The Frisbie Pie Company is an American pie company located in Bridgeport,

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...

. It was founded in 1871 by William Russell Frisbie in Bridgeport,

, when he bought and renamed a branch of the Olds Baking Company. The company was located on Kossuth Street in Bridgeport's East Side, where workers would toss around the pie tins while on their breaks. The activity made its way to nearby college campuses.

The "skilled person" theory of origin

It has been noted by the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...

that Frisbie supplied

pies A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), sweet ...

to many Connecticut retailers and restaurants, including the Middlebury College campus. Middlebury students discovered that the pie tins, inverted, had an airfoil shape which enabled them to be thrown, with practice, in various trajectories.

Commercialization

The name Frisbie was picked up by

Wham-O Wham-O Inc. is an American toy company based in Carson, California, United States. It is known for creating and marketing many popular toys for nearly 70 years, including the Hula hoop, Frisbee, Slip 'N Slide, Super Ball, Trac-Ball, Silly S ...

, a

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

-based firm who had acquired the rights to the "Pluto Platter". As the pie tin was the same shape, it was discovered that children were already using the term for the flying disc and therefore a spelling amendment to avoid trademark infringement gave birth to the name Frisbee.

Frisbie pies today

The Bridgeport pie factory closed in 1958; Frisbie brand pies were bought out by Table Talk Pies. In 2016, Dan O’Connor, a Fairfield,

resident, Frisbee player, collector and historian acquired the license and distribution rights to the Frisbie Pie Co. He re-launched the company in November 2016 in Bridgeport, Connecticut and began distributing pies throughout the region in early 2017. They sell pies based on the original Frisbie Pie Company recipe.

In popular culture

In '' Back to the Future Part III'',

Marty McFly Martin Seamus "Marty" McFly is a fictional character and the protagonist of the ''Back to the Future'' franchise. He is portrayed by Canadian actor Michael J. Fox in all three films. McFly also appears in the animated series, where he was voice ...

( Michael J. Fox) while time-travelling to the Wild West, finds amusement in seeing the word "Frisbie" at the bottom of a pie plate. He later throws the plate at a

derringer A derringer is a small handgun that is neither a revolver nor a semi/ fully automatic pistol. It is not to be confused with mini-revolvers or pocket pistols, although some later derringers were manufactured with the pepperbox configuration. ...

held by outlaw Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen ( Thomas F. Wilson), foiling his attempt to shoot Doctor Emmett Brown ( Christopher Lloyd).

References

External links