Skateboarding dog float at the Rose Parade! How did I miss this? Oh yeah, I didn’t watch it on TV. This was the battle royale of skateboarding bulldogs, the float featured both Tillman and Tyson the, uh, skateboarding bulldogs… Flickr user theMaykazine actually went there.

[Source: The Skatepark Times]

Rob dyrdek has an obsession with world records. He’s been goofing around with an oversized skateboard for his MTV show Fantasy Factory. At first I thought this was the same board we featured here back in 2007. In fact, it almost looks smaller than the ones the Michigan enginerds built. The guys who built said they had a possible high profile buyer in line, but weren’t allowed to say who. I looks like the trucks are different for sure. The Michigan model was based on Seismic trucks, this one appears to be more conventional. Still, they don’t show the construction phase, they could have easily swapped out the giant trucks… One thing that is interesting, the references make no mention of “world’s biggest,” just greatest. Remember kids, Swank stared this whole thing. While were at it, Drydek has written a skateboarding movie called Street Dreams that is supposed to be released at an unknown date in 2009. The film is already completed, and stars some familiar names like Rob Dyrdek, Paul Rodriguez Jr., Ryan Sheckler, Compton Ass Terry, and Ryan Dunn. The plot is about a Midwest skateboarder trying to go pro, and all the non-flowing parents, bitchy girlfriends,skate harassment and related trials and tribluations. It all comes down to the clincher at Tampa Am. Kind of like in Most Vertical Primate 2 when the kid beats out Ryan Sheckler at the Seattle Air Quake contest, with the help of his chimpanzee. Giant skateboard video after the jump.

[Source: Transworld – Baltimore Examiner ]

That’s right, “Skurfing.” This is a short clip from a 1965 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation piece on skateboarding. The reporter interviews a gal who says she had to form a “Sidewalk Skurfing Association” to keep from getting kicked off campus. It’s got lots of Peanuts-esque light jazz piano and the soon to be archetypal reporter flailing on a skateboard. Best line, hands down:

Do you think this will be obsolete in time, like the hula hoop?

There a short excerpt on YouTube, but to see the whole thing you have to go to the CBC Digital Archives. At the end there is a gratuitous shot of the original skateboarding dog with a dire voiceover about the current skateboard sales trends in major Canadian cities. Love the visual quality of that vintage video tape. It looks like it’s ready to catch fire.

– Thanks to Curtis for the tip.

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 would really benefit from a super slow motion presentation. The skateboarding part starts around the eight minute mark, just after the scantily clad fire breathing girls. There are a few commercial breaks in there as well. Check it out.

– Thanks to Mac for the tip.

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 MTV, will offer a schedule of seven national and international action sports tours and events, multimedia content and production, a digital hub and consumer-facing lifestyle brand.

Check out the press release. No word on the official position of the Don’t Do It Army.