Page 17 - 201002 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - February 2010

February 2010_june_july_2009.qxd 18/02/2010 9:04 AM Page 17 Frisbee Inventor Passes Away! 17 Inventor of the 'Flying they replaced it with a tin pie plate. I have heard Saucer Toy,' the Frisbee, it called a cake pan also, but I prefer pie plate as a more accurate description. No doubt, fodder Passes Away! for academic ink, or a possible dissertation on this pie verse cake conundrum? That's important, but let's not get lost in by By John Kays a forest (cake) of pie-pans that take the cake for peculiarity (if you get my drift)? Oh, maybe we shall! Anyway, Mr. Morrison and his girl were flinging a pan on the beach one day, when a passerby marveled at the sport of the happy-go- lucky couple. The stupefied observer anxiously offered a quarter for a pan that cost just a nickel. The entrepreneurial angle comes into play at this juncture. Now that he saw that money could be made, Fred began in earnest refining the flying- cake-pan. I am not privy to these exact changes, I am most sorry for the passing of Fred but I do know that a little event popped up, Morrison, a genius-inventor of the caliber of WWII, and Fred Morrison became a fighter- greats such as Thomas Edison or Eli Whitney! Walter Frederick Morrison, 90, the bomber who was shot down over Italy. In the The popularity of the Frisbee will never die! It inventor of the Frisbee, died February 9th at his meantime Fred had married his easy-life-style will persist until Armageddon finally sweeps us Utah home. The Southern California toy partner, Lu Nay, and they nestled in Southern into the briny depths of the ocean blue. But as company, Wham-O, has sold more than 200 California, where he chose the trade of a we sink in the ocean depths we'll toss the private million Frisbees to date. "That simple little toy carpenter. flying saucer one last time to our soggy, salt- has permeated every continent in every country, Fred spent much of his spare time watered doggie who barks bubbles and spits as many homes have Frisbees as any other sketching designs for his 'saucer-toy,' refining greenie seaweed out on the briny bottom. device ever invented," says Morrison's attorney, its aerodynamics, a subject he seemed to be Fred Morrison is credited with two other Kay Mclff. knowledgeable about. The mechanics of the less popular invention-fads, his Crazy Eight Wham-O also sells such popular toys as 'Morrison Slope,' the outer third of the disc, Bowling Balls and his Popsicle Machine. I the Hula Hoop, the Water Wiggle and the Super must have been worked out at this time? vaguely remember these gadgets from my Ball. Fred Morrison signed a contract with Coincidentally, the UFO craze began around youth? Hopefully, Mattel is still making these Wham-O in 1957, essentially selling the rights this time, when flying discs in space were toys, because these could easily reap beaucoup of the 'Frisbee' for over a million dollars plus observed by many reputable citizens (not sales, in light of the passing of Fred Morrison. future royalties. quacks). You might recall that the 'Roswell But his claim to fame was summed up by his I would argue that a good amount of Incident' dates to 1947. The UFO craze is a biographer, Phil Kennedy. Morrison's royalties were awarded in the latter harbinger for the commerciality of the future "Fred's the one who thought of 1960s, when the 'Youth Movement' (often Frisbee, I will suggest. commercializing something that people had referred to as the Hippies) adapted the Frisbee The pivotal change in the 'Pluto Platter' been doing forever-picking up a round, flat as their official sport. Suddenly every longhair comes in the mid-1950s when a metal object is object and watching it sail." The Frisbee from Sacramento to Timbuktu was hanging out converted to plastic. I see this as Fred's most phenomenon was born. "It's a bird, it's a plane, their local park and spending hours throwing the significant innovation to the 'saucer-toy,' that no it's a Pluto Platter from Toys 'R' Us (my 'Pluto Platter' in the air for their faithful dog to makes a direct beeline to the Wham-O way)!" (CNN.com-Frisbee inventor dies at 90 catch. Dog participation is the centrifugal force knickknack that took meteoric-flight off dime- by Dan Gilgoff) in this new recreational sport. store shelves, throughout the 1960s! We're It's easy to get ourselves on dicey waters waddling in Frisbee-theory here, but it's when tracing the precise provenance of this necessary to capture the Zeitgeist: Tin to 'flying disc,' but I will provide a basic outline of Plastic! The birth of a miracle platter! the birth of this marvelous outdoor flying The Cats at Wham-O must be granted saucer. In order to quell many myths some credit here too. Rich Knerr and A. K. surrounding the Frisbee's invention, Fred 'Spud' Melin, the owners of Wham-O, signed Morrison co-authored a book with a historian, the deal with Morrison and did the needed Phil Kennedy, "Flat Flip Flies Straight! True marketing to make the product 'fly'. But Fred Origins of the Frisbee," published in 2006. (The got his patent (design patent 183,626) and a Washington Post-Fred Morrison, inventor of the good royalty deal, I must add. The toy partners Frisbee, dies at 90 by Emma Brown-2/12/2010) secured the groovy name from the Frisbie The intrinsic controversy lies with a Baking Company, which had shut down in Wham-O employee, Ed Headrick, who really 1958. (About.com-The First Flight of the refined the Frisbee in the 1960s to its current Frisbee by Mary Bellis.) design. Headrick's did away with the space Wham-O changed the spelling from theme and added concentric grooves that helped Frisbie to Frisbee, a smart way to avoid a to smooth out the disc in flight. I have frivolous lawsuit. The fifty year old Frisbee is personally observed a lack of wobble in the owned by Mattel nowadays. Not to downplay saucer as it descends and lands in the 'bowser the marketing sagacity of Rich Knerr and A. K. mouth,' who then happily fetches it back to his 'Spud' Melin, yet I must conjecture that the master for another spin. (The Washington Post- Frisbee was just a natural for the times that it ibid) was conceived in. It's sad to report that Ed Headrick's Suddenly the 'Hippies' had their own never received one dime in royalties. Oh stop sport of choice. Now Dudes could spend that! We go back in time now to 1937 now, countless hours at a local rundown park (with when Fred Morrison and his girlfriend, Lucile broken merry-go-rounds and shoddy swing "Lu" Nay, had some fun tossing a popcorn-tin sets) with their buddies, girlfriends and favorite around in the backyard on a Thanksgiving Day bow-wow, practicing disc-catching skills 'til the holiday. Once the popcorn-tin got too wasted, cows come home!