Ahhh, Frisbees. Close your eyes, and you can picture yourself on the beach, the sun in your hair, the sand between your toes, tossing a Frisbee to Gay Talese.
Gay Talese! The name rings a bell, right? He's a....a....Who is he?
Gay Talese (so-named when "gay" just meant "happy") was a writer and journalist in the 1950's who pioneered what is sometimes called the "new journalism". He wrote a lot for the New York Times.
So what's the connection between him and Frisbees? More on that in a minute.
College kids have apparently been tossing pie tins at one another for the longest time, but it took some real marketing savvy to turn this idle time activity into a national fad with a cool name...Frisbee.
And it happened fast. The Wham-O company holds the trademark on Frisbee, and the official records show the name first used on June 17, 1957 (19570617...and first used in commerce on July 8th).
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I don't know who Wham-O's marketing guy was back in 1957, but give that man a raise!. Despite an official "First use" on June 17, we found a FirstMention on June 16, 1957, in a New York Times article (with a June 14 dateline, no less) about a wild fete at Princeton University
Frisbees must have caught on like wild fire as one of the fastest fads in history, In a few months they were everywhere, like this August NY Times article written by (guess who!) Gay Talese