Fred Morrison put his World War II experience as a fighter pilot to peaceful use by inventing what became known as the Frisbee.
Mr. Morrison, who died Tuesday at age 90, called his earliest flying disks "Whirlo-Way" and "Pluto Platter," to capitalize on the flying saucer craze of the 1950s.
But it wasn't until he licensed the invention to the Wham-O Manufacturing Co. in 1957 that sales took off. Wham-O rechristened the disks Frisbees and removed the flying-saucer-like portholes. Sales eventually reached the hundreds of millions, making it one of the most popular toys of the 20th century.
In the 1960s, the Frisbee became identified with the counter-culture and with movie stars like Richard Burton and Julie Andrews, who affirmed they were fans. The disks even inspired new sports, including Frisbee Golf and Ultimate.
"It is impossible to fathom the impact Fred Morrison has had on the world through the invention of such a simple object know as the Frisbee," said Kevin Givens, executive director of the World Flying Disc Federation.
Raised in Utah and California, Mr. Morrison began his fascination with flying disks as a teen, throwing popcorn lids and then cake pans on the Santa Monica beach. In a memoir, Mr. Morrison wrote that a stranger once offered to buy one of his pans for a quarter.
"At the time cake pans cost about a nickel," Mr. Morrison wrote. "A business was born!" Mr. Morrison's toy business was interrupted by World War II, during which he piloted bombers and fighters. He was shot down while flying a P-51 Mustang over Italy in 1945 and held as a POW. After the war, he used the knowledge he had gained in the Army Air Corps to design a more aerodynamic flying cake pan.
But the disks proved tough to sell, as no one knew how to throw them. The title of Mr. Morrison's memoir, "Flat Flip Flies Straight!" comes from the instructions that were embossed on the bottom of each Pluto Platter.
Mr. Morrison put on demonstrations at county fairs and department stores. Onlookers sometimes thought the disk's unusual flight pattern was caused by unseen wires.
Frustrated at the toy's unpopularity, Mr. Morrison patented the design, then licensed it to Wham-O, whose biggest hit to date had been a slingshot. The company renamed it Frisbee after an East Coast pie company whose tins had been popular toys among students.Mr. Morrison created a few more toys, including a water-filled bowling set, and worked on a battery-powered tomahawk. He raised quarter-horses on his ranch in Utah, and operated a small airport. "I never liked the name Frisbee," Mr. Morrison told Tim Walsh, author of the WHAM-O Super Book. "I thought it was stupid."