Home»Antiques»Mars Platters

In 1958 Russia and the USA were in a race to space! Sputnik had soared the previous October and the USA would soon respond with Vanguard 1. Meanwhile, competition in the toy world was just as fierce. Wham-O had released their new fleet of flying discs: the Pluto Platter, the Sailing Satellite, and two versions of Flying Saucers. How would competition respond? Premier Products Co. in Brooklyn, NY took the easiest way possible: they rolled out a direct copy of the Pluto Platter design…even daring to call it the Mars Platter!

However, there were a couple of slight differences. At 9˝ in diameter Mars Platters are slightly smaller than a 9.31˝ Pluto Platter. And there are a couple of unintended goofs on the First Style Premier Mars Platters (PMP1): first, the planet names engraved on top are in the same order…but they run clockwise on the Pluto Platter and counter-clockwise on the Mars Platter. Secondly, Wham-O had removed “American Trends,” Fred Morrison’s company name, from the bottom of the Pluto Platter with a raised bar, an “esker,” and engraved their name on the esker. Seeing this, Premier engraved the bottom of the Mars Platter with their own name on an esker…apparently without thinking about why Wham-O had used an esker!

The release of the 1959 Second Style Premier Mars Platters (PMP2) corrected these “errors.” The esker was eliminated and the order of the planet names was reversed to match the Pluto Platter. Order was restored!

By 1960 Premier noticed that the Pluto Platter had acquired an additional name—Frisbee—and the name was selling! Direct imitation had worked so far, so why not keep up with Wham-O’s market leadership by using the name themselves? Thus the Third Style Premier Mars Platter (PMP3) has the name “Frisbee” emblazoned on the bottom in 3/4˝ high capital letters…and it was also added to the header cards of the packaging.

What Premier either didn’t realize (or didn’t care to acknowledge?) was that Wham-O had obtained a trademark on the name “Frisbee” in 1959 in order to protect its use by competitors, and their lawyers came knocking with a lawsuit…which Wham-O won! As a result, Premier’s production immediately ceased and the mold was sent to Wham-O.

It was an opportunity that Wham-O didn’t waste. They tooled off Premier’s information from the bottom of the Mars Platter and replaced it with their own. They released this First Style Wham-O Mars Platter (WMP1) for a short while, but by 1965 Wham-O was adding their newly developed Flight Rings to all of their disc molds (old and new) and the WMP2 was born.

This last style of Mars Platter was sold packaged separately by Wham-O as well as several of its foreign licensees, and also included in Horseshoe Sets in the late 1960s. The final disposition of the mold was to convert it to one of the many versions of the Wham-O Regular: the Mold 18.

Many manufacturers in the 1950s and 1960s jumped on the bandwagon and produced a short-lived, poorly-selling, dead-end flying disc product. The Mars Platter, while born in infamy by flagrantly imitating the Pluto Platter, led a rich existence through its various iterations. It’s a history worth telling…and appreciating!

Phil Kennedy,
Gallery Manager