BOBBY! YOUVE BEEN AT THAT SKATEBOARD PARK ALL DAY! IT’S TIME TO COME HOME FOR SUPPER!

HONESTLY! SOMETIMES I WONDER WHY I EVER MARRIED THAT MAN!

I’m not sure where this came from. The date on the cartoon says 2006, but the scan was created in 2019. I think my mother-in-law sent this to me, as in physically mailed it to me. I’m not sure why it says “Big Bear Grizzly” under the catption. Usually a cartoonist will have some sort of online presence through syndication or otherwise, but I can’t find one for Dale Neseman. I found an archive of some comics that seems to have stopped in 2016. He is on Facebook however. Looks like he’s switched to watercolors.

Check out this merch tied into the 1964 TV series Stingray from the UK. It was a Gerry Anderson production similar in style to Thunderbirds. Even though it was off the air in 1965 after 39 episodes, someone thought a skateboard with a Stingray graphic would make some money. There are other Stingray graphics/models from the 60’s and 70’s but they are not related to the TV show. There was however, another licensed Gerry Anderson Stingray board made in the 90’s. In the show, the Stingray was a nuclear-powered combat submarine used by the World Aquanaut Security Patrol to keep the oceans safe.

I hadn’t planned on posting Tyler Skate Machine until I made the mistake of digging into it a little. It turns out the Skate Machine, a toy from Sungold meant to be used with their Galaxy Warriors line of toys is pretty much a ripoff of the Cheapskate from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which makes sense since the Galaxy Warriors were set up to be an off-brand version of Masters of the Universe in the first place.

– Thanks to Bobcat for the tip.

Doug Avery made a music video for Hot Lunch‘s song Killer Smile in the style of 90’s videos games with a nod to the 720 and Skate or Die video games, plus a handful of easter egg references to the Bones Brigade Video show, and 70’s wheels brand UFO. It’s really well done, right down to the time appropriate aspect ratio. It’s sure to make you want to skate, play video games or rock out. Maybe even buy a motorcycle…. (Hey Wes!)

Machine Man first appeared in the 1977 series 2001, a Space Odyssey before getting his own short-lived series in 1978 that lasted for 19 issues until it was canceled. It would be resurrected for volume 2 in the 80’s and Volume 3 in the 90’s. He’s the last surviving android unit of a military experiment, and predictably, the military is out to terminate him. He’s able to produce Inspector Gadget type augmentations to his physical body, but you know, in a serious manner. In this first issue he bugs out in a traffic jam and produces a skateboard in two halves from his feet that lock together, allowing him to escape.

Another moment in Alibaba greatness… This skateboard that, according to some of the descriptions and videos, actually dispenses a mist of some kind that is backlit by led lights to make it look like rockets. The descriptions are astonishingly vague on how this works. Nor do they offer any additional info in the listings that say they have a “music speaker.” The same product is listed by different agents, all with a different, amusing name.

The PXL2000 was a camera released in 1987 by the toy company Fisher-Price. These things cost around $200, which is about $590 these days. They were discontinued after about a year, probably because that was a lot of money for a kid’s toy. A verified working camera that isn’t “as-is” will set you back around $500 today. I first became aware of these back in the day because Dan Estabrook of Contort mentioned a skate video being shot on this camera, and this would have been anywhere from 87-89. I never saw that video, but I did keep my eyes peeled (unsuccessfully) to buy a camera of my own. Fisher-Price made a print ad for the camera that featured skateboarding, as well as a TV commercial with incidental skateboard content.

I thought Gashapon was the brand name but it turns out that’s what the Japanese call those little vending machines that you can buy miniature toys from. More or less in the style of what we’d call gumball machines in the US. This is the Little Boarder set, and like the advert says, Anything goes, little boarder! Indeed, these are just tiny skateboard figures attached to mostly unrelated food items.

So far this is only the second appearance of Woody Woodpecker on Skate and Annoy, but it’s a big one. It started how these things usually start, an innocent glance at an auction item or an old forgotten file saved on a hard drive. Instead of just a puzzle, this time we’ve got PVC figures, plastic fast food toys, alarm clocks, animation cells, skateboards, and a comic book.

There’s so much “skateboard art” out there these days that they don’t really warrant their own post anymore. Jeanne Drevas’ work definitely caught my eye when I spotted it in a local gallery. There’s something much more tactile about these that made me want to pick them up and examine them. Somehow they reminded me of some of the funky chunky toy aesthetics of the 70’s. I originally saw these in 2016, and of course, sat on my pics until now. Skateboard-based art was just a phase for Jeanne, a phase that lasted from 2016-17. Leave it to me to wait 10 years to post this. The gallery is gone now, but I think she’s still making art though.