When I was a kid, skate videos made being a pro skateboarder look like a glamorous life filled with never-ending gas station snacks, drinking without consequences, and provocative sexual escapades. The lifestyle portrayed in these videos inspired me to chase my dream of becoming a professional skateboarder well into my adult life, but all I got was 48 DUIs and chronic elbow pain that wakes me up in the middle of the night.
50. Flip “Sorry!”
First off, this movie reminded people of Johnny Rotten’s existence–which we really didn’t need. Also, it was basically an advertisement for head trauma. So, if I hit my head like Arto Saari, I’ll get to see some unreleased Tom Penny footage? Kids couldn’t stop getting concussions.
49. Girl “Yeah Right!”
I split my nutsack three times trying to do a 180 a parking meter because Hollywood elites Spike Jones, Mike Carroll, and Rick Howard had a green screen budget and I didn’t know any better. And I only recently found out that it wasn’t actually Owen Wilson doing that bluntslide? My wife called me a dumbass for not realizing it sooner. As a teenager, this video was detrimental to my physical, emotional, and skateboarding development.
48. Toy Machine “Jump off a Building”
Toy Machine’s skate park to prison pipeline classic sends all the wrong messages. This video screamed, “If you make weird art and listen to jazz, you can also own a famous skateboard company!” which inspired lots and lots of troubled individuals to invest in their passions and have fun. This video significantly impacted the number of workers available to manufacturing facilities in the late ’90s and early ’00s.
47. Chocolate “Hot Chocolate”
3/4 of my shins are burnt to a crisp because–who else?–Hollywood elite Spike Jones made my whole middle school think they could kickflip a five-stair with a flaming board. It’s really a skateboard company’s responsibility to tell their young, impressionable viewers what’s real because if a kid that just keyholed a Mountain Dew sees a flaming skateboard in a video, they’re going to do it, too. Reckless.
46. Landspeed “CKY”
This is barely a skate video, but it still had a dramatic impact on the world outside of skateboarding. Landspeed was the moment skateboarders became not only menaces to society but also their family and every shopping cart wrangler on the planet.
45. Blind “Video Days”
Jazz is the devil’s preferred music, and this video is absolutely full of it. Not only did “Video Days” teach kids about the Blue Note back catalog, but it killed a bunch of guys in the process of filming it. RIP to all the lost Christian souls and the poor heathens who foolishly rode for Blind Skateboards.
44. Almost “Cheese and Crackers”
The lack of handrails and switch tre flips down 20 really obscured everyone’s understanding of what skateboarding is supposed to be. When kids learned how to do inward heelflip backside disaster fingerflip outs and tailslide 720 reverts, they didn’t expect to be called a fucking nerd by literally every other person in the skate park.
43. Alien Workshop “Photosynthesis”
The Josh Kalis part in this video made Love Park seem deceptively inviting. Countless Midwestern dolts traveled there only to be mercilessly beaten within an inch of their life by locals. This video was dangerous Philadelphia travel propaganda.
42. Zero “Misled Youth”
Look at a picture of Matt Mumford in 1999 and then look at one of him right now. “Why doesn’t he look any different decades later?” you might ask yourself. The answer is clearly that he’s Nosferatu, and this video is nothing but vampire propaganda. I have it on good authority that over the course of this video, Mumford turned everyone but Jamie Thomas into a creature of the night. “Why not Jamie?” you’re probably wondering. Because. You’ve seen his boards. The power of Christ compels him.
41. DVS “Skate More”
“Skate More” briefly made every dude dress like Jason Dill. We looked fucking stupid showing up to a party being the third guy wearing white painter’s pants rolled halfway up my shins with knee-high neon socks and a shirt covered in cigarette burns. Blame DVS for never getting the girl.
40. Plan B “Questionable”
The tiny wheels in this video caused more injuries to children than polio. Thankfully the skateboard world started to wise up and ride wheels that could actually function.
39. Alien Workshop “Mind Field”
This video sent me on a year-long quest to create the artsiest, most unique sponsor-me tape of all time. When I was done, I still didn’t have any sponsors and I spent so much time editing I forgot how to kickflip, but I could double-exposed film like a motherfucker. Plus, I spent a fuckload of money trying to learn bagpipes which only made my part worse.
38. DC “The DC Video”
The problem with this video is not that it made me spend my entire college fund to build a mega ramp at my parents’ house, it’s that Rob Dyrdek made everyone think they could “Pretty Woman” an adult man from paid security guard to emotional support man. Worst $40 I ever spent on a relationship.
37. Lakai “Fully Flared”
Industrialists lobbying for looser work safety regulations funded “Fully Flared” As soon as Hollywood-insider Spike Jones blew up those stairs behind Mike Mo, OSHA regulations were slashed even further. It looked beautiful, but this video was as bad for Cairo Foster’s eyes as it was for dock workers. Shame on you, Lakai.
36. éS “Menikmati”
This video was a global conspiracy to brainwash kids into believing that skateboarding existed outside of the United States of America. Not true and very dangerous.
35. Shorty’s “Fulfill the Dream”
Shorty’s led me to believe that equestrian skills and sleight of hand would be pivotal to becoming a good skateboarder. What the fuck? I bought a horse and went to magic camp and still can’t abra-ca-do a heelflip or boardslide on my horse, Mr. Kermit California II.
34. Hook-Ups “Destroying America”
America destroyed itself, and I blame those sexy Hook-Ups graphics. America can only be so horny before it smashes something beautiful.
33. Coliseum “P.J. Ladd’s Wonderful, Horrible, Life”
This video proved the old adage, “It’s never too late…” is absolute horseshit. Unless you’re a teenage phenom with rubber bones and your parents’ bulletproof health insurance, you’re screwed.
32. Enjoi “Bag of Suck”
Louie Barletta is one of the only people on the face of the planet that can be as annoying as he is drunk. His part was solid, but too many good kids fell victim to wearing plaid sweater vests in the wake of “Bag of Suck.”
31. “Chomp on This”
In one of the single greatest skateboarding transgressions of all time, we were led to believe Jamie Thomas was aware of a band that wasn’t classic rock or Iron Maiden. Seeing a guy skate to the wrong kind of music can really undo some of the magic. It’d be like seeing Marc Johnson skate to a good song. Can you imagine?
30. Powell Peralta “The Search for Animal Chin’
The problem with this video is not that the Bones Brigade doesn’t find Animal Chin, it’s that I saw it with my older brother when I was four. I thought that fuckin’ guy was real and spent the next few months making missing person posters for that mysterious skateboarding demi-god. I mean, those guys just gave up!