Fred Morrison, Creator of a Popular Flying Plate, Dies at 90

NY Times Obit:

Walter Fredrick Morrison, who at 17 sent the lid of a popcorn tin skimming through the air of a California backyard and as an adult remade the lid in plastic, in the process inventing the simple, elegant flying disc known today as the Frisbee, died Tuesday at his home in Monroe, Utah. He was 90.

Beloved of man and dog, the Frisbee has for more than half a century been the signature product of Wham-O, a toy and sporting-goods manufacturer based in Emeryville, Calif. The company has sold more than 200 million of the discs since acquiring the rights to Mr. Morrison's PlutoPlatter, as it was then known, in 1957.

Wham-O changed the name to Frisbee in 1958, influenced by the Frisbie Pie Company in Connecticut, whose tins Yale students hurled for sport.

[see attached picture from National Toy Museum in Rochester, NY]

full @ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/us/13morrison.html

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