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.

Webcomic Penny Arcade did a strip about Tony Hawk Ride. It’s not about skateboarding though, it’s about buying and reviewing video games. Post-modern self-reference is so last decade. The guy did, in fact, hate it. I couldn’t really tell from the strip.

Another newspaper story, this one from The Philadelphia Inquirer reports the shocking fact that people over 30 years-old are regularly riding skateboards. There are some interesting details about how they organized and paid for their indoor facility and I did enjoy reading:

“Skating doesn’t make you a skateboarder,” he says, quoting Lance Mountain, a skateboard legend in the ’80s. “Not being able to stop skating, that makes you a skateboarder.”

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 for Sale. It features freestyle “legend” Andre Walton. I have to be honest, I didn’t remember ever hearing his name, but he turned up on Sk8Kings.com, and oddly enough, friend of the site Danimal had one of his “Arise” decks as mentioned on EPM. EIT has a slightly skewed verion of the clip. I did manage to find a longer version as well.

– Thanks to Stephen Slappe for the tip.

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.

The BBC has a slideshow of some images from the Uganda Skateboard Union. People have been donating boards to the cause. The Tony Hawk Foundation has made some sizable material donations. Someone else even went to the trouble of donating a Mountain Dew shirt so the locals could get extreme! At this point in the post I’d like to point out that Uganda Skateboard Union first came to the attention of S&A back in 2007! If you’re in the mood for a good natured giggle, check out their awesome video, Boardmaster, from 2008.

– Thanks to Paul Fujita for the tip.

A couple more music vids with skateboarding. No, it’s not Rob Dydrek launching a rap career. He’s just making a guest appearance in the Mayer Hawthorne video for Maybe So Maybe No. Hey Stones Throw, hook us up. Second up is “Young Forever” by Jay-Z with a guest appearance by Mr Hudson.

– Thanks to Brian Baade for the tip.

A giant photo of MC appeared briefly in Times Square, New York, courtesy of the Vans billboard and an excellent camera work by Bryce Kanights. You can see the photo and more from the session over at Antigravity Press.

OK, I know this sort of falls outside of the scope of this website, at least I think it does, but I’m not sure anymore. So maybe this is the first and last time I post a commercial for Tony Hawk’s Huckjam bikes, unless there’s skateboarding in the future ones. Listen for his celebrity voiceover at the end. That almost looks like Tony as the mad scientist. It’ll be hard to tell from the Russian YouTube video quality. I can’t figure out how to delete an RuTube video, much less make it higher quality. My four year old loves riding his bike, and he knows who Tony Hawk is, sort of. He got really excited about this commercial. As he emphatically relayed it to his mom, “Tony Hawk makes bicycles. They’re for boys like me. They’re my size. They don’t have training wheels. They’re just for boys like me.” Come on product review!

Here’s an ABC video from 1987 for a song called “The Night You Murdered Love.” It’s an unlikely pairing, and I never saw this one. This band really annoyed me in their heyday. You could say they got under my skin. However, I found their story as read in Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984. There was a lot more to that band than you might think. This was the case with a lot of those types of bands from the UK that I couldn’t stand at the time. The book covers a lot more than ABC, and if you are a fan of “Our Band Could Be Your Life”, I highly recommend it. It’s very similar. Right, check out this horrible video with a wacky ABC licensed skateboard. It looks like a production model, or would appear to be since it’s in shrink wrap still. That’s just the kind of clueless thing you might expect in a video from a band that likely had not step foot on a skateboard prior to the video shoot. Graphics on top of the board too, so that makes sense in the context of a board that has trucks assembled after the shrink wrapping. It does have some bizarro aftermarket rails added on. It looks like they were designed to make the board look swanky. The skateboard in the story line of this video makes no sense whatsoever. There’s an anorexic chic with a fancy slingshot following the band around Paris with her skateboard in hand, except for a brief, and stiff ride. That’s luxury and decadence for you. I would have liked to hear how they sold that one.

– Thanks to Matthijs van Wijk for the tip.