Tony Hawk appears on “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?” tonight at 8pm (7 central). You can watch a few clips on the official Fox web site. Must be a celebrity edition for charity. Tony might be fond of game shows with question marks, as he was also on “Who wants to be a millionaire?” Is he smarter than a 5th grader? Who knows, but one thing is for certain, chances are he’s richer than your dad. Headlines like “Tony Hawk: The “Bird Man” with Hawk-like Vision” have got to make him cringe whether or not the web sites is “dedicated to redefining success.”

File under poor execution of a good idea. GameDaily has a gallery of images comparing real photos of pro skaters and their Tony Hawk video game series counterparts. Unfortunately only a few of the 11 sets manage to match the “pose.” Check out these photo mashups showing off Tony and the rest of the cast as they display some of their signature moves, in-game and in real life. Apparently Bam Margera’s real life signature move is to sit on his ass, while his video game signature is a benihana. The best matching sets are Tony Hawk and Ryan “Mr Awesomely Humble” Sheckler, as shown above. Only if you are bored. GameDaily is a super slow loader.

It’s Halloween. It’s Halloween. It’s Hall-O-ween. Here’s some footage of Spiderman skating in what looks like it may be a Vans park. The YouTuber is very mum on the details but it’s slick enough to make me believe I’ve just exposed my ignorance by not knowing what video this was taken from. If I didn’t know better (aside from the difference in skating style, and his bag-o-tricks) I’d say this was the Doctor’s alter ego for sure. Watch it after the jump.

A little bird told me that all three of Portland’s locations of The Office just closed their doors abruptly, but not before carting out all the merchandise in boxes. The Office is/was a skate and snowboard shop that catered to the artsy fartsy crowd with art openings and even Euro spray paint for sale. All this after the 82nd street location recently installed a reportedly very impressive indoor skate facility. When asked for comments, the little bird said “They’re all snowboarders anyway, so what do you expect?” Their MySapce presence says “business as usual” but hasn’t been updated recently. Can anyone confirm whether the The Office is actually shut down? Update: Added a video of Ed Helms (Daily Show and currently on The Office) “interviewing” Tony Hawk.

This clip of Tony Hawk skating in the desert somewhere is pretty amazing. I’m guessing (and pulling it out of my ass, really) that this is from the new Birdhouse video The Beginning maybe? As for the skating spectacle and cinematography, it’s great regardless of your personal feelings on Tony. And really, let’s talk about our feelings. Are you ashamed that you have personal feelings about Tony Hawk? Do you wear a hat made out of tin foil to keep him from discovering them via telepathy? I’m going to be really bummed out if I find out those dust storms are computer generated. Also of interest is Jeep product placement, which I’m sure he got paid for. Who knows, maybe it’s for an upcoming Jeep commercial. As for the web site it resides on, Shred or Die, don’t get Mark started on the name. As far as the site goes, it looks like another crossover action sports social networking attempt, and Hawk is all over that place. I’ll say one thing for them, they did a good job on the video controller compared to the rest of them, YouTube included. They have an instant replay feature and the holy grail…

As useful as a website is, there’s no real substitute for a well planned out book. The Public Skatepark Development Guide is a collection of everything on Skaters for Public Skateparks site (minus the bitching in the forums) that if you are serious, will help you on your quest to get a public skatepark built in your town. The nicely illustrated 128 page guide is published by three organizations; The Tony Hawk Foundation, the International Association of Skateboard Manufacturers – IASC, and SPS, although you’d be hard pressed to find it on their web site. I just got mine and it seems to be well worth the price, which is “free” but you pay the shipping. I think I paid about $6 for mine. It was a while ago when I ordered it. Why did I order it? For the kids, of course! Get yours.

Dan Hughes tipped me off to Tony Hawk’s appearance on HGTV’s show called Sizzling Summer. This particular episode had to do with sizzling backyards, and Tony Hawk’s cement “skatepark” was one of the backyards featured. I tried get this recorded on my own but all I could seem to find were episodes on a bunch of arts and craft projects. Dan was kind enough to digitize it himself. One of the related links that came up with it is a Red Bull authored video on Ryan Sheckler’s backyard skate ramp. It looks like Red Bull must have built it for him because it’s got Red Bull’s color scheme and a cheesy little built in fridge stocked with Red Bull. Watch them both after the jump. Update: Added Bob Burnquist’s house after a reader request.

A seemingly drunk or otherwise incapacitated Jamie Kennedy interviewed Tony Hawk and his game developer at E3, which is to video games what an eBay convention would be like for skateboard collectors. Jamie is clearly phoning in his performance and bombing, but it’s still pretty funny to watch him take the piss out of all the video game geeks. Also amusing is when Tony Hawk realizes he’s in a bullshit situation and turns it back on Jamie a little. Watch the vid (only if you are bored) after the jump. And while we’re doing video games and skateboarding, if you are truly bored, you can also see a picture of a board someone painstakingly painted with a character from the Legend of Zelda. [Source: Gametrailers.com via Best Week Ever]

BMX celebrity Rooftop is interviewed about Tony Hawk’s foray into entry level BMX bikes branded after the Boom Boom Huck Jam. I don’t follow BMX at all, but I recognize the name Rooftop, so he must be a celebrity. Catch one interview on Vital BMX and another on The Come Up. Thanks to Concretin for the tip off. Tony looks like he’s been listening to some Aphex Twin. [Photo: Vital BMX]

My son is about to turn two years old and he’s already obsessed with skateboarding. (Hmmm, I wonder why?) Seriously, one of the first 20 words out his mouth was “skateboard,” although pronounced as “sateboard.” I tried to make his first birthday celebration a small affair, but my wife nixed that idea, just as she’s vetoed all of my plans for sanity on his second birthday. While preparing for the over-celebration this year, she came across a mess of Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom Huck Jam birthday decorations and party favors. Yes, there’s more than just that excellent likeness of Tony on that cake topper.