The Skateboard Kid (USA, 1993) 83 min color DIR: Larry Swerdlove. SCR: Gary Stuart Kaplan, Larry Swerdlove. PROD: Minard Hamilton. MUSIC: Adam Gorgoni. DOP: Don E. FauntLeRoy. CAST: Timothy Busfield, Bess Armstrong, Cliff De Young, Rick Dean, Trevor Lissauer, Dom DeLuise. (Concorde-New Horizons)
This juvenile fare from Roger Corman’s Concorde-New Horizons is essentially a re-write of their video favourite, The Dirt Bike Kid, to accommodate the early 1990s skateboard craze. Trevor Lissauer plays Zack, the archetypal “new kid in town”, who doesn’t have any friends, so he begins skateboarding to fit in with the other kids. (One look at the “other kids” and you will wonder why he would want to, but anyway….) Much to his delight and salvation, the skateboard is magical, and can fly through the air, to make him the envy of the neighbourhood. Even more, the skateboard has a voice (by Dom DeLuise) from a person named Rip, and a really pathetic animated face at the front of the board. Yet, as convention would allow, “with great skateboard comes great responsibility”, so Zack must use this board for more than showing up a few mullet-headed jerks on the corner. With the help of his new “power”, he reveals that his mother’s new boyfriend, used-car salesman Big Dan (Cliff DeYoung), just wants to marry her so he can acquire some Old West treasure that is buried in her land! This movie was clearly made solely for the “after school special” demographic, but it’s amiable enough for those over 14 years of age, as the grating teenagers are easily out-acted by the amusing adults. Cliff DeYoung is clearly having a good time, and as for Dom DeLuise- well, he won’t make you forget Robin Williams as Aladdin.