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.

Does anyone remember Awesome Earl in SkateRock, circa 1988? He was supposed to be the sart of a franchise, with many other adventures “coming soon.” It’s a curious title for a video game. I imagine somebody in marketing picked up a copy of thrasher and randomly appropriated a feature title. SkateRock is a side scroller where you are supposed to avoid obstacles in order to “Join the coveted ranks of the Slime Rat Skaters!” That quote comes from a the game description online, but it’s not actually listed anywhere in the packaging that comes with the version I have. Inside the box there’s nothing more than a 5.25″ floppy, a very short instruction page, and a warranty card. I didn’t actually own this game in 1988, It wouldn’t have run on my Apple IIe. I own it now because I have poor impulse control. Radical! Bigger photos, alternate covers and screen captures from game play after the jump.

A weird little play set, this Littlest Pet Shop Puppy Pal. Nothing says “play” like a puppy locked in a dog kennel. Don’t blame the seller, although for $14 I would want the complete set, even if it did date back to 1992. UPDATED

GEM models was a toy company in England that made plastic figures of may varieties, soldiers, cowboys, indians, and sports figures. There is no definitive source of information on GEM, but the consensus is that they were around during the 50’s and 60’s. Most of these models were sculpted by a man name George Musgrave, a man who had his museum for a while, but again there’s very little information about (this specific) George Musgrave on the web, other than some audio tracks of him reading poetry on the youtube. His home town of Eastbourne has a 45 minute documentary on him (that might have appeared on the BBC) but amazingly, you have to download it. Why do we care about George Musgrave? Because in addition to the hundreds of action figures he sculpted, he also made these creepy little skateboarders. They aren’t inherently creepy, it’s just that if you take close up photos of any 40mm (1.6 inch) model and blow it up larger than life it will tend to look creepy, even if it isn’t a half a century old. While GEModels existed in the 50-60’s, George continued to sculpt for various other toy company and cake topper…

I don’t know about you, but I can’t get enough wiener dogs on skateboards. This one is on a Sonic Drive In bag for their kids meals, called the Sonic Wacky Pack. There’s a girl (or funny looking boy with pigtails) also holding a skateboard, not to mention what looks like a marshmallow on roller blades. Nice grilled cheese launch ramps. The bag is dated 2012. I got this bag when I took my niece to a Sonic a couple years ago, she had never been to one and for some reason was super excited to go to it. After we left she was sort of quiet, and I asked what was wrong. She said dejectedly “It wasn’t as fun as it looks in the commercials.”