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Frat-house frolics turned a nationwide obsession when Wham-O Manufacturing Co. of California started producing the Pluto Platter — quickly renamed the Frisbee — on this day in historical past, Jan. 23, 1957.
“The Frisbee started off as nothing more than a container that carried pies,” reported University of Southern California on-line engineering publication Illumin Magazine, which analyzed the physics and historical past of the toy.
“However, through the ingenuity of some college students, the inventiveness of Fred Morrison, and the marketing savvy of the Wham-O Manufacturing Company, it eventually became an immensely popular and internationally recognized toy.”
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Two USC alums, Arthur “Spud” Mellin and Richard Knerr, created Wham-O. They are additionally identified for popularizing the Hula-Hoop.
The origin of the Frisbee dates again many years earlier than Wham-O arrived on the scene.
The toy’s odd historical past is a testomony to the flexibility of Americans to reap success from seemingly mundane alternative.
Rachel McCord is seen enjoying Frisbee on July 30, 2016, in Los Angeles, California. The unique Frisbee, known as the Flying Saucer, was launched in 1948 by Southern California entrepreneur Fred Morrison. (TSM/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)
“The Frisbee story begins in school,” writes the National Museum of Play, which inducted the plastic surf-and-sand flying disc into its Toy Hall of Fame in 1988.
“Late 19th-century students at Yale and other New England universities played catch with pie plates … made by the nearby Frisbie Baking Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut. They yelled ‘Frisbie!’ to warn passersby away from the spinning discs.”
“Late 19th-century students at Yale played catch with pie plates … made by the nearby Frisbie Baking Company.” — National Museum of Play
The exercise unfold to campuses and seashores across the nation.
California entrepreneur Walter Frederick Morrison was struck by the thought of promoting flying discs in 1937 when, in line with business lore, anyone at a seashore in Santa Barbara provided him 25 cents for a pie plate that he was flinging round together with his wife-to-be Lucille.
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Pie pans on the time price solely 5 cents, in line with a historical past of the invention in The Saturday Evening Post.
Morrison instantly noticed the revenue potential.
World War II, nonetheless, interrupted his plans.
“Morrison served as an Army Air Force fighter pilot,” in line with The Saturday Evening Post account.
A canine grabs a Frisbee on the seashore of La Grande Plage in Biarritz, southwestern France, on Oct. 18, 2022. (GAIZKA IROZ/AFP through Getty Images)
“His P-47 Thunderbolt was shot down over Italy and he was held as a POW for over a month, but he survived. After the war ended and he returned home, Morrison’s thoughts turned back to his homemade flyer.”
His expertise as a pilot fueled his data and curiosity in aerodynamics.
He started work to maximise the potential flying distance of the toy.
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The nation, in the meantime, was gripped after World War II by UFO fever. It started when a pilot named Kenneth Arnold claims to have seen alien craft over Washington state in 1947.
“Arnold reported seeing nine discrete flying objects zipping about the mountain peaks,” stories the web site of Foreign Policy journal.
California entrepreneur Walter Frederick Morrison was struck by the thought to market flying discs in 1937.
“He described them as silvery or metallic, fast, and appearing to be intelligently controlled … When he landed, he told his colleagues. Then he told the press. Arnold’s sighting was followed by a series of copycat sightings.”
The first now-famous stories of alien craft in Roswell, New Mexico got here simply weeks after the sightings by Arnold.
A bunch of protesters march in entrance of the General Accounting Office (GAO) in Washington, D.C., to boost consciousness about an examination being performed by the GAO for paperwork a few climate balloon crash at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. The protesters consider the balloon was a crashed UFO. (JOSHUA ROBERTS/AFP through Getty Images)
Morrison launched his new toy in 1948 and dubbed it — sure, the Flying Saucer.
“Wham-O founders Arthur ‘Spud’ Melin and Richard Knerr … bought rights to the toy in 1955, and renamed it ‘Frisbee’ in 1958,” writes the Museum of Play.
Wham-O fueled the recognition of the Frisbee with an excellent advertising effort that turned toy into sport.
“Sales soared, reaching 100 million before Mattel bought out Wham-O. Early in the 1960s, people treated the flying disc as a counterculture sport.”
Wham-O fueled the recognition of the Frisbee with an excellent advertising effort that turned toy into sport.
“The early years of flying disc play were dominated by the influence of the International Frisbee Association, which was a promotional arm of Wham-O Manufacturing Company,” stories the World Flying Disc Federation — the existence of which alone is proof of the product’s success.
Team Xi’an Physical Education University V7 (in blue shirt) competes towards Team Xi’an Terra-Cotta Warriors-RJM in the opener of China’s first National Ultimate Frisbee League on Aug. 6, 2022, in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province. (Zhang Yichen/China News Service through Getty Images)
The group contains 103 member associations, representing flying disc sports activities, together with Ultimate Frisbee and seashore golf, and the sports activities’ athletes, in greater than 100 nations, in line with its web site.
Rutgers and Princeton performed the first intercollegiate Ultimate Frisbee competitors on Nov. 6, 1972 — 103 years to the day after the identical two New Jersey faculties performed the first school soccer sport.
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Some toy business sources estimate that extra Frisbees have been bought than there are residents of the United States right this moment, and that greater than 90% of Americans have thrown round a Frisbee sooner or later. That would make it the most well-liked participation exercise in the nation.
China seems to be the subsequent frontier for Frisbee.
Disc sports activities have skyrocketed in recognition in the Communist nation in current years.
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“The next two years will be the rapid growth stage of China’s Frisbee industry,” Frisbee knowledgeable Xue Zhixing informed China Daily, the Chinese authorities’s official English-language information outlet, in August.
“The supply side, such as sports fields and Frisbee-related products, should be fully prepared, and primary and secondary schools and universities are expected to be the possible future highland for the industry.”
For extra Lifestyle articles, go to www.foxnews.com/way of life.
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