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 version of what someone in Topps marketing thought represented skateboarding culture. Lots of “rad dudes” and cow skulls, like Life’s a Beach meets Zorlac, but turned into a Nickelodeon cartoon for kids. I think these things sold for a dollar and change each. A while back I saw an unopened case up for bid, but they wanted something in the neighborhood of $100 for it. Second generation fingerboards? Yes. Slightly more maneuverable than the hard, keychain versions that first appeared in the 80’s, you know, the kind that featured paper graphics in a clear shell. Stylin’ Skateboards were at the opposite end of the brittle spectrum. The loose tolerances of the truck and wheel assemblies combined with the soft plastic made for the first fingerboards that you could more or less turn instead of just sliding. The larger size was more to scale as well, but ultimately the cheap plastic was too soft to get any meaningful use out of a toy version of… well, a larger toy. Somewhere in my basement I have at least one of these unopened. One day I’ll dig it up.

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.

UPDATE: This post dates back 2013 and a lot of the content and comments have to to with Skatemaster Tate (Gerry Hurtado) who didn’t really have an internet presence at the time. Gerry did eventually surface in the online skating world through social media (actually commenting on this site too) as well as having a skateboard released through Flood Control and a flexi-disc release in an issue of Pure Fun. Sadly, within a week of being diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer, he passed away on October 13th, 2015.

I’ve been sitting on some recorded rebroadcasts of SK8 TV from around the turn of the millennium. I’ve been hesitant to post them online because I figured between Viacom and Stacy Peralta, I wasn’t in a hurry to get kicked off of Youtube again. In my head, these belong to the 80’s but according to IMDB, the first air date was in 1990. SrArcade has a channel and blog mostly dedicated to restoring and playing old video arcade games, but he’s also uploaded a healthy chunk of the old Nickelodeon show. There are 51 uploads to date, each a segment instead of a whole episode, but all of them are included in one playlist for easy viewing. It looks like his masters are a lot cleaner than my VHS dubs – dubbed to digital 8, and then again to mini DV – that’s how long I’ve been sitting on them! Nickelodeon has made some of their vintage shows available for download in the iTunes store, but SK8 TV wasn’t one of them. I wonder if Stacy was shrewd enough to be able to retain the copyright on these episodes. If not, why they aren’t being rebroadcast or sold as a DVD set? That show was corny as heck, but it had it’s moments, and nostalgia sells. I’d look forward to watching the hell out of SK8 TV on the couch with my kids on a Saturday morning. SrArcade has had some of these up for a year, so maybe they’ll last. If not there’s another guy selling individual episodes as a download. Say hello to Matthew Lillard and Skatemaster Tate.

No Coke. Pepsi This Pepsi can hails from Greece, circa 1993. Limited edition, don’t you know? Mohawks, dogs and guitars on skateboards. Radical. I can’t believe Greece still used pull tabs on cans as late as 1993. If you don’t get the reference, look it up. Good luck finding a video. Effing Hulu…

Plan B is launching a video history of Plan B. This first segment is titled Mike Ternasky Reflection, Return of ‘The Team.’

In 1991 Mike Ternasky assembled one of the most dominant teams in the history of the sport and produced what many consider to be the best skate video of all time, Questionable. In 1994, after Mike’s tragic death in car accident the future of the team appeared to be over. Then in 2005, founding team members Danny Way and Colin McKay relaunched the brand with their own version of the super team and a dream to continue the legacy of Plan B.

I didn’t have time to watch it all, but you do or you wouldn’t be here.

[Source: Ali Sports]