• MSNBC/ AP, Monday, June 18, 2007 11:15 AM

The inventor of the Frisbee, Walter "Fred" Morrison, thought that Wham-O Inc. was "insane" when it changed the name of his flying disc 50 years ago yesterday. He'd originally dubbed it the Pluto Platter.

Frisbee's name is a spinoff from the Frisbie Pie Co., a now-defunct Connecticut bakery. New England college students often tossed empty pie tins around for fun, a habit that led them to refer to the Pluto Platter as a "frisbie." Wham-O co-founders Rich Knerr and Arthur "Spud" Melin first obtained the marketing rights to Morrison's invention in January 1957.

Less than six months later, Knerr decided to embrace the nickname that the college kids had given the Pluto Platter. He evidently was unclear on how to spell frisbie, giving birth to a new word--and a trademark that is vigorously defended by Wham-O attorneys. Morrison, now 87, is still collecting royalties off the name he didn't really like. "It just goes to show I am a bad judge of names," he says.

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