Skateboards pop up in unexpected places like this recurring BBC news segment called “Tech Now.” In this episode they are highlighting a robotic hull scrubber (and sea urchin killer) called Hullbot. About 6 minutes in they show a tech working on one of the robots, and in the background there’s a Natas deck hanging up.

Dutch Bros Coffee is a chain of coffee stands mostly based on the west coast., Apparently they give away stickers once a month or who knows how often. They’ve had a handful fo skateboarding themed designs over the years. I believe these are all legit, and I’ve omitted some that I’ve seen on those print-on-demand shops like Redbubble that appear to be unofficial. I dunno, you tell me. – Thanks to Don Tidwell for the tip.

Every time one of my suitcase starts to go wonky it’s usually the wheels stop spinning or are otherwise somehow damaged. I’ve often thought to myself why doesn’t someone make these things with skateboard wheels? Well, at long last, Floyd to the rescue. This isn’t a coincidence, the skateboard wheel look is intentional, and they lean into it heavily in the marketing.

Are these bootleg Vision Street Wear shoes selling for less than $14 a pair on Temu? Does it even matter? Established (err… uhm… Make that “Fstablished…”) 1985. Insert tariff joke.

Yesterday’s Snow Skate post with Archie was so unpopular that I decided to follow it up with more research just to spite you, the reading audience. These snow/ski/skateboard patents started showing up as applications in 1977. Curiously, I couldn’t find anything going back earlier that had a skateboard as the foundation. I would have expected something to show up around 1965 but no dice. We’re focused on snow, leaving ice for a later post. At least two of the patents I found are so similar to the finished products in yesterday’s post that they must have been filed by the inventor or manufacturers of those products. One surprise was finding a 1977 patent for the modern day snow skate, the kind with a skateboard deck attached to one small ski.

The cover of Archie #270 (published in April of 1978) features Archie predicting the invention of the Snow Skate, a product that would first be announced in 1979! I’ve seen ads for the 70’s version snow skates before, and I keep looking for them on my hard drive and online like it’s Groundhog Day. I wasted a good 30 minutes just now doing the same until, hold on, what’s this under a pile of crap on my desk? Oh yes, the February 1978 issue of Skateboarder Magazine, complete with an ad for the Snow Skate. That’s the one in the middle. The black and white version comes from Cal Streets. This post is going to cover some of the snow skates over the ages with the exception of the ones that are just a regular board, and those that have one ski mounted to the bottom.

Skate and Annoy makes a cameo appearance about 3:30 into episode #356 of The Nine Club, featuring Steve Olson & Steve Alba. Apparently Alba has a few boxes NOS Clouds that were manufactured by Rannalli. The Nine Club used an ad from the Vintage Skate Mag Advert gallery as a visual reference because not everyone remembers Rannalli. The best part is watching Olson crack up about the fact hat they were able to pull it up so quickly. I’d like to thank the Nine Club for leaving the website visible. Also, thanks to everyone who messaged me when they saw it. Honestly, I love documenting the weird, crappy companies more than I do the ones everyone loves and remembers. Moments like this, knowing that someone out there appreciated it makes it worthwhile.

I love it when worlds collide. You’re looking at a picture of director John Waters and Iggy Pop, likely taken around 1990, possibly promoting the film Cry Baby. And, you’re looking at it on Skate and Annoy because I love both of these guys, and Iggy is wearing a Powell Peralta Mike McGill t-shirt. You have to wonder how Iggy got his hands on that. I would love to credit this photo but all I can find are reposts. It looks like it appeared in a newspaper or magazine at some point. If you know the original source please let me know. On the right: It’s the 40th anniversary of the McTwist? I guest was last year. If you’re going to buy a skateboard commemorating the event you might as well get it from Mike McGgill. Ask Mark Conahan about his Iggy Pop story…

With that title you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a 90’s comic book, but Grrl Scouts Work Sucks v1 #1 was published in 2003 by Image Comics. Grrl Scouts is the creation of Jim Mahfood, and there have been a few volumes with different subtitles such as Girl Scouts: Stone Ghost, Grrl Scouts: Magic Socks, and even a volume 2 of Work Sucks. Near as I can tell the last one was published 2017. The web site listed in the colophon is defunct but now there is jimmahfood.com. I haven’t seen any of the other issues and this one is the only one that showed up with a skateboard key word search. The interior is all black and white, and there is some incidental skateboarding on the inside. During the part that concerns us, the girls are drug dealers and they consider hanging out at the skatepark to get some new customers. It’s never the skateboarders causing trouble, it’s always the hangers-on, usually the girls… amiright? Black and white comics can often be a hard sell, but the artwork in Grrl Scouts is so good that you lose yourself in the illustrations. Love the layouts. One thing that I…

It’s rare to find an Archie Comics Group story with skateboarding that doesn’t focus on Archie, Jughead, or poor Mr Weatherby. Laugh comics #309, published in December of 1976, has a story with a character named Li’l Jinx titled “The Board Game.” The comics seems to be aimed mostly at teens, but they have a small stable of characters made up of little kids as well.