With sadness I learned that founding member of the Surf Punks, Drew Steele has passed away after a battle with cancer. Against all odds, the Surf Punks had a huge influence on me as a teenager growing up in the Midwest. I first heard them on the Dr. Demento show, and saw them briefly mentioned in a blurb about “violent surf culture punk music” in Time magazine of all places. The picture above is from Drew’s Instagram feed shortly after Dennis Dragon passed in 2017. Bonus shot of the making of the iconic cover of My Beach featuring the first (?) skateboard-as-guitar after the jump.

Oh man… I love Obvious Plant in like a twin separated at birth. I myself already have a Sneppy T-shirt, but I can’t get behind these Sneppy themed “Skate Blords” because each one defaces an original Peanuts skateboard toy, which to readers of Skate and Annoy ought to be sacred! Still these are damned funny. The artist behind Obvious Plant makes fake, absurd, and often absurdly funny fake toys. Some of them are akin to bad knockoffs you find in cheap markets, while others are just subversive and weird. These toys are then clandestinely placed the shelves of real stores for the unsuspecting consumers and bewildered register operators. And because you can’t pay your mortgage with fake toys, Obvious Plant sells t-shirsts and the like, as well as the occasional one-off toy at collectable prices. Sneppy and “Wood Sock” both sold for $350, while “Cheppy Brown” sold for $550. These aren’t auction prices, these are list price. I believe the original versions of these peanuts toys date back to the 80’s or early 90’s. These are the plastic versions, and not the metal versions that look very similar. It’s hard to tell for sure because Peanuts merch often lists really old copyright dates that dont always reflect the year they were manufactured. Check the imposters and some variations of the originals after the jump.

Longtime astute readers of S&A might remember seeing a previous version of Betty & Veronica in a Wheel Zeal story in a Betty & Veronica comic from 1976. Archie series reuses stories and story titles all over the place. Heck, they even reuse comic book titles. The series from the 1976 issue is called “Archie’s Girls – Betty & Veronica.” This story appeared in issue of just plain old “Betty & Veronica” #138 from 1999. It is indeed a separate series because the numbering sequence is different. I’m not an expert on the Archie series by any means, in fact I’ve always loathed it, even as a kid. Digging into these skateboarding appearances in the Archie series has made me way more informed than I’d like to be. However, just because I hate Archie doesn’t mean I didn’t buy this comic book! In my online archeological dig I also managed to find an expired auction for the “original art” for this story.

Maybe the preferred domain name already had squatters, or Sick Tricks wasn’t Extreme!™ enough. Syck Trix is an indoor skate training accessory (or complete board) that is made by affixing (via velcro) two small inner tubes contained in nylon or possibly neoprene bags, to the bottom of a skateboard. The inner tubes take the place of trucks and I would imagine cut down on some of the noise if you’re indoors. If people keep making them, we’ll keep posting them. I kid you not, I keep trying to type “syck trix” and it has auto corrected to “suck truck” more than once.

UPDATE: So syck, we already covered it 5 years ago! 5 years? I can’t believe they are still in business.

I found this 1960’s era TV commercial for Gleem toothpaste in the Prelinger Archives. I was actually looking for a Bell Telephone commercial featuring Patti McGee but was surprised to find one that I’ve never seen before. The actual date is unknown but it is mostly likely around 1965 or 1966.

I was doing some speculative snooping around online looking for skateboards advertisements in comic books circa 1965 and found another skateboard story and cover instead. The first issue of Tippy Teen has a publication date of November, 1965. This looks like a second rate copy of Archie and the gang, (not that Archie is first rate…) because it’s drawn by the same Samm Schwartz that drew Archie until he left MLJ to join Tower and spearhead… Tippy Teen.

Digitally printed grip tape in bulk. This is the first time I’ve seen this service advertised before. The product looks good, but I’d have to ride it to tell if it functions well. It’s from a random merchandising company called Brandsick that is not skateboard specific, but they also offer skateboard wheels. I really have to wonder about the quality of those considering they don’t offer any details other than an Orangatang Wheels image that looks like it was poached from somewhere else. A sheet cost you less than $5 but the catch is you have to order at least 50.

Hey, did you hear? Skateboarding is/was in the Olympics! This made some people really happy, and an equal amount really cranky, if not downright mad. Here at Skate and Annoy it made us feel ambivalent because, let’s face it, the counterculture era of skateboarding died circa 2005. OK, I take that back there is definitley a healthy DIY counterculture, especially when it comes to rconcrete, but that’s got nothing to do with the Olympics, or 75% of the skateboarders out there. Of course, this post is 100% not what the title says it is, but man, think of those SEO hits we’d be getting. Too bad we don’t have any cost per click advertising… This is instead, some little Olympic themed skateboarding tchotches mostly brought you by friend of the S&A Josh Baker, AKA @beachpartyattitude.

Seriously, it brings me joy that in the year 2021 I can still make the occasional Gratuitous Tony Hawk post. These rubber rings from Groove Life feature two “new” designs, which means the other two must have been around for a while. I’m pretty sure Ive seen these before today, the images must be languishing in one of many “Save for future posts” folders on my hard drive. The construction of these makes sense if you want to wear a ring and your day to day circumstances make that a potentially dangerous proposition. The thing that doesn’t make a lot of sense is making them so explicitly Tony Hawk themed. I feel like if I wore one it would signify some sort of personal commitment to Tony, like those teenagers who give and wear rings as a promise to abstain from sex. At the rate Tony is going through wives, maybe mass production made more sense… Sorry Tony, that was a cheap shot. I don’t have a distinguished career as a professional skateboarder to fall back on. All I got is the low hanging fruit….

Companies in China will rip off anything. Check out this 12 shot block from Ox Fireworks featuring a very well known Bones logo. I’ve seen a guy blow off the tips of his fingers with fireworks. He had a bloody pulp of a hand with what looked like sticks of chalk poking out. It was gnarly. He recovered well enough to become a doctor, so give him a hand. True story. Ox made videos of what their fireworks look like, which is a pretty good sales tool. Don’t be a tool, be safe this 4th of July.