If You Can’t Beat #FlashbackFriday, Join’ Em!

I did!*

*Only because it was Friday.

Just when I thought I knew most of the toylines out there from my childhood, one always manages to pop up that I don’t recall.  It’s either because these toylines were short-lived, or just not something myself or my brother owned.

Behold, one of those toylines!

Skateboard Gang was a 1986 Mattel toyline featuring little rubber charaters attached to skateboards, and roll you could run your little skateboarding gangsters on.

I found this commercial on James’s cartoon tape from 1987, and it features a timid kid who is visiting some kind of dark, rundown structure…

Where he wants to join a gang.

And before you start to believe this is the beginning of a cheesy 80s PSA on being above joining a gang, this is the gang he wants to join:

That’s right, this vicious gang of little punks, and their threatening attack dog.

This gang is no ordinary gang, they deal in Skateboards.

And when I say skateboards, I mean little rubber people attached to little rubber skateboards.

The toy, you ask?  Skateboard Gang, and when you click play, you will witness the initiation of a child into a gang.

Look at this!  He’s hooked, he’s addicted!  He’s in the Skateboard Gang!

And you know what they say about gangs: “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

He did.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much to go on with this toy.  I know Mattel made it, it was first produced in 1986, and it was still around in 1987 (hence this commercial), but that’s pretty much it.  It’s probably the one mid-1980s toy that didn’t have some type of tie-in cartoon.  Even the Puffalumps wild, exotic relatives had a cartoon (albeit a one-off direct-to-video one), and that was a short-lived toyline!

So we’ll assume this interesting little toy probably had a short life, which makes this a depressing end to a cool Flashback Friday tidbit of our childhood.  But, considering that I never heard of this until I went through the VHS tape this commercial was on, I consider myself lucky to have found it.  So…not depressing at all.

And there you have it, a forgotten toy re-discovered, a child who joins the safest gang of them all, and little rubber skateboarder toys for all.

What a way to end the week!

Have a great weekend!