Skatedater, a 1965 coming-of-age short film set in the asphalt utopia of southwest Los Angeles County is a minor masterpiece. The surfed-up soundtrack. The Pacific Ocean winking in the background. All the dirty, gnarly, heavily-calloused bare feet. Even the running time—17 perfect dialogue-free minutes, start to finish, not a frame out of place. 

And the skating, of course. When my dad brought home a 16mm copy of Skaterdater, hauled out the family B&H Filmosound, and sent my brother and me out to rally up the neighborhood kids for an impromptu viewing—it was the skating that mattered. This was 1969. Nationwide, of course, the sport was moldering atop the dead-fad scrapheap, next to troll dolls and poodle skirts. But for our little preadolescent grade school gang in Venice, it was the newest and coolest thing. Jay Adams and I had just started surfing and skating together that summer. He was there that afternoon when my dad sprocketed the film, hit the projector switch and got things started. Skaterdater 

I've seen this movie at least 25 times, including a post-pre-K viewing with my four-year-old son last Friday. For maybe 30 seconds I went into a defensive crouch, trying to avoid the tractor beam of nostalgia. But my defenses crumbled like dust. Did I wallow in my own Southern California beachfront past? Yes I did. Gladly. Is nostalgia the only thing, or the biggest thing, at play when I watch Skatedater? No way. My kid fell for it, totally—he got pumped up over the skateboarding bits and carefully followed the central boy-girl-peer-group dilemma. 

Skatedater got an Acadamy Awardd Best Short Film nomination. On this very day, May 20, 49 years ago, it scored a Palme d'Or at Cannes.

I was going to just post the movie and let it speak for itself. Then I got on Facebook and found out that Bill McKaig, one of the Skatedater kids, is still living in the same neighborhood where the movie was shot. Friend request sent

 a couple of emails, a phone call. McKaig is 64 and just retired from his job as facilities manager for Boeing. Still skates. Still surfs. That's him on the right, with fellow Skatedater  Gary Jennings. 

You were in the Imperial Skateboard Club, right?

You guys must have got together right around when Hobie and Makaha got their teams started.

Must have been. Although, believe it or not, we didn’t hear about them until after the Imperials were already together.

I think it was the summer of ’63. There’s a place here, at Riviera Elementary School, we called it the Bowl; this steep hill with a big turn at the bottom. And that’s where everybody in the neighborhood went skateboarding. Or tried to. The clay wheels just killed you. Then we started riding the flats so we could do tricks.

You guys were all from Redondo and Palos Verdes?

Near there. We all lived in Torrance. All of us went to the same elementary school, in fact.

You spend a lot of time in the movie skating the Palos Verdes hills. Did you go up there much for real, or was that just in the movie?

No, we mostly stuck to Riviera. We got up to PV sometimes. There was one route where you could skate down the whole hill, all the way from the top. But the police didn’t like us up there.

Originally, let’s see. Six or seven? Seven I think. Then two or three more joined, and one guy quit, you know how it goes. But that first group of us, we just formed this bond from skating together all the time, and somebody finally said, “Let’s form a club.”

When you did the movie, what was the age range?

One of the guys, Ricky Anderson, was really young, still in elementary school. I was a high school freshman. My brother and a couple other guys were still in 8th grade.

Those cool black and white competition jackets you’re wearing in the film—did the producers buy those of you, or did you already have them?

We bought those ourselves, ordered the patches separately, then each guy’s mom sewed on the white competition stripe.

Were there club meetings, and things like that?

Every Friday night in Gary Hill’s garage, we had a meeting. Nothing too formal. We’d talk about new tricks. Lots of conversation about who was skating best. There were little rivalries going within the club. All that kind of bullshit. Mostly we’d be in the garage just getting away from the parents.

The only contest I can remember was in Santa Monica. The Hobie guys were there, and the Makaha guys, and that’s where [filmmakers] Noel Black and Marshal Backlar discovered us. And looking back, I think they picked the Imperials over the other clubs because we had no sponsor. There was nobody, no adult, giving us any guidance.

Weekends all that Fall, and then the whole summer.

Wow, that long? I thought you were going to say a week or something.

It went on so long, and we were all together all the time, doing nothing between takes, getting bored. It just sort of took the fun out of things.

Did you like the movie when you first saw it?

Well, like I say, by the time the movie came out the club was pretty much dissolved. We were all still friends, but we were starting to move on to other stuff. Most of us by then were surfing a lot more, and skating less. But yeah, we liked the movie. Took forever to make, but it came out great.

Skateboarding itself, right about the time the movie came out, was kind of falling apart anyway.

They started outlawing it everywhere, so that didn’t help.

The Skaterdater theme, girl-versus-peer group—did that happen with the Imperials?

Noel and Marshal made that up for the movie. But right before we started doing the movie, there was a guy in the club, he was a year older than me, and all of a sudden, one day, he said something like “I’m a sophomore now, and I’m too old to be skateboarding. I'm supposed to be out looking for girls.” So he quit the club. It was kind of starting to happen, in other words. But no, when they filmed the movie, none of us were really thinking much about girls yet.

When the movie came out, you guys must have been total heroes at school.

No. Not at all. It came out, but it didn’t really play in any theaters. Or nothing around our house, anyway.

Skaterdater caught that period right before everything kind of blew up. Drugs, long hair, shortboards, heavy music. What was that like for you?

[Long pause] I went through some dark times. I made it out, but a lot of guys didn’t.

No. Fortunately, I guess you’d say, I had a felony arrest, so I wasn’t eligible for the draft.

Did you stay friends with the Imperial guys?

For a few years we did, then not so much. Over the past 15 years or so we’ve kept in touch in touch again. Some emailing, some phone calls.

Next year is Skaterdater's 50th anniversary

There's been talk about getting everybody together for that, yeah. The whole team. Well, except Gregg Carroll, the second lead, the guy who wins the battle at the end. He died last November. So that puts a damper on the thing.

SKATERDATER: THE SWEETEST THING ON ASPHALT

Subscribe or Login

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features

The Sunday Joint

Videos