Before They Were Famous

Today's edition of "Before They Were Famous" is kind of a double shot. The clip comes courtesy of the old Nickelodeon show SK8 TV which ran for one season back in 1990. This was one of my favorite shows for a couple of reasons: Growing up as a kid in the Midwest we weren't real exposed to the skateboard culture. It was something all of us were into but at the time, early 90s, there wasn't a ton of exposure like there is now with the X-games and what not. It gave us a sneak peek into something that none of us had ever seen in person. Guys skating pools and ramps, the lingo, and basically everything that came with it. The great part about this show was it's time slot, every Sunday morning it came on right before Ren & Stimpy. That was one hour of TV I looked forward to each Sunday morning as a 10 year old kid. Getting back to the original point of this post, I was going through some old clips of the show when I noticed something. That host looks awfully familiar, holy shit it's the dude from "SLC Punk"!! At the time Matthew Lillard was just a young pup trying to break on the scene and what a great way to do it. The show itself was created by one of the original Z-Boys Nathan Pratt and directed by an up and coming documentary film maker and skateboarding godfather Stacey Peralta. The clip below features Matt along with co-host Skatemaster Tate talking with Bones Brigade member and one of my favorite skaters at the time Lance Mountain. This was a recurring segment featuring shop talk about boards, wheels, grip tape and anything else that pertained to maintaining your board. Look at the size of those boards!!