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You see what like he's he's reaching for ice. We're in pain here.
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Hey, what's going on everybody?
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For First We Feast, I'm Sean Evans and today we have a Hot Ones Reunion Special brought to you by Hot Pockets.
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I'm joined across the table by Tony Hawk.
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He's a consigliere of skateboarding, icon of the sport and pop culture, more than a dozen X Games medals, named the top vert skater every year from 1984 to 1996.
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He also boasts one of the most commercially and critically successful video game franchise of all time.
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He's back sitting across from me as we've done a couple times over the years, Tony.
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Welcome back to the show.
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This time around, Tony, we have not only brand new lineup of sauces, but also some of our brand new Hot Ones Hot Pockets, the OG pocket snack, the top of the snack pyramid, for crying out loud.
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It's a dream collaboration, Hot Ones fans.
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We can't wait for you to try it, but first things first, Tony, welcome back to the show. Thank you. It's an honor. I'm excited. Appreciate it.
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How are you around spicy food? I kind of know. Uh I I feel okay. I feel comfortable.
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I feel like I feel like it's in my wheelhouse. This is the classic. That's the classic. It's pretty classic.
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Lull you into a false sense of security. I feel okay.
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So, I've heard you talk about the exhibition phase of your career where you'd perform everywhere from football halftime shows to state fairs, sometimes doing demonstrations for a crowd in the single digits.
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What stands out when you think about the most bizarre setting you found yourself in as a professional skater? Oh, wow.
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Um I went to Japan for some exhibitions around those 10-year years.
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And they had a skate in a skate shop in an indoor I mean, if you imagine Tokyo, the the shops aren't big. Skating wasn't big.
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The skate shop isn't big.
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The ceiling was not high.
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And then they had all these ramps that then they would they would literally move the um all the the clothes and the racks out from the the center and then they just had these two little ramps that we skated in there.
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They wanted us to skate like three times a day for a crowd of 10, maybe.
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I mean, it was it wasn't the crowd where like people were wandering in that were checking out the shop.
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So, they're just shopping and then there just happens to be uh some guys skating in the store.
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coming at them cuz we're trying to do like kickflips to 5-0s on the ramps.
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But at those like I look back on all those things fondly cuz we just that's that's how we got here.
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And the funny thing is we gave it our all in those You know what I mean?
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It wasn't like we would half-ass it. We were we were trying.
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I was hitting the ceiling with my head. All right.
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So, up here we have the curry verde here in the two spot.
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Like it's it's like it tastes like a Thai dish.
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Like I imagine that comes with noodles.
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I think you're onto something here.
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That one is pretty spicy for number two, Sean.
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So, one of the things that struck me watching the Tokyo Olympics was just how young some of these skaters are, you know, with a pair of 13-year-olds winning gold and silver in the women's street competition.
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What's unique about skating in terms of the age that you can learn it, master it, and then be mentally tough enough to compete at such a high level?
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Well, I I think that there's There's that that the the young generation is like a new thing that the younger pros and such.
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I mean, I turned pro when I was 14 in 1982.
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It was more that in my day, you reach an age of responsibility and it was like you're supposed to quit because you're you've aged out of skateboarding.
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Mostly because it just wasn't as considered a job, right?
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But then as as everything progressed, skateboarding got more popular.
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It's in the Olympics now.
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The age of your sort of peak could be in your 30s, maybe even your 40s as a skateboarder.
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But you're also competing with people who are killing it in their teens.
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I don't know of any other sport that's like that that that runs that crazy age range.
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But also the reason that you see those kids they're so advanced is because they have the resources.
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They have training facilities.
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There's skate parks everywhere. There are foam pits.
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There are just so many resources for them to get better at it and to to lean into it and and in our day, we were just discouraged from skating. Get a job. Grow up.
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That's That's what we were told.
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Yeah, that one's really good.
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That one is doesn't have the shock value.
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Of the curry of the grading.
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So when you see kids at the skate park these days, do you find that the slang has become totally incomprehensible or are there certain phrases and terms that just stand the test of time in the sport?
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Well, it's not incomprehensible to me.
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There is new slang and stuff that has been developed because of the techniques that are being developed.
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Um but there's newish terminology that I understand just cuz I skate, but I we didn't get that like bolt landing bolts. What's that?
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Well, you want to land on top of your bolts.
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The bolts where your the trucks are.
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Cuz if you land with your feet elsewhere, there's a good chance your board's going to break or your landing is going to be sloppy.
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So, you land bolts, it's solid. Land bolts? Land bolts or the pinch.
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And that This is going to be hard to explain without the skater, but um the pinch is basically when you're grinding on your truck, you find a spot where it's kind of between the wheel and the truck, and you can lean on it and it's like your your truck is pinching near your board, so you almost get wheel bite.
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I'm getting in the weeds here, so Yeah, we love we love it.
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You almost get wheel bite, but there's a balance point and it's like your truck is pinched in and then you can just grind.
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And you can just stay there for as long as possible.
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And uh a few people have a very special superpower of getting the pinch.
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Getting the pinch, I'm stealing that.
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Jamie Foy, like he's a pinch master. I like that one.
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What's some piece of archival footage that blew your mind the most when director Sam Jones started digging in the crates for the 2022 documentary Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off?
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I think the interviews that he found cuz he found raw footage of interviews of me and my father.
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My father was featured in one video, just a little snippets of him, but he found the raw files and my dad passed away in 1995 actually right after the first X Games.
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And to hear him talk about just to muse about skateboarding, that was really special. All right, Tony.
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One of the first people to try a I feel so privileged.
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So, this one right here is our hot habanero pepperoni and sausage Hot Pocket. Okay. Oh, yeah. That's really good. Wow.
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I never thought to try and and savor a Hot Pocket so much. You know what I mean? Wow.
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I eat them pretty quickly. I like them. Yeah, yeah.
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But to like take a bite and go, "Wow."
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Well, the spice is hitting, yeah. Ah, that's good. What a compliment.
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I'm expecting a couple boxes of these when I leave. Tony, I got you always. Always, Tony.
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So, John Madden once said that the only way that he'd be involved in a football video game is if they made it a true 11 on 11 game.
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Did you have any non-negotiables or a fixed vision of what you thought a skateboarding game should look like during the pitch phase of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater? Um I didn't.
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My only caveat or demand was that I I have final approval over anything that goes out.
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Um and that includes gameplay, characters, locations, tricks.
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And when I did ask for that, it was at a time when skateboarding was kind of on the rise, but we didn't necessarily have that sort of leverage or that clout.
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And so, I had to fight for it. Um but it was worth it.
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And and they knew that I had the best intentions, you know what I mean?
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It wasn't like wasn't I was trying to covet some image or something.
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It was just more of that, "No, this has got to be legitimate.
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I want skaters to like this." That's That was my goal.
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Like I want a skater to be inspired to go buy a PlayStation to play this game.
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Well, mission accomplished. Yeah, very much so.
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But But that you To me, that was the mark of success.
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And then And then that was it.
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Like I I thought after the first one that we made, I really thought that was going to be it.
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And so, I thought, "Oh, we did a good one.
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Like that was That was sick. That was fun." And then 11 or 12 later.
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Yeah, well, I mean, they called me right away when the first one was released.
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They said, "Already working on something." yeah.
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This next one is the Spicy Shark here at number six. Eat the heat.
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So, once interviewed Rob Lowe and was fascinated to learn about the rivalries that existed in Malibu between local surfers and inlanders.
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Did you experience any sort of corollary to that kind of conflict growing up in skateboarding?
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In the early '80s, there was this sort of rivalry between Northern California and Southern California.
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Which is weird because skateboarding was all over the place.
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There was an East Coast scene and there was a Midwest scene, there was a Texas scene, but there was this NorCal SoCal thing and even down to where there was a magazine, it was Thrasher and there's TWS.
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And so, I was Southern California.
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That was the Death Row Bad Boy kind of I guess, yeah. Pretty much, yeah.
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And but it but it got it got it got weird.
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There was a there was a big event.
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A lot of the NorCal crew came down for this one event. It was in San Diego.
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Um and they they just started booing me when I would go.
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Um because they were rooting for Christian Hosoi, who was like my rival um in terms of competition.
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We were friends, but somehow they they you know, made us define our locations. So, I was San Diego.
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Christian, ironically, was from LA, but he represented NorCal.
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And then when I would go, they would boo me and throw [ __ ] in the bowl. Like it was wild.
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The strangest part of all that is that skateboarding was so small back then.
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We were already the outcasts, right?
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And then now we're pitted against each other and it was all this infighting.
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It was like, "Can't we all get along?
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We have this like we're this big.
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Let's just let's all go hand in hand." Oh, I got one. Like jalapeno. Oh. Yeah.
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It's like late to the party spice.
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Had some shark bite of its own, you know. Yeah. That one's legit.
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Is it true that you almost starred in a skateboard themed follow-up to Space Jam? Yes. That is true.
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I think that that's the one that got away. How close did that get?
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Did you see like a Um They presented the idea to me that it would be Skate Jam much along the lines of of Space Jam with all the Looney Tunes characters.
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And then I was going to be the the main wheel person.
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And uh I was leaving for Australia coincidentally to work on a different on an independent film there.
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And they said, "We want to meet you at LAX cuz we want to we want to finalize all the details."
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So, they met me at that restaurant in the middle of LAX and they said, "This is happening.
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Like here's here are the script ideas. Here's the poster."
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And I remember thinking like, "When is this going to happen?"
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Like, "When you get back, we're doing you know, we're going to finalize all the details. Like that that's set. It's happening." Like, "Awesome."
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Get on the plane, go to Australia.
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In the meanwhile, they released um Back in Action which was a Looney Tunes film with Brendan Fraser.
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And apparently it didn't do the numbers they had hoped and that was supposed to be their way to reintroduce Looney Tunes characters.
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By the time I got back from Australia, they weren't even calling anymore. It was gone. It was just gone.
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It was more like, "What what happened?"
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Like "Let's all meet up again like This is going to be fun, right?" Yeah, it's a bummer. You know what? We can still dream. Wait, can we? Yeah. I'm so old though. Like no, no, no, no.
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I think we still have that. We do?
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I think we still have that prayer, yeah. All right. Let's Can you hear that?
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It's Warner Brothers, right? Skate Jam. I'm still here. Still skating. Still jamming. The bomb. Yeah. All right. be very careful. That one is not fun. That one is spicy. at all.
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Yeah, that one mostly you taste spice.
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You can't really differentiate flavors of it.
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It is uh highly concentrated. taste. Yeah, no fun at all. Highly concentrated.
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When Sean says highly concentrated, you know you should be scared.
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And how much do I need to do this? You're good. I'm good? I took a bite. I'll take another one. Never any fun.
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Yeah, that one is hardcore.
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So, I got a That's the one you come here for, dreading. Yeah.
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But, we appreciate you coming back, Tony. Oh my god. Yeah, my pleasure.
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So, I got a chance to go to the opening of Supasize with you in LA. My stepson's shop, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
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What to you are the ingredients, the essential ingredients of a great skate shop?
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And how do you think they've changed the most from like the 1980s to now?
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The ingredients of a great skate shop is is uh variety, for sure. Wait, man, that's hot.
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But, I think that the main thing is to support the local scene.
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And to have people that are in the know that are experienced skaters either uh running this place or at least uh consulting on it.
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And just trying to foster the local scene, you know?
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It's not just about selling a product.
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How do you think they've changed?
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See what like he's he's reaching for ice in the in the pitcher. We're in pain here. I know. Sometimes it catches me. That one is gnarly, man. Mhm.
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There, I used a skate term.
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I regret taking that second bite.
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Do you regret coming back?
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No, I don't regret coming back.
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Hey, this is what I'm here for.
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That's what I'm talking about, man. for this.
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Like I knew I knew I was going to have a struggle. Yeah.
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But the good news is it's over.
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And time to move on to the next one.
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When you move on, you move on to a hotter one, right? But you know what?
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Nothing is like what you just ate. Really? No, nothing. I'm needing more milk.
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I'm not just saying this.
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You kind of bodied that, Tony. I did. As you always do, yeah.
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You know, if you were in pain, it would be hard for me to tell, but that's that's the that's a superpower of yours. I'm uncomfortable. For real. I got the watermelon.
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I've never had a spicy watermelon before, but it works.
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So, remember when I saw you last, you were talking about what a thrill it was to be on the children's musical series Yo Gabba Gabba?
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Where does appearing as Skateboard Johnny and Captain Kangaroo, where does that fall on your list of most treasured TV cameos?
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Well, that was the first one. Big one. my first time on TV. On Captain Kangaroo.
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And I used to watch Captain Kangaroo.
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Um, my dad was gloating about that one.
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He's like, "Wow, like my son's really doing something important here."
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Definitely, that was a bar of legitimacy in his eyes.
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Yeah, so um that means a lot to me.
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Do you have a most cherished movie prop in your movie prop collection? Oh, man.
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My most treasured movie prop I got a Back to the Future Hoverboard. Oh.
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Um and it's signed by the cast. That's sick. It's probably it. That's sick.
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Because Back to the Future was such a catalyst uh for skateboarding in the '80s.
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I mean, there were There's a generation of of people who skate now that started because they saw Michael J.
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Fox on a skateboard in that movie.
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Once again, Tony, it's time to take on the Last Dab, but this time instead of a wing, we will be eating the hottest hot pocket ever made.
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This right here, fiery hot pepperoni featuring the Last Dab.
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This hot pocket can be purchased exclusively on GoPuff.
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You're someone who's pushed the limits your entire career.
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It's time to push another limit. Cheers. Cheers, Tony. Thumbs up. Mhm. Five stars.
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You know the hack for Hot Pockets, right?
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When they're open like that, you just blow in and and just get all the steam out. Yeah.
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The hottest hot pocket ever made. What's up?
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And what I want to do to capstone this reunion and to close things out skating's contribution to lingo, to slang, I think it's unmatched, especially in the sports world, all right?
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So, if you'll humor me, what I want to do is bounce some skating terminology off of you just to see if I can get a definition while your brain slow roasts in hot sauce, okay? What's a grommet? is a uh young skater. What's a [ __ ] stance?
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Yeah, well, it's not a stance, it's a way of pushing.
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So, generally, you would push with your back foot, keep your front foot in position, and push and then set your back foot on the tail.
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[ __ ] means you're pushing with your front foot.
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And people think it's like some it think it's some bullying that goes on about [ __ ] pushing.
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Did I Did I Did I open a can of worms here?
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that people like cuz you'll you'll hear people make fun of [ __ ] pushing.
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And the only reason that I ever discourage it is because if you're pushing [ __ ] that means your back foot, you can't leave it on the tail in order to push.
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You have to You have to maneuver your back foot over the trucks, push, and then set your front foot down, and then reposition your back foot.
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It's just There's a lot of things going on. What's a hot pocket?
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Uh hot pocket is uh generally if you if you land on your ankles uh like on your heels too many times, it just feels hot.
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It's not It's not a hot pocket.
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It's not full of pepperoni or spices.
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Multiple definitions, and take a look at you, Tony Hawk for the second time taking on the wings and hot pockets of death.
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Hot Ones fans, the limited edition Hot Ones Hot Pockets are available now at retailers nationwide, and the fiery hot pepperoni featuring the Last Dab Apollo is available exclusively on GoPuff.
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This camera, this camera, or this camera, let the people know what you have going on in your life. We have Hawk vs.
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Wolf podcast, Jason Ellis and I, uh Birdhouse Skateboards, Birdhouse Apparel, and uh The Skatepark Project is my foundation for public skateparks in underserved areas.
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Um we've been going 20 plus years and helped to fund over 700 skateparks. It's my proudest work. Thank you. Thanks, you guys.
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I have this visual of you asking questions.
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Now that is seared in my head like Okay, but I know.
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It's like a nightmare, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.