Utah inventor sent the Frisbee soaring

Pie plates. A popcorn tin. Aerodynamics. Plastics. Fun. Somehow, they all came together to create one of America's favorite toys: the Frisbee.

You could say the story began in 1871, when a man named William Russell Frisbie started a pie bakery in Bridgeport, Conn. Or, in 1915, when his descendant, Joe, built a larger factory — big enough that his workers had some free time and reportedly began throwing empty pie plates around.

Or, a few years later when that catch-and-toss practice had spread not only to nearby Yale, but to other college campuses in the Northeast. As Tim Walsh notes in his book "Timeless Toys," "college kids embraced the new pastime.

"Along with the Frisbie pie tins, other forms of flying disks emerged from everyday household items. Metal cookie-can covers soared but were more than a little scary to catch. Cardboard ice cream-container lids and woven paper-plate holders weren't as dangerous, but both were so light they couldn't sail very far."

That was the state of things when a man named Walter Frederick Morrison, born in Richfield, Utah, but then living in California, enters the story.

During a Thanksgiving Day family picnic in 1937, Morrison and his girlfriend, Lu Nay (later his wife), began throwing the lid of a large popcorn tin back and forth and apparently Morrison discovered a passion that would fuel his future.

They found that the popcorn tin soon dented, which led to their discovery that cake pans flew better. Soon they began selling them on the Santa Monica, Calif., beaches for 25 cents each.

During World War II, Morrison learned something about aerodynamics as a bomber pilot. And during his incarceration as a POW in the infamous Stalag 13, his thoughts returned often to his beach outings and to perfecting a design for a better flying device.

After the war, Morrison teamed up with another former pilot named Warren Franscioni, and they hit on the idea of using the new post-war plastics as a lightweight but strong substitute for metal. Their first design was dubbed the Whirlo-Way.

As the nation became taken with the idea of invading space aliens and UFOs, the men changed their product to a "Flyin' Saucer."

They sold some to stores, but as Walsh notes, "the Flyin' Saucer had to be seen to be believed," so they began demonstrating it wherever they could find a crowd, taking it to fairs and other gatherings across the country. Still, it was slow to take off.