In high school I loved Rocky and Bullwinkle. I still do, but I used wake up on school days an hour earlier than I had to, just so I could watch reruns of a cartoon that was already almost 20 years old. The show ran in various formats on network TV from 1959-1973, even though the production stopped in 1964. Syndication followed later. The General Mills corporation was the main sponsor, so it’s no surprise that they used Rocky and Bullwinkle in some advertising. This is from a full page ad from an unnamed comic book that allegedly ran in 1966.

I bought the April 2009 issue of Transworld so I could check out the Black Label “Skate and Annoy” advert. I was reading a pretty interesting interview with Jason Dill. One question asked if he felt weird about being on the same footwear team as Sheckler, and how could he possibly relate. Dill’s reply was a thoughtful one: What label are Flaming Lips on? Warner Brothers? Who else is on Warner Brothers? I thought that was a particularly mature way to look at the situation. Less articulate was his response to how he feels about skateboarding web sites: Yeah, it’s great for the kids, but we are adults here, we know what’s going on… …that’s cool people shit with their fucking blogs and nightly updates on bullshit. That’s my new shit. Keep me off you blog or I’ll knock you out. I’ve made it known to the bloggers that I am not down… Fuck you dude. You’re on my blog.

Everyone seems to think this is the Gurnee, Illinois skatepark, but I think it technically belongs to Warren Township, which is adjacent to Gurnee, home of Six Flags Great America and the lovely accompanying ditch. What’s the scoop on this park? Keep reading.

In case you missed the live webcast, Fuel Tv has some Tampa Pro footage online. You’ll have to download their special vidoe player, but it’s a thoroughly painless process. It’s a slick player, supposed to be hiccup free (wasn’t for me..) but I don’t understand why they go through the trouble to roll their own. I guess that’s why our vids are all low-def exercises in YouTube patience. Maybe we need to re-examine the SnA “business model.” Newsflash. Contest videos are pretty boring. I watched the first ten minutes of the 30 minute best trick contest, and there was only a handful of people who actually landed anything – less than one a minute. Right now there are five videos up, and GVK is going to have to get on horn and complain about the utter absence of the vert footage, because there actually was a pro vert contest too… That’s OK, vert contests are pretty boring to watch unedited too. Seriously, have you gone back and tried to watch any of the 80’s vert contest videos? Once the nostalgia wears off (usually in the first five minutes) it can be hard to stay awake. There’s almost seven hours of…

What’s wit these companies that start with “V?” After posting about the first ever symmetrical board that was made by Vision, I came across this post on Vert is Dead about the evolution of the new truck hole pattern. Ocean Howell may have been the first guy to drill his own baseplates, and Venture was apparently the first truck company to offer it as a stock option. I guess everyone else just copied them. Does anyone know who the first board company was to offer the new, smaller mounting pattern? One thing I’d like to know is how did the industry standardize on the first pattern? If you’ve never seen some old trucks from the early 70’s, they all had their own mounting patterns. Boards came undrilled, and you could buy special guide to help drill them straight. Was there some sort of round table meeting with the big truck companies, or did the board manufacturers drive that decision. Were there arguments and hold outs? Some of the plastic boards had multiple mounting holes molded into them, as if they wanted to be be able to mount trucks from different manufacturers in case a supplier had problems.

SKATECULTURA is from Brazil, and it documents vintage skateboarding through multiple decades, from a Brazilian perspective. There’s also a little of the current scene sprinkled in there, with an emphasis on Brasil’s most famous skateboarding export, Bob Burnquist. It looks like there was a slew Brazilian skate magazines at one time, some of them looked pretty sophisticated. Clockwise from the top left: A special Tony Hawk poster edition of Overall. Revista Yeah #1, Overall#15, Yeah Skarte #1, and Overall #13. There other magazines like Tribo with adverts for skate shoes you’ve never heard of like Qix, and skateboard companies like Torlay.

I haven’t been paying attention to Richie Jackson lately, not through any conscious decision. Like a lot of people, I am a huge fan of his video parts from Death, so I was excited to check this out too. Not too stoked on this Ipath clip, and a big part of it is probably the weak music. I get it, he loves the 60’s, however the soundtrack stokes me like a wet dishrag. Something a little more uptempo might have served him better. No matter, the last ten seconds of the video are worth it. [Source: Respect Authority]

This advert for Vision skateboards V6 concave came from the 1989 July issue of Thrasher. It’s hard to tell from the tone of the advert in this time period whether or not they were being facetious. It’s essentially the precursor to today’s modern popsicle boards, only they took it a little bit further. The ad copy says it’s completely symmetrical and evenly balanced. How is it that Vision could have been a good three or so years ahead of the curve and still manage to disappear by the time everyone caught up?

Road Trip! Matt Klein is throwing a party as a fundraiser for the expansion of his backyard skate oasis. We rode through there nine months ago on a skate trip. Matt is a great guy and the bowl is rad! I can’t wait check out his new additions. coincidentally there are a couple of new skateparks open down that way – Myrtle Creek and Winston. More BBQ details after the jump.

Spotted on Flickr, this Russian postcard has a caption that roughly translates to: When Gosha received a new skateboard he thought it was the best present in the world. However, within half an hour he realized that the best present would be new frontal teeth. Unlike the monkey made famous in Big Brother who appeared with Ryan Sheckler and Bob Bunquist in MVP2: Most Vertical Primate, this monkey doesn’t need a special snowboard style binding for his front foot. My three year oid kid would watch that damn movie 24-7 if I’d let him.