Saturday, March 28, 2015

Mean Jeans II


The Mean Jeans return with a singles collection LP released in 2015. Their last appearance on BPA featured a couple Dirty Donny t-shirt designs as well as the back of a 7" and a drawing from an insert. This time they put the skaters right on the cover, albeit in the background. This cover is pretty amazing - like an '80s neon punk Chuck E. Cheese for teenagers complete with arcade, miniramp and slime pool. What more do you want?!


Saturday, March 21, 2015

X-Treme Skate City


Found this skateboard slot-car set in a local thrift store recently. They were asking $24.24 for it but the next time I was there they had it down to about $12. Maybe if it gets to about $5 I'll pick it up. The main reason I passed was the figures just looked too lame. It's advertised as having "Real Skate Park Detail," such as "Radical Ramps," "Thrashin' Rails," and a "Cool Half-Pipe" that is really just a banked turn. It takes 4 D batteries so if I do end up getting it the batteries I bought for Don't Bite the Pavement may not be a total waste after all.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Mario II


Mario returns to BPA and makes his first appearance in figure form (previously seen in pin form). This figure is from 1996 and was made by Zaini, one of the many Italian Kinder-like companies who hide toys in chocolate eggs. This is apparently only a European thing because kids in the US choke too easily. The promo for this series shows Luigi skating but it looks like they only made Mario.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Beethoven's 2nd


This is probably the closest I'm going to get to having something Charles Grodin related on BPA (I doubt they made any Clifford related skateboard toys). This li'l guy is Mo, one of Beethoven's puppy  from Beethoven's 2nd. He was made by Littlest Pet Shop in 1994, before they started making weird creepy animals with gigantic eyes and heads (a change that apparently happened in the mid-2000s).

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Los Olvidados


Los Olvidados, which translates to The Forgotten, were an early '80s skate punk from San Jose featuring Ray Stevens II (later of Clay Wheels). Pretty much the entire band also performed in The Drunk Injuns. This compilation LP came out in 2002 as part of Alternative Tentacles 1980's Skate Punk series (also featuring JFA, Free Beer and The Drunk Injuns). As the cover states, this LP collects recordings from '81-'83, some of which were released on various comps such as Not So Quiet on the Western Front, Skate Rock Vol. 1, and Blazing Wheels and Barking Trucks. Those comps were, until this compilation and a 2001 CD with much of the same material, the only publicly released recordings of this great skate punk band. The cover features the late Ruben Orkin in a backyard pool.





Saturday, March 7, 2015

Spongebob Squarepants II


Spongebob's first appearance on BPA was a cereal prize from 2011. He returns as a Happy Meal prize from 2012. Spongebob is really tweaking out this grab, he's actually doing a split and pretty much an impossible move from anybody except Van Damme. His board has fake wheels on the side and 2 actual wheels on the bottom with pull-back action.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Dizzy Devil


Dizzy Devil is definitely feeling the BPA in this snow globe. In addition to glitter there are also pieces of candy floating around inside and the "PAAAARRTY!" exclamation on the base. I thought about trying to crack this thing open to get the figure out but decided to leave as-is for now. There is no date on this but it is safe to assume that it was made in the early '90s during Tiny Toon Adventures original run ('90-'95). Dizzy is not the first Tiny Toon to appear on BPA - that honor belongs to Plucky Duck. He is the first Tasmanian devil to appear here though.