Editing Frisbee (section)

==History==
[[File:Person throwing flying disc.jpg|thumb|A flying disc in flight]]
[[File:Frisbee Catch- Fcb981.jpg|thumb|A flying disc being caught]]
Frisbees were invented in the late 1930s by the American inventor [[Walter Frederick Morrison]]. Morrison and his future wife Lucile had fun tossing a popcorn can lid after a Thanksgiving Day dinner in 1937. They soon discovered a market for a light-duty flying disc when they were offered 25 cents ({{Inflation|US|0.25|1937|fmt=eq}}) for a [[cake pan]] that they were tossing back and forth on a beach near [[Los Angeles]].<ref name="History" /> In 2007, in an interview in ''[[The Virginian-Pilot]]'' newspaper, Morrison compared that with the 5 cents ({{Inflation|US|0.05|1937|fmt=eq}}) it cost back then: {{quote|"That got the wheels turning, because you could buy a cake pan for five cents, and if people on the beach were willing to pay a quarter for it, well—there was a business."<ref name="VP">{{cite news |title=50 years later, Frisbee still flying high |url=http://hamptonroads.com/node/272111 |access-date=2013-07-28 |newspaper=The Virginian-Pilot |first=Earl |last=Swift |date=2007-05-27 |archive-date=2016-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307095419/http://hamptonroads.com/node/272111 |url-status=dead }}</ref>}}

The Morrisons continued their business until [[World War II]], when Walter served in the Army Air Force flying [[P-47 Thunderbolt|P-47s]], and then was a prisoner of war.<ref name="VP" /> After the war, Morrison sketched a design for an aerodynamically improved flying disc that he called the Whirlo-Way,<ref name="History" /> after [[Whirlaway|the famous racehorse]]. He and business partner Warren Franscioni began producing the first plastic discs by 1948, after design modifications and experimentation with several prototypes. They renamed them the "Flyin-Saucer" in the wake of reported [[Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting|unidentified flying object sightings]].<ref name="VP" />

"We worked fairs, demonstrating it," Morrison told the ''Virginian-Pilot''. The two of them once overheard someone saying that the pair were using wires to make the discs hover,<ref name="VP" /> so they developed a sales pitch: "The Flyin' Saucer is free, but the invisible wire is $1.00." ({{Inflation|US|1.00|1948|fmt=eq}})<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jftapGDTmYUC&q=frisbee%2520%2522the%2520flyin%2520saucer%2520is%2520free%2522&pg=PA138 |title=Timeless Toys: Classic Toys and the Playmakers Who Created Them |last=Walsh |first=Tim |date=October 2005 |publisher=Andrews McMeel Publishing |isbn=9780740755712 |page=138 |language=en}}</ref> "That's where we learned we could sell these things," he said, because people were enthusiastic about them.<ref name="VP" />

Morrison and Franscioni ended their partnership in early 1950,<ref name="VP" /> and Morrison formed his own company in 1954 called American Trends to buy and sell "Flyin Saucers" (no hyphen after 1953), which were being made of a flexible polypropylene plastic by Southern California Plastics, the original molder.<ref name="History">{{cite web |url=http://www.flatflip.com/downloads/A%20Short%20History%20of%20the%20Frisbee.pdf |title=The History of the Frisbee |first=Phil |last=Kennedy |publisher=Wormhole Publishers |access-date=January 19, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201035359/http://www.flatflip.com/downloads/A%20Short%20History%20of%20the%20Frisbee.pdf |archive-date=December 1, 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref> He discovered that he could produce his own disc more cheaply, and he designed a new model in 1955 called the Pluto Platter, the archetype of all modern flying discs. He sold the rights to Wham-O on January 23, 1957.<ref name="History" />{{efn|It is often mistakenly reported that the company began producing Frisbees on this date,<ref name="Time">{{cite magazine |url=https://time.com/3667058/frisbee-history/ |title=How Frisbees Got Off the Ground |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |first=Jennifer |last=Latson |date=January 23, 2015 |access-date=January 19, 2019 }}</ref> but production did not actually begin until a few months later.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://ultiworld.com/livewire/day-wham-o-produces-first-frisbees-1957/ |title=On This Day: Wham-O Acquires Rights to Frisbee in 1957 {{!}} Livewire |last=Eisenhood |first=Charlie |date=January 23, 2017 |website=Ultiworld |access-date=January 19, 2019 }}</ref>}}

In June 1957, Wham-O co-founders [[Richard Knerr]] and Arthur "Spud" Melin gave the disc the brand name "Frisbee" after learning college students were calling the Pluto Platter by that term,<ref name="CTV20070616">{{cite news |title='Frisbee' Marks 50th Anniversary of Name Change |url=https://www.ctvnews.ca/frisbee-marks-50th-anniversary-of-name-change-1.245188 |publisher=[[CTVglobemedia]] |date=June 16, 2007 |access-date=June 19, 2007 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071101053740/http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070616/frisbee_070616/20070616?hub=TopStories |archive-date=November 1, 2007 }}</ref> which was derived from the Connecticut-based pie manufacturer [[Frisbie Pie Company]],<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/12/frisbee.morrison.obit/?hpt=T2 |publisher=CNN |title=Frisbee Inventor Dies at 90 - CNN.com |access-date=May 2, 2010 |date=February 12, 2010}}</ref> a supplier of pies to [[Yale University]], where students had started a campus craze tossing empty pie tins stamped with the company's logo—the way Morrison and his wife had in 1937.<ref name="VP" />

[[File:Professional Model Frisbee Canadian Open 1972.jpg|thumb|The first Frisbee (Professional Model) to be produced as a sport disc with the first disc sport tournament identification, the 1972 [[Ken Westerfield#The Canadian Open and the first Frisbee freestyle competition|Canadian Open Frisbee Championships]] in Toronto.]]
In November 1957, the Frisbee was featured in what may be the first rock musical ever performed, ''Anything & Everything'', written by Ted Nelson. The game of Frisbee (spelled Frisby) is described in the song "Friz Me the Frisby," as a Frisbee was passed among stooges in the audience. The scene was expressly intended as a way to introduce the game to the audience.<ref name="Script for first rock musical, 1957 by Ted Nelson">{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/a-e-script-1958/mode/2up|title=Script for first rock musical, 1957|date=November 22, 1957}}</ref>

In 1964, [[Ed Headrick]] was hired as Wham-O's general manager and vice president of marketing. Headrick redesigned the Pluto Platter by reworking the mold, mainly to remove the names of the planets, but fortuitously increasing the rim thickness and mass in the process, creating a more controllable disc that could be thrown with higher accuracy.<ref>{{cite book |last=Morrison |first=Fred |author-link=Walter Frederick Morrison |author2=Phil Kennedy |title=Flat Flip Flies Straight! True Origins of the Frisbee |date=January 2006 |publisher=Wormhole Publishers |location=Wethersfield, CT |isbn=978-0-9774517-4-6 |oclc=233974379}} Fred Morrison: "Headrick had an eye for product design.... The "New Look" contributed mightily to its phenomenal success."</ref>

[[File:Headrick Frisbee Ashes 001.jpg|thumb|A memorial disc containing some of the ashes of Ed Headrick, on display at ''[[Ripley's Believe It or Not!]]'', London.]]
Wham-O changed their marketing strategy to promote Frisbee use as a new sport, and sales increased. In 1964, the first professional model went on sale. Headrick patented its design; it featured raised ridges (the "Rings of Headrick") that were claimed to stabilize flight.<ref name="About980218">{{cite web| url = http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa980218.htm| archive-url = https://archive.today/20120714133547/http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa980218.htm| url-status = dead| archive-date = July 14, 2012| title = The First Flight of the Frisbee: The History of the Frisbee}}</ref>

Headrick became known as the father of Frisbee sports;<ref>{{cite book |last=Malafronte |first=Victor A. |editor=F. Davis Johnson |others=Rachel Forbes (illus.) |title=The Complete Book of Frisbee: The History of the Sport & the First Official Price Guide |year=1998 |publisher=American Trends Publishing Company |location=Alameda, Cal. |isbn=0-9663855-2-7 |oclc=39487710 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/completebookoffr00mala }}</ref> he founded the [[International Frisbee Association]] and appointed Dan Roddick as its head. Roddick began establishing North American Series (NAS) tournament standards for various Frisbee sports, such as [[Flying disc freestyle|Freestyle]], [[Guts (flying disc game)|Guts]], [[Double Disc Court]], and overall events.<ref>{{cite web|title=History of Frisbee sport and Flying Disc freestyle|work=Formative Years|date=May 11, 2017|url=http://www.freestyledisc.org/freestyle-history/#chapter2|access-date=September 26, 2017}}</ref> Headrick later helped to develop the sport of disc golf, which was first played with Frisbees and later with more aerodynamic beveled-rim discs, by inventing standardized targets called "pole holes".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/14/obituaries/14HEAD.html |title=Ed Headrick, Designer of the Modern Frisbee, Dies at 78 |newspaper=New York Times|access-date=June 14, 2002}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.discgolf.com/how-to-play-disc-golf/disc-golf-history/ |title=The History of Disc Golf |date=October 30, 2001 |publisher=Discgolf.com|access-date=December 27, 2011}}</ref> When Headrick died, he was cremated, and his ashes were molded into memorial discs and given to family and close friends<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.businessinsider.com/inventors-whose-ashes-stored-in-their-inventions-2016-2|title=7 innovators who had their ashes turned into their obsessions|website=[[Business Insider]]}}</ref> and sold to benefit The Ed Headrick Memorial Museum.<ref>[http://www.discgolf.com/disc-golf-discs/steady-ed-memorial-discs/ Steady Ed Memorial Discs] Disc Golf Association</ref>

In 1998, the Frisbee was inducted into the [[National Toy Hall of Fame]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://wham-o.com/brands/frisbee_disc.html |title=Wham-O Frisbee Disc |access-date=2015-05-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150530150849/http://www.wham-o.com/brands/frisbee_disc.html |archive-date=2015-05-30 |url-status=dead |author=Wham-O |date=2015 }}</ref> In addition, many championships have sprung up around the world and the sport has become very popular, with nine-time champion Miguel Larrañaga from Spain being the leading exponent of frisbee throwing.