Elmo

Elmo's debut appearance on BPA comes in the form of a tiny figure mounted on the top of an oversized bookmark from 1999. His deck is a rather unusual circular design and he rides it facing forward rather than goofy or regular. I never cared much for Elmo, but that is probably because he was not a regular character when I was watching Sesame Street. Give me Grover any day.

Concrete Waves

Concrete Waves is a three-way split LP featuring JFA, Blue Collar Special and The Worthless with a vinyl-only bonus track by '80s Huntington Beach punk band Love Canal. It was released in 2002 on Disaster Records and produced by Duane Peters. With the exception of the Love Canal track which was recorded in '82, all tracks were recorded in the 2000s. To my knowledge this is the only record to feature an 8-wheeler on the cover. Unfortunately that is the best part of this record. The JFA tracks are mostly about skating and have some good lines (like complaining about kids waxing up the metal coping) but don't hold up against their early work with the possible exception of the instrumental track "Death Box." Blue Collar Special are far too poppy for me and sound like they could've been on Fat Wreck Chords if they had been around a little earlier. The Worthless have a better sound but their lyrics leave quite a lot to be desired. I can appreciate their attempt to raise awareness to the dangers of tampons in their song "Toxic Shock" but I think their delivery belies their true intentions. The Love Canal track is not bad though.

Skateboard Smurf with Halfpipe

Skateboard Smurf with Halfpipe (or Schtrumpf Planche à Roulettes avec Demi-Lune) is a smurf figure in an unusual no-hands invert position. Although he is marketed as coming with a halfpipe he clearly comes with a very small quarterpipe. The back of the packages shows Skateboard Smurf in a different outfit although I do not think that figure was ever made. This figure was released in 2009, shortly before the recent wave of Smurf movies. Other smurfs on BPA include Roll-Along Smurf and the Surfin' Smurfs collection.

EasyGlider

EasyGlider Skateboard Soap for Bath-Time "Hot Doggers" was made by Amway in 1979. It is a bar of soap in the shape of a deck complete with woodgrain top that sits on a plastic mount attached to wheels. The backside of the box has a marketing paragraph chock full of lingo, which they put in quotes to let you know these are terms and phrases that only the kids know.

Bad Antics - The Wave

For their 2nd release Bad Antics eschewed the skeletal doodle for a simple shot of a board and a spot and leave the rest to your imagination. The title suggests long carves on concrete banks. The Wave is a 7" EP released in 2008 on Flat Black Records. Unlike their first release there are no skate tracks on this EP but they do sound a bit tighter.

Street Surfer

This Street Surfer belt buckle is tiny! It is much smaller than the average buckle and I have yet to find a belt that it fits on. It is from the '70s and was made in Canada. There are a lot of these floating around but many of them are newer repros that have different lettering (it looks like it was copied from this but didn't come out as clean). The originals are not hard to find, and dead stock can still be purchased from Skull Skates (they have a larger version as well).

Fido Dido

Fido Dido is a character that has appeared in comic strips, on t-shirts and in a Sega Genesis game but is most well known as a mascot for 7-Up (before being replaced by the anthropomorphic dot "Cool Spot"). He appears here in pin form along with his trusty 7-Up can catching some unusual air.

Roadrunner

Looney Tunes characters have been pretty underrepresented on BPA, which is why I'm happy to bring you this skating Roadrunner figure from 1999. I believe he is from a vending machine since he is a little bent, presumably from living in a plastic egg for so many years. He is a fairly small figure, standing only about 1.5" tall. Bugs Bunny is the only other Looney Tunes character to featured on BPA so far (unless you count Plucky Duck).

Possessed to Skate Volume Two

Possessed to Skate Volume Two is a 10" compilation put out in 2002 by Six Two Five Thrashcore. Released 5 years after the first volume, Volume Two focuses on thrash rather than power violence. It features 4 bands: E.T.A. (from Sweden), Life Set Struggle (from Ohio), Breakfast (from Japan) and Scholastic Deth (from SF). Their are a number of songs about skating on the comp, including E.T.A.'s "Let's Go, Let's Skate," Life Set Struggle's "Rippin Shit Up," Breakfast's "Alameda" and Scholastic Deth's "On the Road of Life, Be Sure to Stop and Skate the Ledges." All that's missing is a copyeditor for the cover.