135 Radd

This is Radd.  He is all about the 80's.  On the packaging it says that his occupation is as a "professional 80's skateboarder" and that his hobby is playing Pac-Man.

I thought it was really weird that -- since the whole toyline consists of skateboarders -- they would single out any real skateboarder to make a figure. The only pro-boarder that would make any sense by name is P.J. Ladd -- but he is not of the 80's.  And Radd doesn't look anything like Ladd.

Then I thought that he has to be a spoof of some fictional skateboarder from a popular 80s movie.

Bingo. Two really stand out:

One is Thrashin' (starring Josh Brolin) from 1986, and the other is Gleaming the Cube (starring Christian Slater) from 1989.  Both have been cited as influential movies by professional skateboarders.

I think the figure leans toward the first film because the movie is specifically about becoming a pro-skateboarder, and it is really centered in the 80's (having come out three years before the other). On the other hand, the figure kind of leans toward the second film because he looks more like the Christian Slater character.

There is one more thing that we have to say about Radd.

Per both the packaging and figure sculpts, there is no TDD marked #135.  Instead, there are two figures labeled as #138. I guess there was a mix-up at the Dude Factory.  Doh!

Snow Ballah was released first and should have been given #135. 

Because Snow Ballah is far more common than Radd -- and very easy to find on eBay in packages clearly marked #138 -- I have chosen to reassign Radd as the #135.  Radd was part of the first Street Crew series, along with the only other new character, Clobber.

Additionally, Radd is a bit of a legend.  I say this because he appears on the back of every single Street Crew package -- right up until the end of the toyline in 2009.