This started out as what was supposed to be a quick post (you’ve heard this before…) after a sideways glance at the collectibles aisle in Target caught my eye. They only had one figure and the box said there were 4 total to collect. Well that turned out to be a lie… I suppose they meant in this series at least. This preview image doesn’t even scratch the surface. It’s too much, and it gave me diabetes.

This is the third installment of the Denver the Last Dinosaur trilogy, a short drinking glass for a 1988 animated kids show. It looks a little bit like a shot glass in the pictures but it’s actually 4″ tall, like a juice glass. The 70’s were definitely the heyday of collectible character glasses. It’s a little bit surprising this show was popular enough to warrant carrying on the tradition so late in the 80’s. Maybe it was wishful thinking. I have no other info about any possible ties with this glass. Was it a fast food item? Was it a mail-in promo? Who knows. I do know that you should definitely watch  Kyle Mooney’s Netflix show Saturday Morning All Star Hits!  aka S.M.A.S.H.! It’s a spoof on 80’s and 90’s Weeknd cartoon programming and includes a parody of Denver called… Randy. Wikipedia sums it up succinctly: “…a show about an anthropomorphic teenage dinosaur who falls into depression and alcoholism following a breakup with his firefighter girlfriend, before heading to music college where he befriends a group of teenagers.” Same thing happened to me.

I found some bad skateboarding clip art on the interwebs and this is all I could think of. Glob, I’m bored.

A lot like 70’s era Dogtown, if you try to drop in on one of Portland’s Central Eastside bike lanes, the locals will throw kale at you… Errr.. Yeah, sorry. That’s all I got. I didn’t even know Portland had a “Central Eastside” district, but I’m obviously not upwardly mobile so that might explain it. The Central Eastside Industrial Council “is a business association focused solely on the Central Eastside Industrial District’s economic success, vitality, and livability.” CEIC includes Burnside and as such, they are not shy of including Burnside and skateboard graphics in their marketing materials.

– Thanks to Chad Balcom for the tip.

Wendy the Good Little Witch #96 was published in 1990 and features skateboarding on the cover, including a “broomboard.” Unfortunately, there are no storylines inside that feature skateboarding.

Skunks, old men, children, rats, raccoons, and automobiles… Those are all things we’re accustomed to seeing in the Venn diagram of “things that get stuck in skateparks.” Now we can add moose to the list too. This moose calf was rescued by Colorado Parks and Wildlife at the Breckenridge Skatepark. Apparently the mother was nearby and calmly waited for her calf to be rescued, which is lucky because Moose are not an animal you want to mess with. Just ask Natasha and Boris.

Source: Team Pain Skateparks.

The year is maybe 1976 and I am just getting into skateboarding because my dad bought my mom a yellow plastic Roller Derby skateboard at the Sears Catalog Store. If your town wasn’t big enough to have a full-fledged Sears, you got a small shop with a handful of tables of merchandise and a counter where you could place orders from the catalog and it would be delivered. My small town happened to be Midland Michigan, a mere 20 minutes or so away from Bay City Michigan, the town that was nearest to where the dart landed on the map on the band named The Bay City Rollers. I was a huge fan of Rock and Roll Love Letter, and of course Saturday Night. Cut to 2009 when Neil covers a Bay City Roller skateboard in Ebay Watch, proclaiming I must be kicking myself for not winning that, and he was correct. I did some digging and kept my eyes peeled for this board, but I didn’t see one again until 2025.

UPDATE: Added a picture of the band actually rolling as well as a second color way!

There was a time when a skateboard selling for $6,000 at auction would raise eyebrows. I’m not sure what to make of this insanity. The Tony Hawk’s 900 Collection bids closed at Julien’s Auction and some skateboards and related paraphernalia sold for some truly astounding numbers. So astounding that it makes you wonder if Julien’s is a real thing or not, but it is. The deck Tony Hawk landed his first 900 on sold for $1,152,000. That cannot be right. Is it right? How about 57k for a pair of sweaty kneepads? Some of this might make sense conceding the proceeds are going towards Tony’s charity, The Skatepark Project. My first thought was that somebody or some corporation bought these items at knowingly inflated prices with an eye towards deductions, but you can only deduct the amount you overpaid for the items, and the IRS bases this off the items value listed the auction catalog. In the case of the the 900 board, the estimated value was between $500,00-$700,000. That deduction could be worth less than half of what they paid. It’s also worth noting that the auction listings state that “a portion of the proceeds” will go to the charity. Is that auction speak for everything after the auction fees? Are the auction prices accidentally listed in the European style, with commas instead of a decimal point? Is this real?

SBA actually stands for, wait for it… Skate Board Association. Despite an incredibly pedestrian name, the idea behind it is somewhat interesting. It’s another skateboarding league with a couple differences. Coed teams compete against each other, and everybody gets paid something, even if they don’t make the podium. Now I have to admit, I assume these are differences, because I pay zero attention to the ins and outs of the other skateboarding competitions. Seeing a coed team of skateboarders compete against other coed teams is something I’d watch least once. Who is paying for this and what are their motives? Some investors, including Professional basketball player and former skateboarder Gary Payton II.

– Thanks to Will Powers for the tip.

Reposting this because I can relate to the story of starting a skateboard company out of a garage. I can relate to all of it, except the part where the company is successful… From Blockhead Dave:

Wow! Has it really been 40 years since I screen-printed my very first batch of skateboards in my parents’ garage?  It was late spring 1985, I was fresh from a screen printing class at Sierra College, and had never printed more than 1 or 2 of anything. 

I had 60 red Streetstyle boards manufactured by Uncle Wiggley and I was nervous as hell, but no choice but to just go for it. I pulled the squeegee over and over again, honing my skills as I went along, then I laid each board in the driveway to dry, since I hadn’t built any racks yet. Well, I made it happen, and there were 60 skateboards with my art and my company name on them and just like that I was in business! 

You can get on elf the limited Streetstyles in old school or the new school hole patterns starting Wednesday (9/24) at noon PST