This Barbie and Ginger toy dates back to 1997. Ginger is a battery powered dog that barks and walks, and can be used to tow Barbie on her skateboard, complete with little Hotwheels-style wheels. The top frame is a still from a creepy TV commercial. It may have been 1997, but the girl on the left looks like she’s stuck in a 60’s children’s book. The screen cap looks craptacular, but that’s as good as it gets. Someone digitized TV commercial in pre-hd days. The same low-res version with awful motion compression artifacts is all over the web under assorted watermarks. Unfortunately nobody’s uploaded a decent version of it, not that you’d want to watch it endlessly. It does have a sort of hypnotic quality to it, in a Jonestown massacre sort of way. – Thanks to Goofyfoot Rff for the tip.

Sultana Yo Fruit packaging, made in the Netherlands with 90’s American marketing. I especially like the “What the fruit do I know?” tagline on the side of the package. I’m not sure what the little mascot actually is, but Matthijs thinks it’s a cellphone. Stranger things have happened. They look like miniature pop-tarts, but not meant to be put in a toaster. – Thanks to Matthijs for the pics.

Normally I might push this post off to the Broken Kingpins section without comment but the Tubuloids video for It’s Getting Weird connected with me on a primal level. I think GVK missed his calling. Their album on Beer City Records doesn’t come out until October, but you can preorder it now.

Alright, we’ve got special behind the scenes access to Skateboard, the movie, courtesy of this July, 1977 edition of Wild World of Skateboarding magazine.  The article seems hastily written, and does not really offer much behind the scenes action outside of some photos from the set. However, it’s got lots of  poorly written press release action. It also offers an interesting glimpse of the state of skateboarding at the time, such as the lack of “established rules of Downhill in organized competition due to the infancy of skateboarding as a spectator sport.” Apparently, all the competitions in the film were staged. I haven’t seen it in a very long time, but I recall as a kid I thought this was a sort of hybrid of documentary and drama. The tone of the article is amusing in retrospect, as it treats the movie as, well, a film and not the kitsch time capsule it turned out to be.  Pics and full article text after the jump.

Why yes, that is Jack Barmby of the mighty Portland Timbers rockin’ a Nike SB hat for some reason. It’s not the flopping that soccer critics hate, it’s the posing. This is Portland Timbers related post #6 for those keeping score at home.

John Aguilar sent in some photos of a recently completed (OK, February of 2016) Debra Barto Memorial Skatepark, located on the Tulalip Reservation, near Everett, Washington. It is named in honor of the woman in the tribe who pushed hard for building it. John said this Grindline park is a good time as long as it’s not being overrun by scooter and BMX kids. Yes, that bottom feature is supposed to look like a canoe.

This is an animated gif promo for Johnny Sampson’s Total Fuck Up comic book. It has been reported that if you buy it, it will be the least worst thing you do today.

Jan and Dean’s 1964 song Sidewalk Surfin’ is pretty much the first skatesploitation song. I haven’t actually researched that, Doc Skaterock probably knows for sure. It’s easily the most famous one. As a young lad I remember buying a cutout Jan & Dean greatest hits compilation on cassette tape just because of this song. Before we were exposed to the larger world of punk rock and skate rock, we actually used to derive a bit of stoke from this cheesy tune, and later on would bust it out for a laugh and some nostalgia.

So the technology is interesting. A video camera posted at a reflective dome essentially captures your complete surrounding. When you add image processing software, you can manipulate the image to fix the perspective and crop the visible area. Then click and drag around to get a 360° panorama. This technology has been around for stills for over a decade I think. I’m not sure when they applied to video, but someone did, and now there’s a skate video for you to watch. From a novelty standpoint it’s interesting for a little while. From a skate video standpoint it can be cumbersome. If you change your viewpoint once then you’re going to find yourself missing the action as there’s no way to reset to the default view. I played around with it for awhile and it was fun, but more gimmicky than useful for this type of video. What I really enjoyed was watching the raw video in an unsupported browser. The still on the bottom of the picture above shows you what that looks like. It was snapped more or less at the same time as the VR view in the top. As you can see, during times where there’s…

Apparently J. Mascis is not over it, and has taken to skateboarding in a music video again. The Dinosaur Jr. video for “Tiny” looks like it was shot at the Northampton, MA skatepark. Aside from J. pushing around the park, there’s also a skateboarding dog and some roller derby action. It’s decent tune that will stick in your head, but the dog is not impressed at the end. – Thanks to Tom Tallboycan for the tip