Frisbee: Cash Cow for Wham-O!

Was there ever an invention that required less actual thinking than the Frisbee?

Don’t get me wrong. I love the flying disc and am merely jealous that I wasn’t the one to cash in.

The Frisbee is 55 today—as this was the day in 1957 that new toy company Wham-O started turning out the plastic flying saucers. America has been buying them and losing them in lakes and trees ever since.

A little background is in order. William Frisbie opened a bakery in Bridgeport, Connecticut back in the 1870’s—fast-forward to the forties and it appears that nearby university students were flinging his pie plates around, screaming “Frisbie!” as they did!
Walter Frederick Morrison and his partner then created a plastic version and sold it to Wham-O as the “Pluto Platter”, trying to cash in on the public’s craze with outer space and UFO’s.

Wham-O renamed the disc “Frisbee” in honor of the pie company (even though they misspelled the name) The company that gave us the Hula Hoop and the Super Ball now had another hit on their hands.

Check out this old TV ad for Frisbee:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3rXoJdu_Ek

That’s hilarious—and the profits were ridiculous. Over 100 million of the discs were sold by 1977—and in the process, a new sport was born.

Variations of Frisbee competition, from Frisbee Golf to Ultimate Frisbee have proven that the appeal is still very much alive.

Although up to sixty manufacturers produce a flying disc, the official “Frisbee” brand is owned by Mattel, which bought the toy from Wham-O in 1994.

Something so simple---yet so much fun. And so darn lucrative, too!

If you’d like my blog in your box, just let me know: tim.moore@cumulus.com