This 1978 Pepsi commercial has everything; street skating (well, sidewalks), a dog on a longboard, hockey helmets, gorilla gips, flyouts, freestyle, soft volleyball kneepads, skateparks and more. Watch the video, courtesy of skate and surf film historian Scott Starr, after the jump.

The Life Rolls On Foundation “…is the story of able-bodied individuals, working in concert with those with spinal cord injury, to motivate each other with the inspirational message of achievement in the face of extreme adversity.” Thier flagship progrm is something you might have heard about. It’s called They will surf Again. Here’s an old PSA that should bring to mind Leader O Men.

Man, that kid looks stoked. This is called the GX Skate. I stared at these things in the store for about ten minutes trying to figure out how they worked and what they would do. Then I saw the video and all made sense, until it didn’t make sense after all. Turns out these things are an offshoot of automobile-based toy. Someone thought to themselves, “Hey, skateboards are hot with the kids, lets turn those car toys into skateboards.” The movement is fun to watch, but it doesn’t really corollate physically to a skateboard. – Thanks to Hung Chang for the tip.

Another day, another iPod, another skateboarding video. iPod Nanos now have the ability to shoot video, among other things, and the video recording information page features skateboarding. The actual video footage shown is decent enough, with the exception of the overacting by the guys in it. It’s kind of funny, actually. Someone at the ad agency has watched some skateboarding clips on YouTube, or possibly looked over their offspring’s shoulder as they watched a skate video. You can almost imagine them advising the cast of the shoot on how to make it “realistic.” It has a little bit of that cellphone video quality, probably due to the liquid lens the camera uses. It’s a bit warpy when the camera moves, but it’s not bad for an mp3 player. You can watch it on the Apple site. After the jump, view the iPhone 3Gs TV commercial that features a miniramp.

I haven’t uploaded any commercials in a while, among other things. I’m so far behind and there are so many occurrences of skateboards in commercials these days that I’m going to gang a few together each time we post. This installment features 5 Hour Energy Drink, Kohls department store, Kashi cereal, Axe deoderant, and LIV dolls.

There’s a teaser up for an upcoming Paul Rodriguez video at Nike SB. There are a couple of celebrity cameos. I enjoyed seeing Lance Mountain as one of the cops. Ice Cube makes and appearance too. It seems Paul Rodriguez is blowing up (even more). Boston.com says he’s “ramping up” his exposure. They’ve got a short interview with Paul that’s informal and somewhat interesting.

This Rick Howard commercial for Lakai is pretty effing great. I had a hard time picking a still frame because I didn’t want to spoil it for you. Yeah, that’s quite a build up. I’d like to think that skateboard commercials would be this creative. It’s weird enough that there are actual skateboard commercials on TV, even if they are only on MTV, ESPN, or Fuel. And yes, I realize this isn’t actually a commercial for skateboards, rather skateboard shoes. Close enough. [Source: Boardistan]

If you thought this was beautiful, wait to you feast your eyes on the best commercial in the entire world, ever. Yeah, that’s right, the results are in, and this commercial for the skate bike has won hands down. Check it out after the jump, with a bonus advert for the product as printed in a couple of 1984 issues of Thrasher. While you were out… Thrasher has brought the complete back issues online up to 1985. I wish they would go back to the old method of making it a single pdf download. For one thing, the image size was bigger and even the tiny print was legible. I guess they get more page views that way. – Thanks to Matt Beasley and Ben for the tips.

I have a vague recollection of this style of Levis commercial. This one dates back to 1977 and briefly features some kids and possibly even a gorilla on a skateboard. It’s hard to tell compressed and small, plus the psychedelic nature of the animation doesn’t help any. – Thanks to Eric Shea for the tip.

From cave man straight to bowl rider, skipping the mongo period all together. Here’s a commercial for Extra gum as spotted by frequent (and frequently funny) reader JAKE AND ANNNOY. It’s a video camera pointed at the TV, but the highest quality I’ve ever seen. Ah, techmology…