Art Clokey passed away on Friday. His early work was pretty surreal at times. What good hearted person doesn’t love Gumby? There were at least two Gumby episodes that revolved around skateboarding. The first one was a 1967 episode of the Gumby Show, titled Dog Catchers. I believe that is the first skateboarding dog, unless you count this one. The second was a 1988 creation titled Skateboard Rally, in which the Blockheads rip his stick. There’s a dramatic car chase, Skate Rock on a half pipe – performed while skating, no less, a contest with loop action and some heavy eigties guitar riffs. I think David Dink got ripped off by the judges though. Check em out after the jump. – Thanks to ehdubya for the tip.

Hey you! Hey! Are you taking my picture? MY picture?!!! Well alright! We’re big fans of the dork session here, obviously, and so are Gabe Stoltz (as seen above) and Kevin Porterfield from Dokument Boardshop or Skatecamp… Err, what’s going on in Salem, Kevin? Whew. It’s been a while since I updated the Shot of the Week. I got out of the habit when I was dealing with hackers and hosting woes, but it’s back.

Lots of things for sale on eBay. I was looking up some vintage skate shirts and found this guy who is making his girlfriend model all his t-shirts for eBay. “Come on baby, you’ll be star.” Whatever, at least she looks like she’s into it. Left to right: Droors shirt from the 90’s, G&S skateboards from the 80’s, and Globe Australia from… ? He’s got some “punk” items and snowboard related stuff, plus Styx…. Best part is, you can’t really see the the design on the shirts in most of pictures. That’s marketing!

I like to thank people who send in tips, and include a link for them if they have one. I curse Stephen Slappe for sending me this tip. I’ll never get back all the time I wasted researching this. The clip that’s making the rounds is from Everything is Terrible, a web site that is like watching Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job, only with real footage. Colby the Computer googlizes into a thousand references to Colby’s Clubhouse, a Christian children’s show with a talking, evangelizing computer. However, episode guides omits this gem of a clip. In fact, the only time “skateboard” shows up is in another episode called “Helping the Missionaries,” where a kid wants people send him money so he can buy a skateboard. Colby’s Playhouse ran from 1995 to 2000, but this rapping freestyle-filled episode is definitely 80’s, and has an entirely different production value than every Colby’s Clubhouse. Everything is Terrible is all about the video without explanation or insight. Terribly entertaining, but frustrating if you want the back story. It was maddening trying to find this episode, but eventually the explanation turned up on totalschwarr! This is an episode of Colby’s Place, titled Skateboard…

Juergen Horrwarth’s Change of Guard is a few old vert dogs hanging over a weekend with some up-and-comers in a chance to exchange tips and tricks. Who is Juergen Horrwarth? Well, he’s Juergen Horrwarth, German vert skater. If the triples action in the admittedly blurry screen capture above piques your interest, watch the short video after the jump.

Bryce Kanights on Halloween as Steve Zissou from the Life Aquatic, and “Splinter the oceanographer” from Tech Deck Dudes. Bryce photo courtesy of EPM’s Halloween 2009 gallery.

The crack of 2010, and lo and behold, old dudes in St Louis like to skateboard. That’s crazy talk, I can’t believe it. In the words of MC, “Old guys skateboarding? Well, now I’ve heard everything.” Check out Recapturing thrills, spills from St. Louis Today. Still awake? head on over to An Ethnographic Study of the Skateboarding Culture, which is where the title of this post came from. Unbelievably, the data for this scholarly paper was obtained by watching the DVD Planes, Trains and Skateboards, focusing on X Games X in Los Angeles, CA. Are you kidding me? A scientific analysis based on on someone’s video editing bias? I mean, why not choose the movie Thrashin’ instead? Seems just about as valid. – Thanks to Bob Mechtly and Daddy Yo for the tips.

There’s a bunch of guys traveling across different countries on skateboards. Guiness World records for distance must be falling faster than world’s biggest skateboard records. The only reason I’m bringing up Rob Thomson from New Zealand so I can lament over the fact that Flight of the Conchords is not returning for another season. Well that, and the fact that Thomson uses a trailer on his longboard. For some reason, he’s got like five web sites. Follow his exploits on Skatefurther.net as well as 14 degrees off the beaten track. I guess that’s only two web sites. Get the long winded explanation of the trailer on his YouTube channel.

From Skaters for Eugene Skateparks: Here it is amigos. With your input, Dreamland has narrowed the field to one design. HOWEVER, this is not the final word. It is time to tell them what you think. Join us at the next public design forum presentation next Wednesday, January 13t at 6:00 p.m. at the Library. Check out the design renderings and video fly throughs at SkateEugene.org. – Thanks to Chad and Sarib for the tip.

I’ve been collecting (pictures of) boards with beer graphics on them for a future gallery. I just found two boards from Deathwish that have taken logo appropriations a step further by actually making the boards in the shape of a bottle and a can. It was annoying trying to track these down. I didn’t follow the saga of Baker skateboards, never really been a fan of their gestalt, and so I was confused by the whole Baker/Deathwish entanglement. Thank god for Wikipedia. Extra points to Deathwish on the beer-colored wheels. That’s a nice touch. Points deducted for screwing with the proportions of the tall boy can. It looks more like Red Bull.