This wraps up any uncertainty about the authenticity of the Hobble Wobble, which seemed like it might have been artificially created to look like it was vintage. The name of the inventor made it easy to look up the patent this time. Harold Katz filed his patent in October of 1958 and finally received his patent in March of 1960. This short highlight article on the Wibbler must have been published sometime shortly after, making my original guess ( After the hula hoop in 1958 and before skateboard fad in 1964 ) pretty accurate. Somebody should pay me for this research. Hello Betsy? This is not skateboard related, you may cry, but I will endeavor to prove a direct connection in the following presentation. Can someone dim the lights please?

[Photo: Ebay seller Catzuzan ]

Thanks to Jim Thompson for these photos of Wee Willie Winkies. That’s “winkles” not “Winkles” as in Wee Willi Winkels. These disgusting looking, sickly pale, pink, fleshy appendages come from Scotland. Sausage skateboards probably require pizza grip to deal with all that extra grease.

Ryan Sheckler is still a thing, and he’s a thing for Lume Cube. Lume Cube is a wireless flash / lighting system. It’s a pretty cool device actually. They are tiny, waterproof, battery powered strobes you can link together and control with an app to use for discreet, highly mobile and quick photo lighting. In addition to using a smartphone to set up Lume Cubes for use with a DSLR, you can use an additional mount to supplement your phonecam’s lighting. After watching some of the tutorials I have to say that I’m impressed by the system. It’s expensive, but seems very well thought out. One thing that does seem needlessly obtrusive, to use a Lume Cube even once, you’re going to need to provide a valid email address and register the the cube (with serial #) via your smartphone. So what happens if you want to loan it to a friend, or share a cube amongst different phones? For instance, you may use different assistants on different shoots. Why should you have to provide a valid email address just to use the cube? What if the email address and serial # conflict with a previous registration? This is a major deal to me, can you tell? Another instance of needless overreaching by a tech company. An email address to register a product for warranty purposes makes perfect sense, but just to use a physical product? I’m calling bullshit.

This Barbie and Ginger toy dates back to 1997. Ginger is a battery powered dog that barks and walks, and can be used to tow Barbie on her skateboard, complete with little Hotwheels-style wheels. The top frame is a still from a creepy TV commercial. It may have been 1997, but the girl on the left looks like she’s stuck in a 60’s children’s book. The screen cap looks craptacular, but that’s as good as it gets. Someone digitized TV commercial in pre-hd days. The same low-res version with awful motion compression artifacts is all over the web under assorted watermarks. Unfortunately nobody’s uploaded a decent version of it, not that you’d want to watch it endlessly. It does have a sort of hypnotic quality to it, in a Jonestown massacre sort of way.

– Thanks to Goofyfoot Rff for the tip.

Sultana Yo Fruit packaging, made in the Netherlands with 90’s American marketing. I especially like the “What the fruit do I know?” tagline on the side of the package. I’m not sure what the little mascot actually is, but Matthijs thinks it’s a cellphone. Stranger things have happened. They look like miniature pop-tarts, but not meant to be put in a toaster.

– Thanks to Matthijs for the pics.

Normally I might push this post off to the Broken Kingpins section without comment but the Tubuloids video for It’s Getting Weird connected with me on a primal level. I think GVK missed his calling. Their album on Beer City Records doesn’t come out until October, but you can preorder it now.

Why yes, that is Jack Barmby of the mighty Portland Timbers rockin’ a Nike SB hat for some reason. It’s not the flopping that soccer critics hate, it’s the posing. This is Portland Timbers related post #6 for those keeping score at home.

This is an animated gif promo for Johnny Sampson’s Total Fuck Up comic book. It has been reported that if you buy it, it will be the least worst thing you do today.

Jan and Dean’s 1964 song Sidewalk Surfin’ is pretty much the first skatesploitation song. I haven’t actually researched that, Doc Skaterock probably knows for sure. It’s easily the most famous one. As a young lad I remember buying a cutout Jan & Dean greatest hits compilation on cassette tape just because of this song. Before we were exposed to the larger world of punk rock and skate rock, we actually used to derive a bit of stoke from this cheesy tune, and later on would bust it out for a laugh and some nostalgia.

Apparently J. Mascis is not over it, and has taken to skateboarding in a music video again. The Dinosaur Jr. video for “Tiny” looks like it was shot at the Northampton, MA skatepark. Aside from J. pushing around the park, there’s also a skateboarding dog and some roller derby action. It’s decent tune that will stick in your head, but the dog is not impressed at the end.

– Thanks to Tom Tallboycan for the tip