I’ve seen a lot of crappy skateboard renderings tacked on to products as an afterthought, but this one looks like the artist actually had an affinity for our favorite pastime. I can’t figure out what animal this is. I thought it was a monkey, but there’s no tail. There’s also no other skateboard related pictures inside. It’s kind of amusing that they call out the fact that it’s a shaped coloring book. They basically just punched out a regular coloring book. You can tell because a lot of the images are cut off. How’s that for investigative reporting?

Chinese candy with skateboard packaging. You can’t buy them directly, you have to contact a guy and arrange to import them. Oh cruel importers. How you tease me. If anyone sees these in the wild, pick one up for me would ya? I have a dietary deficiency in lead and melamine. These ducks look like Elmer Fudd.

You can get skateboard checks, check covers, calling cards and address labels from an outfit called Styles Check Company:

No obstacle is too great. No trick is too extreme. You’ll rattle the competition with these edgy, action-packed designs. These single or duplicate checks show 4 different skate decks that are sure to showcase your own style.

Rattle the competition? The check writing competition? Is there some sort of game of SKATE that involves mailing everyone a check? Here’s my card, meet me at this address for the contest. See these custom checks with Cartoon Network looing skaters on them? That’s right, I don’t fool around. I’m in your face, edgy, and action-packed.

Working title for this post: Skaters can check their balance.

Now class, lets start where we left off yesterday. Can someone please tell me where the Kiwifruit comes from and what was it originally called in the West? Yes Bobby, that’s right. It was imported from China to New Zealand in 1906 and colloquially called the Chinese Gooseberry. It was briefly called the mellonette before being changed to Kiwiwfruit in the 1950′s. No Suzie, commercial cultivation didn’t start in the United States unit the 60′s. What’s that Grover? You are correct, from the looks of this hang tag, the first time a Kiwifruit got “radical” must have been some time in the 80′s near Arizona, or possibly the Moon.

- Thanks to Andy Wylie for bring this in to Show-and-Tell.

Chico Kiwi. I thought it might be a brand name, but I think it’s more like the type of Kiwi, as with Golden Delicious or Granny Smith apples. Andy Wylie sent this over from New Zealand, so they are in fact, Kiwi Kiwis. So now we’ve got kiwis and oranges. Everyone please keep your eyes peeled for more skateboarding fruit mascots.

Surely, somewhere, there is longboard company making wheels like this:

Or more accurately, they want skaters to buy Adobe Premiere Elements 8 to edit their skate videos. Looks like a posed shot. Bummer. Enlarge-o-rama.

- Thanks to Gene Sato for the tip

So… you can get t-shirts printed up and then compressed into the shape of a skateboard, among other things, and then covered with a promotional graphic and encased in shrink wrap. In other words:

Get air with a skate theme that targets the teen scene.

Errr.. right. Three models available, all of them not quite right.

Here’s the first option. You can see they went for the architectural perspective, but it still looks wacky. I’d hate to actually ride on that board. Available here.

Option number two looks more realistic, but then the trucks and wheels are just printed on the side of the package, and that’s a cop out. Available here.

This option simultaneously wins the prize for realism and most boring implementation. Available here.

Be careful what you sign. You may think you are just going to appear in a local paper, but you may end up plastered all over the packaging for consumer goods. It happened to Benji Galloway, and he ended up on the box of Vizio TV’s.

Here’s the product spotted in the wild at Costco by Danimal. 32″ LCD TV’s. This was back in 2007, and they’ve since moved on to different packaging.

They also used the graphic on their web site.

As well as in brochures.

As promised, more skateboard hygiene products. I first came across this on the old Grand Royale site, the magazine and record label that used to be run by the Beastie Boys. This was back in 2000 or so, and the fact that this skateboard shaped container existed out there somewhere had been in the back of mind since then. They didn’t have any explanation, just the picture, so I downloaded it. Earlier this year I was doing some “research” for Skate and Annoy and I stumbled on one for sale. Turns out it was from Avon, and contains bubble bath. I picked this one up for about 7$. Totally worth it.

Here’s the image that triggered my obsession. One of the Beastie Boys posed a grind for this shot.

Ahhh yes, the decanter. Here’s where the name comes from.

It came with the stickers in the box. I thought about leaving them “mint” but what’s the point? These are the directions. I can’t beleive they didn’t just print on the bottle. I guess it was supposed to be interactive.

You can’t really read it in this photo, but the bottom has says “WARNING: DO NOT USE AS A TOY UNTIL EMPTY AND CLEAN.” I guess the bubbles are dangerous…

The foil seal on the bubble bath was stuck to the cap, but surprisingly little had leaked in the 30 plus years since it was packaged! The soap smelled like “clean” mixed with alcohol. In fact, it had turned kind of syrupy, and seemed like it might have fermented a little. My wife has forbidden me to test it in the kid’s bath.

How do I know it’s at least 30 years old? First, check out this dude. I’m sure someone can/will identify him.

Need further proof? Check the back of the box to learn about the “new” sport of skateboarding.

Here it is in natural surroundings. I think my wife was pleasantly surprised (shocked even) to see me cleaning the bathroom, until she realized it was for an S&A photo shoot.

This is pretty underwhelming, the wheels don’t even spin. I do have a couple other skateboard-themed products from the realms of personal hygiene marketing that are coming in the next couple of days that are definitely more interesting. Until then, here’s the Spinbrush. - Thanks to Mrs Kilwag for the tip.

Because it’s relevant, and in case you missed the Jesus skateboarding figure. Like all holidays, Easter stuff goes on sale the day after the event. I picked up this Extreme™! Scooby Doo Easter basket last year for about $12, which was down from $30, I believe. Scooby can’t decide if he wants to hit the slalom course or barge a pool.

Scooby-Doo Extreme skateboard Easter Basket

Here it is in all it’s glory, unwrapped except for the shrink wrap still on the skateboard.

Here’s the good stuff. The micro mini board just larger than my shoe.Scooby is rocking an awesome bike helmet, and since I can’t see any coping, it looks like he’s into street plants.

The graphic on the board below says “Ride the Pipe,” which must be why they included those slalom cones. These guys are seriously out of touch with popular skateboarding, slalom underground rebirth or not. Maybe they based this product off a memo from a meeting in 1979.

If you are going to be hitting the slalom course, you’ll need an Extreme™! water bottle too.

“Help Scooby find the pool” maze on the back of the packaging. Gnarly standup frontside carve. Or is it backside? Wait, that looks like the tail sticking out, but the fire is shooting the other direction so maybe he just came off of some switch body varial move. And, I don’t care to hazard a guess at what version of the gymnast plant Scooby is pulling off in the background.

In case you were wondering… Yes, it is.

In 2006 they had another one, which I, err bought after Easter for the hell of it. Actually, the reason I bought the second one is because my kid, who was one and some change at the time, had formed an attachment to the first one, which disappeared. Fortunately it was right around Easter, so I only had to listen to him cry about it intermittently for a couple of weeks until the new one went on sale. This one was an Easter can, if you want to get technical.

This time around the maze on the back was keeping Scooby away from an abstract quarter pipe. I cropped out the crossword because it was not skateboard related.