You’re looking at the cover of Skateboard Champion, #112 in Edward Packards Choose Your Own Adventure series. And most skateboarder do, choose their own adventures. The kid on the cover chose spandex shorts; a complete set of plastics – noes bone, rails, lapper; tie dye graphics; and counterfeit Nike shoes. The wistful expression on his face? I think the girl in the baseball jersey on the deck just broke up with him. It’s quite a backyard vert ramp though. It looks very 80’s but the book was actually published in 1991, which also looked very 80’s for a while. [Photo: Gamebooks.org]

I’m combining two goofy posts into one, featuring Goofy and Mike V. Who you calling goofy? I’m certainly not calling you goofy, Mr Vallely, Sir. What we have here are two items that are only marginally related at best, because they both feature the Disney character known as Goofy. There’s a glutton of Goofy products with skateboards, only one of which I’ve featured here before. I’ve got others on deck though. (I slay myself…) On the left, original artwork and press proofs for an 80’s era Aladin lunchbox featuring Goofy and the gang at a skatepark. On the right, someone auctioned off Mike V’s season pass to Disneyland.

You know, it seems like I’ve read some of this before somewhere… No? Death Skateboards produced a good two part video of the Simon Woodstock story. It includes some interesting history on Sonic Skateboards and lot’s of, dare I say, rare footage? Check it out after the jump.

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.

I had more than a handful of these “Stylin’ Skateboards” from Topps. The first time I saw them was in ’91 or ’92. I think it was B-Rad who showed it to me first, and it blew my mind. I asked where he found it, expecting it to be something a friend brought back from a trip to Japan or some kitschy novelty shop in New York. Instead, he nodded his head over his shoulder towards the Wall Mart at his back in a semi rural (at the time) Steamboat Springs, Colorado. This sales sheets shows them packaged in little boxes, but the ones I saw came in sealed plastic bags with heat-pressed seams. Each bag came with some crappy candy sugar wads pressed into the vague shape of a skateboard wheel, though more likely just generic pellet molds. Also in the package, a really crappy plastic fingerboard made out of soft plastic. I believe you had to snap the wheels in place yourself. The second generation fingerboards (more on that later) were fun for a few minutes, but the real reason to keep buying these things was for the paper stickers that came with them, each a slightly mutated…

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

The Police Academy movie series started in 1984 and the last one came out in 1994, which puts this 1990 Police Academy comic book out around the time of Police Academy 6: City Under Siege, which came out in 1989. That’s right, they cranked out the first 6 movies in 6 years! Turns out they are reviving it once gain, with a new sequel scheduled to come out in 2014. If you expect the quality of this Marvel Comics title to show the same commitment to the craft that the movies do, you be entirely right. It’s pretty bad. In fact, the frame above is about the only thing interesting in the whole story, which only takes up part of Police Academy Volume 1, Number 6, published in February of 1990. I don’t think Lance Mountain is in this one.

SFGate has posted some pictures in a feature called Four decades of skateboarding in San Francisco. It’s part of their Let’s Go to the Morgue! series where they dig up old photographs from the San Francisco Chronicle. Better versions of the picture, along with a little commentary are on the SFGate blog. The earliest photo dates back to 1964, and the last one is from 1994.

Rad Dudes trading cards are were published by Pacific trading Cards in 1990. Everything is neon, Rad Dudes are hanging on to the last bit of 80’s they could muster. Rad Dudes are pretty much a third rate copy of Garbage Pail Kids, as perpetrated by someone who was only vaguely familiar. They are amzaing only in the total absence of any amount of creativity. Character names are uninspired and the illustrations usually lack an interesting composition. There’s 110 cards pre set, 55 front illustrations, each having two back versions, one with some character dialog and the other as part of a tile making a larger version of one of the cards. Although the cards are 23 years old, they have absolutely no collectible value. You can buy an entire set of 110 for $1-$2, with shipping usually costing more than the actual cards.

It’s 1978 and the Rocket Racer is back in Volume 1 #182 of The Amazing Spiderman. I haven’t seen the first appearance of the Rocket Racer, but the storyline mimics the ’90s animated Spiderman series, except the Rocket Racer in the cartoon is a teenager, while the original Rocket Racer is drawn more like a full grown man. The Rocket Racer has a skateboard that allows him to defy gravity. Not only does it stick to walls, but it magically adheres the riders feet to the board while riding vertical surfaces. Rocket uses his skateboard to perpetrate crimes to pay his mother’s or gandmother’s medical bills. It’s the age old story of a good hearted person forced into a life of crime. The pages with skateboarding in them are available after the jump, as well as the entire episode from the 1994 animated series.