Fantasma Toys radio controlled Sonic the Hedgehog Free Riders toy, skateboard edition. Reviewed by a little kid after the jump.

You’re looking at a computer game called Skateboard Kidz for the Spectrum (Sinclair) computer. The game was released in 1988 according to World of Spectrum, which would explain why it came on a cassette tape. Yes, that’s right, you used to have to load computer programs on some home computers via a cassette tape deck. Skateboard Kidz was made by Silverbird Software in the UK, and as such, all the radical 80’s dialect has a distinctly English accent. You can hear it yourself because the program files are downloadable from several places on the web, and if you don’t have a 25 year old computer, you can run it in a web browser with a Javascript MESS emulator. (FYI – Emulator does not seem to work with Safari.)

A Sonic the Hedgehog Cracker Jack toy promotion for Sonic Hedgehog 3, circa 1994.

Tis the season for toy dogs on skateboards. Zippy is part of the Happy’s [sic] and as such, runs on “happy power” which makes me think he’s a hippy. He even skates a little in a TV commercial that is really abrasive to watch. Don’t say I din’t warn you. I wonder if the real Zippy has appeared on the skateboard. (The answer is yes. Keep reading.) Then there’s Trixie. She’s part of the Fur Real Friends gang and is not Happy Powered, thus needing batteries. – Thanks to Mike DeFord for the photos.

New-Ray Novelty made these pull back motor skateboard toys in 1988. And because kids have a short attention span, it’s not enough for them to do one ting at a time. They also need to play tennis, read a book or play baseball at the same time. They really ran out of ideas though. Sure, there’s a double of the tennis player in the set, but two of the figures are going to school; One is reading about apples and the other about a car. What, no football or soccer? Get yours here.

If this this tart could be shipped from/to the USA, I’d think about buying her. There’s not much information about these Susie dolls from Woolbro, they only seem to exist online in cases where they are for sale. This one looks like it dates back to the 70’s, perhaps a contemporary of Dashing Daisy. – Thanks to David ODK for the tip.

In 1991 McDonalds issued Happy Meal toys consisting of memvbers of the “Laf-Squad” riding motorized vehicles. The Laf Squad must have been the secret, paramilitary arm of the Laff-A-Lympics splinter group known as the Yogi Yahooeys. Of the four figures, only Boo Boo Bear had the privilege of riding the customary out of scale skateboard. Here he is, more stylish than your average bear. And yes, he is on actual pool coping.

From the brand you can trust for all your creepy, electronic cockroach needs, Hexbug brings you Tony Hawk’s Circuit Boards. It’s a hybrid of fingerboards and RC skateboard technology that sounds like a bad idea, but looks kind of cool in the demo videos. The promo footage shows some cool maneuvering, however it’s speculation whether this is due to hours of practice and precise timing or some built in mechanism or inherent design that makes lip tricks and kick turns on such a small scale seemingly easy. It comes with a TV commercial featuring Tony Hawk in one of his least wooden advertising appearances ever. Radio controlled Circuit Boards! Get it? Get it?

This slightly frightening, oddly surreal thing is a Smooshie from Fisher Price, circa 1987. A lot of toys have weird little adapters to enable the figure to stand on a skateboard, but this one is the most convoluted. It’s like an infant exersaucer attached to a skateboard, or some kind of toilet training seat. This sexually ambiguous creature in a dress is allegedly a boy.

There’s something about the tactile quality of these old, molded magnets that is really pleasing. Most of the ones I’ve ever seen were molded in the shape of a state or a tourist attraction. As a kid I ate a metric ton of Freakies cereal, and collected a lot of Freakies character magnet that sometimes came as the toy in the box. This Skateboard Happy magnet dates to the same era, a time when there must have been a lot of anger in the sport. Paying 10 bucks for this would make me angry though.