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^ That's Walter Frederick "Fred" Morrison demonstrating his "Pluto Platter" flying disc in the mid-50's. Morrison had first had the idea for a flying disc toy in '37, at the age of 17, while throwing a popcorn can lid with his girlfriend, Lu, at a Thanksgiving Day picnic (source). Those lids dented easily, but they found that cake pans flew better, and were more durable; the two soon had a small business going selling "Flyin' Cake Pans" for 25 cents a pop.
Back from flying fighter planes in WWII, Morrison came up with the first dedicated flying disc design in '46 ("Whirlo-Way"), and by the early '50's, had his first disc, the "Flyin' Saucer," which he sold at fairs. In '55, he and Lu, now his wife, created another disc, the "Pluto Platter," which Morrison can be seen demonstrating in the photo above; the name was intended to cash in on the UFO craze.
From the looks of the old photos,
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Morrison was quite the inventive and enthusiastic marketer of the Platters. But just a few years later, in '57, he sold the marketing rights to the Wham-O toy company. Morrison would produce several others inventions for the company, but he didn't approve of the new name they came up with for the Pluto Platter later in '57: they'd seen college students in Connecticut (Yale appears to take the credit) playing catch with pie tins from the Frisbie Pie Company
image by Doug Coldwell (source)
--the name "Frisbie" was popular among the students. Apparently wishing to cash in on that youthful vibe, Wham-O decided to rename the Pluto Platter to the copyright-avoiding respelling, "Frisbee"--and the rest, as they say, is history.
Morrison won the patent for the disc's design in '58, and continued to be an enthusiast for another fifty-some years, if this Wham-O publicity photo of him tossing a Frisbee in 2006 is a fair representative of his activities. He passed away in 2010, at the age of 90.
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