Surf and Skate historian extraordinaire Scott Starr turned me on to this clip from Green Acres that originally aired in 1967. There’s a community play production of The Beverly Hillbillies that Oliver and Lisa have to step in at the last moment when the leads get injured. Jethro finds a skateboard by the “cement pond” which was what the hillbillies called their pool. This is probably the first time a skateboard was ever used as a plot device on a TV show – the inevitable “unsuspecting tv character gets injured on a skateboard.” I believe there were earlier skateboarder appearances on talk shows and game shows such as What’s my line?, not to mention some ABC sports action, but if this aired in 1967 it was probably after the skateboard fad had died a seemingly overnight death. According to Starr, 1965 was the big commercial year for skateboarding, and Christmas catalog research seems to validate this. Watch the skateboarding segement after the jump.

Travis Pastrana has a show coming out on MTV. This looks like it might have been filmed for that. Yes, a mega ramp jump on a Big Wheel, with a back flip thrown in for good measure. Nutty. Watch the jump and a bonus vintage TV commercial for Big Wheels after the jump. Trike and Annoy! – Thanks to Sarib Khalsa for the tip.

Pepsi ran a commercial during the Superbowl that featured a littel bit of skating and surfing. The idea was to contrast the old days and modern takes on different phenomenon. I think there’s even some footage of Gumby on skateboard. I know there is old and more recent episodes of Gumby riding a skateboard. It’s hard to tell because it looks like it’s been cropped at his front ankle.

Here’s a couple instances of skateboarding on the news. ABC’s Nightline picked up on the mortgage crisis story again. I hope mr Peacock is making some money off these news appearances. Nightline even manages to include the horrendous Jake Brown super slam footage in the segment. I hope Mr Brown is making money off that footage. Also up after the jump. Old Man Army got some coverage on a local Fox News affiliate. Watch it and you’ll briefly get to meet the site’s founders and catch some footage of someone in an (excellent) get up. They don’t say who he is, but he must be the OMA equivalent of GVK. – Thanks to Sarib and Orezona for the tip.

And good luck on your new job. I’m sure some hysterical nut is already falsely reporting that our new President is flashing gang signs, but he’s just showing some love to his Alma Mater’s high school marching band from Hawaii during the inauguration parade, just minutes ago. UPDATE: I’m a self confessed kook. Should have labeled the post Shaka.

Time Warp is a whole show on the Discovery Network based on the premise that a couple of guys have a really expensive ultra high speed video camera, and they shoot processes and show them as you’ve never seen them. So basically, it’s all kind of silly that they make such big deal out of it now that you can basically buy a point and shoot camera for under a grand that does the same thing. The camera man even makes a big deal about it being “ready for high speed” as if it’s some giant apparatus out of a Frankenstein movie that has to be charged by lightning. There’s the obligatory “host wipes out trying to skateboard” scene, as well as some very flowery descriptions of the act of skateboarding: The urban art of skateboarding is just that: An art. It combines the athleticism of gymnastics with the choreography of ice skating, with all of the in-your-face aggression of a street fight. Err… right. Greg Lutzka’ is the pro that skates for them. He seems like a likable guy on camera. They spend way too much time dissecting an ollie, and not enough time showing more complicated derivatives that…

This is a couple of weeks old. I had decided to ignore it, but I was exploring the French-Canadian Versus Skatezine which has a heavy Don’t Do It Army presence. I decided to see what Birdo was up to, and it turns out the Don’t Do It campaign has branched out into the whole action sports industry. One of the first things I clicked on ended up targeting Nike’s entry into the snowboarding boot market, which in turn reminded me of the Winter Dew Tour commercials on TV that have an action sequence of Shaun White skateboarding and morphing into snowboarding. The Dew Tour has a new logo, perhaps coinciding with the creation of the Action Sports Alliance. Make no mistake about it, despite a name that sounds like an operation for activism, outreach, or a rider’s union, it’s a company jointly owned by NBC Sports and MTV. Alli is a global business that joins the former Action Sports Tour properties (AST) with Maloof Money Cup, AMA Motocross Championship and King of Wake series to create the most diverse and robust action-sports offering in the world. The new umbrella brand, which will continue to be co-owned by NBC Sports and…

Yakima, Washington has new skatepark built by Grindline, and a problem with the locals getting stuck in the bowls during the winter. There’s video over at KEPRTV.com. Yakima, Washington folks should be used to snow, right? We rarely get snow in Portland, yet we never get stuck in the bowls when they are full of snow. To be fair, kids sometimes get stuck in Pier Park’s deep bowl even when it’s dry. Somewhere MC has a comic or two about that. That rope isn’t for hanging rollerbladers, it’s to help kids crawl out of the bowls. The fire department has been called out three times in 24 hours to rescue trapped kids. – Thanks to Tito for the tip.

Ah, Bart Simpson you old scamp. Skateboarders have a love hate relationship with him. At first it was just great to have you on our side, but like with so many skaters that keep with it over the years, he eventually ended up being branded as a kook, even though to my recollection he only wore a helmet in one episode. Nowadays we, as a skating population are more apt to give him grief for his poor style. However, a new era may have dawned on Bart’s skateboarding hijinks, thanks to the Skatebook. And thanks to Hulu, I don’t have to take the time to digitize it and eventually get kicked off YouTube again. You can watch the whole episode, but they also let you chose your own start and and end points, so you can embed just the segment you want to highlight. Genius.

PBS Kids airs an educational program called WordWorld. It’s pretty crappy looking as far as animation goes, but it does seem to do a good job of teaching kids the basics of spelling and phonetics. You might think a show trying to teach kids how to spell would be, you know, spelled correctly, but that’s not the case with WordWorld. All the characters and most of the props are made out of letters. When they have challenges or adventures, the characters have to collect and place letters together to physically make the items they need to overcome their obstacles. WordWorld’s opening sequence has a brief bit where a bear rides a skateboard. The bear is a regular, but the skateboard isn’t a constant companion. In fact, I’ve only seen one episode where the bear rides the skateboard outside of the opening sequence. Why do I know so much? I’m not developmentally delayed (much), but I do have three year old kid. As with any vaguely popular TV show aimed at children, WordWorld has merchandising.