The Skateboard

Before Tony Hawk blew up with his kick-flips, fakeys, and front-side grinds, there was:

Barney the big purple dinosaur.

You may know Barney as the somewhat homosexual dinosaur that used to be a staple of children’s entertainment on TV. But what isn’t as well known is that when he wasn’t teaching youngsters how to count, Barney was off-set “ripping it on his board.” When asked how he came up with the idea for the skateboard, Barney looked bleak and responded:

        ”That was a very bad day. A very bad day. I hadn’t slept for various days. I was so tired and strung out on LSD that I was a light shade of pink. Shit was very bad. I jumped up, slapped myself in the face and said, ‘Dammit, Barney. You’re better then this.’ I took one step and slipped on a stack of Hustlers that was lying on an empty Hennessy bottle. My dumb ass went slipping around the room. After I got up, I knew I was on to something.”

The next morning, after another bender and some wild, unprotected sex, Barney glued some magazines onto two empty bottles of Hennessy and went skating down to the set to film his hit TV shows. When asked to comment on the day he unveiled the skateboard to the world, all Barney would say was: “Barney is the shit.”