Although only a third place medal, it deserves 1st place in the contest for skateboard setup most likely to be owned by M.C. Escher. This is an extreme case of backwards skateboard truck syndrome, or BSTS. It’s not only backwards, but almost like a bad photoshop job. (See: Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical.) On second thought, maybe the front truck is actually facing forward, but the axle is seriously out of alignment. It’s fascinating. The sort of thing I’d buy if I had a job. Then again, if I wasn’t looking at this right now, maybe I’d have a job!

From the same company that brought you Super Bat Justice Man, comes Ninja Frog on a skateboard. You might notice a similarity to certain Mutant Ninja Turtles. I don’t usually have this sort of encyclopedic knowledge at my fingertips, but the phrase “Non-fall Action” was oddly familiar, so looking it up wasn’t hard. The frog on the left is actually riding a skateboard, although it’s hard to make out. Those are turtles riding skateboards on the right, which is an actual graphic on one of a few different TMNT skateboards. it looks like one of them has a Hosoi knockoff!

Multilingual humor? Maybe not. Hass is Dutch for hare, which makes sense in the case of this skateboarding rabbit found in a Nestle Ferrero Kinder Surprise. It’s a hollow chocolate egg containing a plastic capsule with a toy. This one dates back to 1994, and fortunately, the egg has long since been eaten. Happy Easter.

Insert Elephant Man video by the Stupids here. Not to be confused with this elephant. Check out the ad for Powerflex Skateboards.

A trip to Target is a 50/50 chance that’s I’ll be able to squeak out a quick post. This time I found this helpful display instruction accidentally left on by an employee who stocked the shelves. Maybe the next version the Kryptonics produces will have an addendum that says “Don’t forget to remove this notice.” This is the very important, critical piece of skateboarding history that would be lost if I were not out there tirelessly documenting it. Betsy, where’s my Nobel Peace prize? Part of me actually wanted to take the paper notice home with me, but how embarrassing would it have been trying to explain that to store management after I got stopped by security, walking out the door?

Random spot near Siesta Key, Florida. – Thanks to Sparky for the photo.

At first glance you might assume this was a poorly illustrated millennium era skateboarding frog wearing sandals no less. It looks like there are hub caps, which could either be a half-assed reference material used for the illustration, or actual wheel covers which existed on some clay wheel era Nash boards and were also sold as separate accessories in the 70’s. (Ad link coming later). Then I looked at the (long expired) auction info for this poster and it was in the 1950-1979 subcategory of shoes, so there you have it. My guess is early 70’s. Gali was/is a chain of stores in Israel that also manufactures it’s own shoes. According to Hadassah Magazine, besides making skate sandals for frogs, they are also the sole (har, har) supplier of boots to the Israeli military.

We’ve seen basketball once, and tennis not once, but twice. Here’s a California Rampworks build for Nike that combines basketball and golf terrains with skateboarding. The Nike SB Popup Skateboard Park was built for Go Skateboarding Day in 2014.

Cookies, chips, and soda! Actually, that used to be a diet that sustained me well around the time these boards were made. Check out these skateboards featuring the Keebler Elf, Chester the (Cheetos) Cheetah, and the Coke logo.

I’m trying to decide how much retouching and color correcting to tackle in the Vintage Skateboard Magazine Advert Gallery. Here’s a comparison for this Zephyr skateboards ad from 1975. Not surprisingly, the forty year old pages are discolored with age. Do you prefer the scanned image with minimal color correction, or the adjusted version that is closer to what the page originally looked like but has a slightly artificial look to it? There’s an enlargement to compare after the jump, but really this is just an excuse to get you to check out Zephyr Skateboards: Young dudes in heavy spots.