The PXL2000 was a camera released in 1987 by the toy company Fisher-Price. These things cost around $200, which is about $590 these days. They were discontinued after about a year, probably because that was a lot of money for a kid’s toy. A verified working camera that isn’t “as-is” will set you back around $500 today. I first became aware of these back in the day because Dan Estabrook of Contort mentioned a skate video being shot on this camera, and this would have been anywhere from 87-89. I never saw that video, but I did keep my eyes peeled (unsuccessfully) to buy a camera of my own. Fisher-Price made a print ad for the camera that featured skateboarding, as well as a TV commercial with incidental skateboard content.

I thought Gashapon was the brand name but it turns out that’s what the Japanese call those little vending machines that you can buy miniature toys from. More or less in the style of what we’d call gumball machines in the US. This is the Little Boarder set, and like the advert says, Anything goes, little boarder! Indeed, these are just tiny skateboard figures attached to mostly unrelated food items.

So far this is only the second appearance of Woody Woodpecker on Skate and Annoy, but it’s a big one. It started how these things usually start, an innocent glance at an auction item or an old forgotten file saved on a hard drive. Instead of just a puzzle, this time we’ve got PVC figures, plastic fast food toys, alarm clocks, animation cells, skateboards, and a comic book.

I mean sure, why not? Maybe “Baby Unicorns” was already taken, so they went with newborn instead. Another in a long line of cheap plastic crap offered in blind containers. These pictures of a display stand in a grocery store were taken in 2022, but you can still buy these destined-for-landfill gems at the time of this publication. Looks like this newborn unicorn is riding a drop-style longboard.

It’s spring now, right? This is one of those toys that comes in those Kinder Eggs. Doc Skaterock tagged me in a post circa 2022 and when it popped up in a memory I realized I never posted it on Skate and Annoy. So here it is. It’s impossible (for me at least) to see anything with a small, cute sheep and not think of Shaun the Sheep. I wish this was Shaun the Sheep.

While digging around looking for Lucky Charms images a couple days ago, I spied this Hot Wheels Skate Tony Hawk Cereal Skate Bowl fingerboard set. I ignored it initially, but it did trigger a memory something I had flagged when scanning vintage skateboard magazine ads. Volume 2, number 5 of Skateboarder Magazine had a photo a near the end showing a fiberglass wave that Skitch Hitchcock had built and was carrying around in the back of a rental truck.

Skateboard Construction System was released for the Sinclair Spectrum in 1988 by a company called Players Software in the Uk. Players had a reputation for low budget software. This game cost £1.99 with is roughly $10 today, adjusted for inflation and the pounds to dollars exchange in 1988. It must have been a flop, because you can’t find any video footage of gameplay, and people will play anything.

With a price of $80 (!) I thought this might be something special but it turns out that “Rara Bambola Skateboard Girl Vintage Anni 80 Avventura Daisy Tanya Hong Kong Nuova!” just translates to “Rare Vintage 1980S Skateboard Girl Doll, Daisy Tanya Adventure, Hong Kong, Brand New!” I did a little digging and couldn’t find anything rare, (or anything else) about it. The seller may be trying to past off as Dashing Daisy related, but it doesn’t get close to rising to that level of quality. It’s not Barbie’s little sister Skipper, nor Skipper’s friend Fluff, or even Cool Times Ken. It’s maybe a step above Skateboard Action Teen but I think it’s just another entry in a long line of cheap Barbie knockoffs. On the plus side, it does have “rooted hair and vinyl head.” Made in Hong Kond, labeled in English, but someone in Italy thinks they are worth a lot. What’s Tanya got to do with it?

It’s time for another installment of crap Commodore 64 skateboarding games, and this time I’m showing Skatin’ USA, a 1990 release by Atlantis Software, a UK company that would go out of business in 1992 after an 8 year stint. It looks like the premise of the game is an American kid on a skateboard battling English Punks. Seems like those two parties ought be be natural allies and not enemies!

I can’t make a simple post to save my life. This was going to a bundle about handful of crappy vintage computer games that weren’t interesting enough merit their own post. Curiosity killed my free time, and so here we are. In 1988 a 16 year old kid named James Closs programmed a crappy skateboard computer game for the Sinclair Spectrum called Skateboard Joust. He sold it to a publisher and made enough money to buy a car and have some cash during college. James had never stepped foot on a skateboard at the time, or actually played the game Joust. By his own admission the game wasn’t very good, and that always bothered him. 32 years later he released the sequel, Jetboard Joust on the Steam platform in 2020.