying P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bombers in World War II.
“The P-47 was a huge aircraft,” notes the National WWII Museum, which notes that the five-ton warplane “carried three tons of fuel, bombs, and ammunition.”
Republic P-47B Thunderbolt, believed to be the fastest fighter plane flown during World War II. (Getty Images)
He survived 58 stressful consecutive missions before a chain of skill and good fortune ran out.
He was shot down in Italy and captured by the Germans.
“He was held prisoner for more than a month but survived,” The Saturday Evening Post wrote in a 2021 chronicle of Frisbee.
“After the war ended and he returned home, Morrison’s thoughts returned to making handmade leaflets.”
Luck comes from space
The mechanics of throwing a Frisbee have been familiar to humans for thousands of years.
“Humans have been throwing flat, round objects since the dawn of time, initially out of curiosity to see something float in the air against gravity and because it was fun,” wrote Morrison’s co-author Kennedy.
Depicts the ancient Greek discus throwing event. Colored engraving by Heinrich Reutemann (1824-1905). (Stefano Bianchetti/Corbis via Getty Images)
“Later, people discovered that flying objects could also be used as weapons, so they began to perform feats and organized sports, such as the discus throw at the early Greek Olympic Games,” he added.
Morrison takes the old spiral missile and infuses it with the entrepreneurial spirit of post-World War II America, squeezing wealth out of leisure.
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Since his 1937 revelation, Morrison has studied the science of gliding at the U.S. government’s Survival School and gained profound wisdom.
“His flying experience gave him new insights [into] “The aerodynamics of flight…and after leaving the military, I had new inspiration to pick up where I left off,” Kennedy wrote.
Morrison first introduced a new disc in 1946, the pressed metal Whirlo-Way, which was soon replaced by lighter discs made possible by advances in plastics.
Pictured above is Jesse Marcel, the Chief Intelligence Officer who first investigated the Roswell UFO site and recovered some of the wreckage. From the Corsicana Daily Sun, July 9, 1947. (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
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“It’s hard to imagine now, but in 1946 flying saucers didn’t exist… at least not anything by that name,” reports the Flying Disc Museum, a Phoenix, Arizona-based repository of Frisbee history and lore.
“It represents American culture and creativity, and a laid-back, playful yet competitive America.”
Pilot Ken Arnold claimed to have seen a flying object over Washington state in June 1947. That summer, Roswell, New Mexico, became a center of UFO conspiracy theories.
The emerging American mass media named this aerial phenomenon “flying saucers.”
Another emerging country Consumer Culture He was obsessed with flying saucers, but was portrayed in popular culture as being very similar to Morrison’s “Whirlo-Way.”
He renamed his improved version the “Fly-in Saucer,” and then in 1955 named his groundbreaking new design the “Pluto Platter.”
Depicted as flying saucers, UFOs became a pop culture phenomenon after World War II. (iStock)
After many business twists and turns, the war hero celebrated his 37th birthday on January 23, 1957, by signing a contract with toy marketing giant Wham!0.
Wham-O reportedly renamed the bread Frisbee after being inspired by the Frisbee Baking Company frying pans that Yale students were tossing around the Connecticut campus.
Morrison said he “hated” the name, and royalties were paid.
By the mid-1960s, Wham-O had reportedly sold 100 million Frisbees.
‘Clear connection’ to World War II pilot, inventor
Walter Frederick “Fred” Morrison passed away at his home in Monroe, Utah on February 9, 2010, after a battle with cancer and old age. He was 90 years old.
When he died, it became an international story.
Frisbee inventor Fred Morrison with an unknown woman during a promotional shoot for the Wham-O Frisbee. From “The Wham-O Superbook: 70 Years of Fun” by Tim Walsh. (Tim Walsh/Wham-O)
“That simple little toy has spread to every country on every continent and the Frisbee is in more homes than any other toy ever invented,” Morrison’s lawyer, Kay McQuiff, told The Associated Press in an obituary published around the world.
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“How can you go through your adolescence without learning how to throw a Frisbee?”
The Pluto Platter was an early version of the Frisbee by inventor Fred Morrison. The name was inspired by the public’s post-World War II obsession with UFOs. The mysterious objects were referred to in popular culture as flying saucers and were depicted as closely resembling Morrison’s UFOs. From “The Wham-O Superbook: 70 Years of Fun” by Tim Walsh. (Tim Walsh/Wham-O)
Morrison’s wartime and postwar story bears a striking resemblance to that of another architect of the postwar American lifestyle: Frederick Arnold, the American inventor of the folding beach chair.
Both were named Fred. Both flew amphibious chase planes, Arnold in a P-38. Both miraculously survived more than 50 horrific combat missions. Both were shot down and sent to prison camps in Germany.
To read other articles in Fox News Digital’s unique “Meet the American Who…” series, click here.
Fred Morrison and Fred Arnold shared the same birthday: Frisbee Fred was born on January 23, 1920. Folding Chair Fred was born on January 23, 1922.
Fred Morrison, center, first invented the recreational flying disc during the Great Depression, but it wasn’t until he had flown 58 combat missions in World War II that he realized the benefits. (TSM/Bauer Griffin/GC Images, Tim Walsh/Wham-O, Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images)
Both men came up with their inventions on the beach with the women they married.
“There’s an obvious connection between the two of them,” Mark Arnold said of his father and Morrison after Fox News Digital reported on the similarities between the two men.
The Xi’an Sport University V7 team (blue shirts) will face the Xi’an Terracotta Warriors-RJM team in the opening match of China’s first national Ultimate Frisbee League on August 6, 2022. (Zhang Yichen/China News Agency via Getty Images)
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“I think they were trying to build a new reality beyond the horror of the war. After surviving that genocide, I think they thought, ‘If there’s no joy and opportunity on the other side, then what’s the point of living?'”
