This page highlights the miscellaneous toy brands that made extreme sports toys to appeal to kids in the early-mid 2000s.
X-Concepts' various Tech Deck lines began selling gangbusters in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This exponential growth brought extreme sports toys to never-before-seen popularity. Seeing the success of these lines made extreme sports a necessity sub-theme across the toy industry.
But, they were not the only company that got into extreme sports. Let's check some out!
LEGO
Lego was an early adopter of the extreme sports trend. They made plenty of lines with RCs, Quad bikes, skaters, and more!
While not an extreme sport, their Town subtheme, EXTREME TEAM, in 1998-1999 had races and play features.
The 2002 Lego Island Xtreme Stunts line continued its legacy, with some sets having skateboarding at the center of the action!
Lego had a short-lived SPORTS theme that lasted from 2002-2004, which included Lego Soccer, Hockey, Basketball/NBA, and even extreme sports.
For the 2002 Gravity Games (RIP Gravity Games were lived from 1999-2006), Lego produced Bob Burnquist endorsed skateboarding sets.
Lego also made three Ross Powers endorsed snowboarding sets.
And of course, Lego made brick Pens and Happy Meals toys:
MEGA BLOKS
Mega Bloks made a new line called "Xtreme" in the early 2000s to cash in on the trend too.
PLAYMOBIL:
SUPER TOYS ROLLY DOME:
Hot Wheels Fingerboards by Mattel (2001)
Hot Wheels tried cashing in on the fingerboard craze in 2001 with their own fingerboards, which featured Hot Wheels car designs on them.
Mattel also made a line of extreme sports versions of the Crash Test Dummies in 2004. This kinda makes no sense since Crash Test Dummies are meant for car safety experiments, but hey! They probably saw Tech Deck Dude's crash test dummy dude, Whiplash, selling in singles and 3-packs in 2003.
Hot Wheels Skate Freaks (2006)
These were rollable boards in the scale of a Hot Wheels car, the figures had magnets on their feet (like the Tech Deck Dudes) that attach to the boards.
The line had playsets too!
Hot Wheels Skate Freaks remind me of Kenner's Mondo Savage Blitzers 1991-92.
Weird-Ohs (2008) by Hawk and J. Lloyd International Inc.
The Hawk company is not related to Tony Hawk, despite this being a skate line.
Hawk is the oldest American toy company, founded in 1920.
They went broke in 1970, and got bought by Testors, which went under.
They were a brand licensing their logo until Round 2 (a younger model company founded in 2005) finally absorbed their properties.
The 2008 Weird-Ohs were originally model toys created by Bill Campbell (RIP 1920-2017).
These were definitely inspired by Weirdos, the iconic 60's Ed Roth Hotrod characters.
The original models were car racers and bikers, but to get in on the 2000s
These toys came with a magnetic feet figure, board, and 5 Collector Cards (Sound familiar?).
They did the same with Bob Koenn's Silly Surfers...
And Frantics!
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