Upcycle, recycle, bicycle. Yet another Kickstarter for a skateboard project, this time to make skateboards out of used bourbon barrels. It seems moderately cool at first and I was kind of on board until I watched the video. I must have been in a bad mood, because listening to these guys made me want to punch them in the face. I’m not a violent person, and I’m sure they are nice people, so I apologize to the folks at Hepcat, which unfortunately has nothing to do with the excellent band Hepcat. The company is not primarily a skateboard brand, they just want to make lifestyle products out of upcycled material, an idea that has been recycled a lot lately. Yes, this is backlash. I am one sour (mash) old man today. Silly and overpriced, but I bet they smell good.

– Thanks to MC for the tip.

In 1991 McDonalds issued Happy Meal toys consisting of memvbers of the “Laf-Squad” riding motorized vehicles. The Laf Squad must have been the secret, paramilitary arm of the Laff-A-Lympics splinter group known as the Yogi Yahooeys. Of the four figures, only Boo Boo Bear had the privilege of riding the customary out of scale skateboard. Here he is, more stylish than your average bear. And yes, he is on actual pool coping.

From the brand you can trust for all your creepy, electronic cockroach needs, Hexbug brings you Tony Hawk’s Circuit Boards. It’s a hybrid of fingerboards and RC skateboard technology that sounds like a bad idea, but looks kind of cool in the demo videos. The promo footage shows some cool maneuvering, however it’s speculation whether this is due to hours of practice and precise timing or some built in mechanism or inherent design that makes lip tricks and kick turns on such a small scale seemingly easy. It comes with a TV commercial featuring Tony Hawk in one of his least wooden advertising appearances ever. Radio controlled Circuit Boards! Get it? Get it?

S&A reader Johan snapped a few pics of a CD he found at a flea market. Smurf Hits are compilations of smurfed versions of pop tunes. The Smurfarna versions are sung in Swedish, some by this lady. Surfarna 5 came out in 1998, and features some excellent skateboarding (Smurfboarding?) action on the covers. Back in 1997 they used a skateboard in the art for an English speaking compilation as well. It will make your ears bleed.

Apparently frat boys have a long history with skateboarding. This Delta Tau Delta skateboard allegedly came from a pledge dance in 1965. The board style and condition of the skateboard would seem to support that. I have to say, it’s a pretty cool party favor, much better than some stupid paddle. This board was spotted at a Goodwill online auction, and eventually sold for $102.

– Thanks to Guy Housewright for the tip.

Another fine offering from the folks at Topps, T-Shirt Factory Iron On’s from 1988. They definitely carry on the tradition of Garbage Pail Kids, another Topps product. These iron-on transfers are maybe about 5×7 inches. I don’t actually have this, it was floating around at a party I went to. I did some due diligence when I spotted it and snapped some cell phone pics once I saw there was a skateboard graphic.

For fun it’s a wonderful toy
It walks downnstairs
Alone or in pairs
And makes a Slinkaty sound
A Spring
A Spring
A marvelous thing
Everyone knows it’s….

Everyone knows it’s “Slinky” and not “Slurpee.” Spotted at a local 7-11, Mountain Dew and Slurpee X-treme cross marketing.

Skate Hockey in the street has been going on since the 80’s but this might be the first documented occurrence of a Skateboard Air Hockey game, in the street… Spotted on Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands by Doc Skate Rock. We need to coin a phrase for the practice of depicting unrelated sports on sporting equipment.

SkatersTape, it may not go up to 11, but is has the word “skater” right in the product name, so you know it’s going to work better than something like duct tape. It starts at $6 a roll, and if you buy in bulk you can get a case of 12 rolls at a discount for just $6 a roll. SkatersTape is so dedicated to passing the savings on to you that they’re using the same 2 recycled low res action photos on every page. If you forget where to buy it, just scan the handy QR code infinitely repeated on the roll, like a modern day version of the Gator graphic… Just squint your eyes. Do you remember Gator? Do you remember QR codes? “If you use skaters tape every time you skate, you can keep your shoes looking like new.” Could they make such a bold claim if it weren’t true? After extensive testing we found that SkatersTape did indeed keep our shoes looking like brand new shoes covered in obnoxious duct tape. But why stop there? Why not make an entire pair of shoes out of SkatersTape? How about a wallet to hold your credit cards so you can order more SkatersTape. Make an iPhone case to aid in scanning the QR code for the web site. While you’re at it, fashion a pair of skinny jeans so you don’t wear out the ass and knees when bailing on all those 20 stairs. OLD man GVK keeps his vert shoes on life support for years, and with SkatersTape he’ll be able to stretch that to decades.

– Thanks to MC for the tip.

I had more than a handful of these “Stylin’ Skateboards” from Topps. The first time I saw them was in ’91 or ’92. I think it was B-Rad who showed it to me first, and it blew my mind. I asked where he found it, expecting it to be something a friend brought back from a trip to Japan or some kitschy novelty shop in New York. Instead, he nodded his head over his shoulder towards the Wall Mart at his back in a semi rural (at the time) Steamboat Springs, Colorado. This sales sheets shows them packaged in little boxes, but the ones I saw came in sealed plastic bags with heat-pressed seams. Each bag came with some crappy candy sugar wads pressed into the vague shape of a skateboard wheel, though more likely just generic pellet molds. Also in the package, a really crappy plastic fingerboard made out of soft plastic. I believe you had to snap the wheels in place yourself. The second generation fingerboards (more on that later) were fun for a few minutes, but the real reason to keep buying these things was for the paper stickers that came with them, each a slightly mutated version of what someone in Topps marketing thought represented skateboarding culture. Lots of “rad dudes” and cow skulls, like Life’s a Beach meets Zorlac, but turned into a Nickelodeon cartoon for kids. I think these things sold for a dollar and change each. A while back I saw an unopened case up for bid, but they wanted something in the neighborhood of $100 for it. Second generation fingerboards? Yes. Slightly more maneuverable than the hard, keychain versions that first appeared in the 80’s, you know, the kind that featured paper graphics in a clear shell. Stylin’ Skateboards were at the opposite end of the brittle spectrum. The loose tolerances of the truck and wheel assemblies combined with the soft plastic made for the first fingerboards that you could more or less turn instead of just sliding. The larger size was more to scale as well, but ultimately the cheap plastic was too soft to get any meaningful use out of a toy version of… well, a larger toy. Somewhere in my basement I have at least one of these unopened. One day I’ll dig it up.