When a plain old skateboard isn’t enough and you need to add a motorized sound to get the kids excited, the Irwin corporation has you covered. The advert is most likely from a 1965-66 Playthings Magazine, an industry publication for toy retailers. A suggested retail of $1.98 ( Under $17 according to the US Inflation Calculator) would have gotten you a noisy plastic sled that didn’t really turn. Fun! Time to “cash in on this surfboarding business.” Order your Whoom-m Jr. Sidewalk Surfer now! Thanks to Darren Haugen for the pics.

It’s been a long time since I’ve added new zines to the 80’s skate zine gallery. Chipping away at the backlog, here are Skate Edge #2 from New Jersey, circa 1983, and Raw Zine #8 from Connecticut, circa 1988. That’s 32 ages of photocopied nostalgia from the collection of Kevin Johnson.

I must have sent away for a catalog from Action Sports in 1984. I just found the postmarked envelope with full color one sheet and photocopied price list. I think that tagline is supposed to read “The 1 Ultimate High.” Aside from the vaguely Celtic typeface, it’s an interesting choice for a time when any given correspondence with a smaller skate brand seemed to have about a 50% chance of including a short handwritten a religious message. I’m not sure why I sent any for this catalog in 1984, since I never really rated the Action Sports brand. I think it might have been because the Invader had a sly look to it.

Thanks again to Nathan Kipnis we’ve got even more pictures of the fiberglass Skate-Ball ramps at the Rainbo Skatepark in Chicago, Illinois circa 78-79. Includes a bonus shot of Jay Adams and Dave Hackett.

Apparently in the world of skateboarding there are these things called magazines, and in particular, the longest running skateboard magazine called “Thrasher” is still a thing. Why on earth would Skate and Annoy link to Thrasher? We like to help out the little guys. Yuk, yuk, yuk… You should definitely check out the Kevin Thatcher interview from the January print issue that just went online. Hey kids, Kevin was a name once synonymous with Thrasher. It seemed inconceivable that there would ever be a Thrasher magazine without him, but to hear him tell it, it was definitely a group effort. Learn about the gory, glory days of mechanical paste ups before everything became Wild Riders of Keyboards… Photo: Self described Pro-for-5-minutes Kevin Thatcher in the Winchester halfpipe in 1978, by Gary Medeiros as seen at Tunnel Skateboards.

Girl is Not. 4 Letter Word has a good read on Stephanie Person, a female black professional skateboard from the 80s. I could not recall her specifically appearing in mags in the 80’s but she did, and I do remember the featured “Sugar and Spice” article in Thrasher. Her experiences as a black female skater in the 80’s are unique even to other female skaters in the 80’s and not all for the reasons you’d expect. It’s notable that her career and sponsorships were result of her smart thinking and persistence. I only wish this had been a little more in-depth. One amusing side note: The editors’s note has to explain what a Swatch is for younger readers. – Thanks to Jason Lilly for the tip.

There are certain topics here on Skate and Annoy that though old, tend to cycle back into popularity every so often, and Skate-ball is one of them. If you’re not familiar, Skate-ball was a pinball-themed fiberglass ramp setup that had actual scores and scoreboard affected by different sections that you rolled over. Now, thanks to Nathan Kipnis we have some brand new (old) skate-ball content. Nathan was part of the Tom Thumb skateboarding team in the late 70’s. Check out these photos of the Skate-ball facilities in Crystal Lake and Chicago Illinois taken by a photographer who occasionally travelled with the team. Nathan can’t remember her name, so hit us up if you know who it is.

When heros rescue history from the trash! Check out these photo of the Ocean Bowl from 1976 shown here by permission of Marc Emond: The photos on this post were pulled from a dumpster behind The Beachcomber weekly newspaper in the early 80s. The box they were in contained piles of surf and skate photos. Whoever found them gave them to Jack Crosby at BB Bombers surf shop. Jack gave me the skate park photos. Pure fate that they ended up in my hands…  If you’re in the mood for more vintage Ocean City, check out this Rolling Surf action.

Sustainability in skateboard manufacturing has to be tackled by the skateboard industry at some point. Bamboo, hemp, whatever… There’s a Kickstarter campaign running right now for a process to make skateboards out of 100% recycled plastic. It’s a little different than most kickstarters, this entire project is open source, and the campaign is essentially just trying to raise money to prepare proper documentation to release in the public domain, allowing anybody the chance to replicate what Jason Knight has done.

It’s being reported that iconic 70’s skateboarder Ellen O’Neal Deason has passed away. I can’ find any first hand sources but is being repeated by reputable people who would know, like Jim Goodrich, the guy behind the lens in both of these photos. She had reputation as a phenomenal freestyler, and yes, one of the earliest well-know female skateboarders, in the company of Patti McGee and Peggy Oki. Ellen was inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame in 2014. Editor’s Note: The absence of any mention of the death of Jeff Grosso earlier the year was not intentional, and was due to the fact that Skate and Annoy was more-or-less offline this Spring.