Just because Tony Hawk has financial stake in ShredorDie.com doesn’t mean he has turn over every embarrassing bit of memorabilia, but it looks like he has to some extent.

I was sent to Japan to be on a show called “Incredible Kids” (or something like that) when I was 14. They asked me to demonstrate tricks, but to change some of the names to be “Japanese friendly.” I was just excited to be overseas on my own, so I went along with it.

Tony says he was 14 at the time but he looks more like a 12 year old Macaulay Culkin in some of these shots. It’s pretty entertaining stuff. Part of the show has Tony attempting a few launch ramp gap jumps over an increasingly large number of audience members. No, the distance doesn’t get any greater, they just stuff more people in between. It’s pretty crazy how young he looks. It’s even crazier that these people think helmets will help them if Tony comes up short. Tony even grabs for the jumps. Nowadays he’d ollie it or 360 air over it. Check out the takeoff ramp. It looks like one of those old Firestone metal frame and plexiglass covered ramps laying back and propped up a little. Two part video after the jump. Please excuse the lame post title, but you should listen to the Vapors anyway.

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Tony Hawk’s Big Spin has been open for a while now. It’s got to be surreal having your own amusement park ride. There’s no Michael Jordan’s Big Dunk ride out there, but you would think he would have been able to sign the contract if he wanted. Here’s two YouTube videos with two different takes on the ride. One is a guy who obsesses on amusement park rides and the other is a couple of snotty kids who just like to hear themselves say “I hate Tony Hawk.” Check ‘em both out after the jump.

- Thanks to Tito for the tip.

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Mad Magazine is too highbrow for little kids, so they rolled out Mad Kids for the youngsters. I checked out the PDF preview, figuring it would be all Spongebob-y, and it is, but the cartoon ladies that Don Martin draws still have impossibly large gravity defying breasts. Tony Hawk is on the cover #9, where they gave him the Photoshop bug-out treatment. What is that move anyway? He’s also got an interview inside. OK maybe he’s not mad at kids, but mad for the kids! (And not in a creepy NAMBLA way…)

- Thanks to Danimal for the tip.

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Last Friday Evel Knievel passed away at the age of 69. He had been battling lung disease for the last three years. Any skateboarder that can remember the first time they got on a board as a child or even teenager should be able to relive to the thrill that you felt the first time you felt that glide over the concrete or asphalt. Many of us were called “daredevils” by our chuckling neighbors, parents or relatives. Many of us felt like outlaws skating in times when it was unpopular. All of us should be able to relate to Evel a little. Nowadays there are about hundred Extreme Motocross riders (who probably have a different name for their discipline) who perform technical jumps of higher magnitudes of difficulty on a regular basis in arenas everywhere, but Evel was the first of his kind, and he was a real showman as well. As I kid I sat glued to the TV when he jumped double decker busses in a stadium. Of course he ate it pretty bad. I also watched the less than spectacular Snake River canyon jump too. Even though it seemed like he was always eating it, you had to love the guy. The Photos above are all from the official Evel Knievel web site. On the bottom right that’s Tony Hawk with Evel as part of a Vanity Fair photos shoot featuring sports icons and their hereos. Tony chose Evel Kneivel for his session.

Clearing off the hard drive here. Tony Hawk was on MTV’s TRL (OMG Totally AWESOME!) where they interviewed him afterwards. Apparently “The Birdman bigged it up to Ryan Sheckler…” Err… yeah. Then he Gave Ryan some advice (stop crying when you don’t win?) on the Life of Ryan. Fat BMX reports that Rick Thorne interviews Tony Hawk for another social networking great white hype TRIG.com, except they don’t provide a link. However, Mr Thorne assures the readers that you should sign up for Trig.com because “it’s smokin’ My Space and I think It’s good 2 keep U wit tha times.” I’m sure he’s not getting anything from them. Let’s see… Some kids interviewed Tony Hawk at a Toys R Us store but Courant.com wants you to pay to read it now that it’s more than 30 days old. I wonder if those download fees are offsetting the loss in ad revenue? A couple weeks ago the gaming sites were a buzz about the possibility that Tony might be considering a balance board type controller for use in a skateboarding game on the Wii platform. I guess you need to keep the “I”’s lowercase when typing in Wii or else it looks like World War 2. Maybe not. In really old news, Toy Directory Monthly has a 2004 interview

The beginning of the feature to be known as “I was sick for a week and now I’m recycling all kinds of things seen first on Skatedaily.net” Here’s an interview of Tony Hawk perfomed by (because they are performers, right?) ECW female wrestling star Lalya. She was either uninterested or phoning the whole thing in. Most of here responses are “Wow, that sounds amazing” or “Wow, that’s awesome.” Other than that it’s mostly the routine questions about the video game, Tony Hawk Foundation, and his roller coaster ride. Also mildly amusing: Tony trying to explain how fans of the WWE would most likely also be interested in his video game,and the photograph of Lalya that makes her look like Rita Moreno on steroids. And the hair on Tony’s chest? That’s costume and makeup for an upcoming Proving Ground commercial designed to make him look like a pigeon. There are more shots of Rodney Mullen and Ryan Sheckler getting dressed up as flying rats on Tony Hawk’s Road Journal. What was the point of this post? Oh yeah, Layla gets Extreme with Tony Hawk.

[Source: Skate Daily]

Wes Humpston and Kat Von D got together to design a skateboard on Kat’s tv show LA Ink. Supposedly they are going to have a whole line of boards, although it seems more like something that was cooked up just for TV. The first hand drawn original board is being auctioned on eBay to benefit the Tony Hawk Foundation. My DVR didn’t pick up that episode, but someone else’s did. In the beginning of the design process there’s a funny bit where Kat says, “What should we put in the inside?” and Wes responds with “I like to do skulls and stuff.” Didn’t see that one coming. You can see the board in detail and watch the episode after the jump. It hasn’t been edited to show only Wes’ bits (get your mind out of the gutter), but hey, I didn’t have to do anything. The auction ends Friday, November 16 at 6 PM (PST). I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Kat is slightly more photogenic than Wes.

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Tony Hawk appears on “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?” tonight at 8pm (7 central). You can watch a few clips on the official Fox web site. Must be a celebrity edition for charity. Tony might be fond of game shows with question marks, as he was also on “Who wants to be a millionaire?” Is he smarter than a 5th grader? Who knows, but one thing is for certain, chances are he’s richer than your dad. Headlines like “Tony Hawk: The “Bird Man” with Hawk-like Vision” have got to make him cringe whether or not the web sites is “dedicated to redefining success.”

File under poor execution of a good idea. GameDaily has a gallery of images comparing real photos of pro skaters and their Tony Hawk video game series counterparts. Unfortunately only a few of the 11 sets manage to match the “pose.”

Check out these photo mashups showing off Tony and the rest of the cast as they display some of their signature moves, in-game and in real life.

Apparently Bam Margera’s real life signature move is to sit on his ass, while his video game signature is a benihana. The best matching sets are Tony Hawk and Ryan “Mr Awesomely Humble” Sheckler, as shown above. Only if you are bored. GameDaily is a super slow loader.

It’s Halloween. It’s Halloween. It’s Hall-O-ween. Here’s some footage of Spiderman skating in what looks like it may be a Vans park. The YouTuber is very mum on the details but it’s slick enough to make me believe I’ve just exposed my ignorance by not knowing what video this was taken from. If I didn’t know better (aside from the difference in skating style, and his bag-o-tricks) I’d say this was the Doctor’s alter ego for sure. Watch it after the jump.

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