The Revolution Will Be Animated: How Rocket Power Inspired A Generation Of Women

[links, pics, and quotes]

https://shop.ccs.com/the_catalog/ccs-welcomes-fabiana-delfino-to-the-team/

You skated and rollerbladed? Were you a child of the Rocket Power generation? Did seeing skating and rollerblading on T.V. influence your decision to get involved?

Yeah for sure. I spent most of my time outdoors and was involved in sports. My parents encouraged us to try everything; mountain biking, tennis, soccer, etc. When we were super young, my brother and I would watch Rocket Power whenever it was on. The whole brother-sister duo and neighborhood kids getting together and playing outside was something we related to. We also loved extreme shit.

https://truesk8boardmag.com/red-bull-fabiana-delfino/

How did you get into skating and where does your inspiration come from?

I started skating at nine. My older brother and I would watch a lot of Nickelodeon’s ‘Rocket Power’ when we were little. It was a TV show that was centered around siblings who did a bunch of action sports like skateboarding, surfing and rad things like that. When I was young, I would rollerblade around the neighborhood while my brother and his friends would skateboard. Soon after that, I got my first board. I would bring my board and skates everywhere but, after some time, I just ended up leaving my skates at home.

http://www.citypages.com/news/nicole-hause-wants-to-show-girls-can-take-a-beating-and-get-back-up/433935183

When 19-year-old Nicole Hause was growing up in the late ’90s, there was this popular show on Nickelodeon called Rocket Power, a surf-and-skate cartoon where tan, floppy-haired rugrats rode tsunamis and avalanches. It left her with this fantasy of becoming a skateboarder, an oddity in her diehard Stillwater basketball family.

http://usaskateboarding.net/nicole-hause/

Nicole Hause was born in 1997 in Stillwater, Minnesota. Inspired by the cartoon “Rocket Power”, she began skating at age 10 after attending a friend’s skateboard birthday party.

https://www.tactics.com/info/amelia-brodka-welcome-to-the-team

At what point did you start skating and how’d you get into it?

I started skating when I was living in New Jersey. At that time, the X-Games were just coming out, Rocket Power was on TV, and The Tony Hawk games came out so it was kind of all around me, but I didn’t really get into it until I went to watch the X-Games in Philadelphia with my family.

https://metizamagazine.com/meet-exposure-skate-founder-skateboarding-girlboss-amelia-brodka-16795598350

Let’s get the basics covered first. How long have you been skating and what brought you to a sport that is, for now, known primarily as a male dominated? Basically, of all things to love, why this?

I started skateboarding when I was 12. Many things in my experience lead me to it - a combination of Rocket Power, Tony Hawk’s 900 and the THPS video games definitely piqued my interest.

https://www.newyorkminutemag.com/vans-partners-with-women-skateboarders-to-change-the-male-dominated-sport/

I never had someone like Lizzie Armanto to look up to. I never thought that skateboarding was something that I could do. Empowerment stems from representation. The only female skater I knew about growing up was Reggie from the Nickelodeon show Rocket Power and she wasn’t even a real person. Armanto recognizes the importance of representation, and she and Verghese are committed to showing young girls that skateboarding is something they can succeed in.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/nora-vasconcellos-from-scrappy-skateboarder-to-future-icon-629638/

So how did a girl from pastoral Massachusetts become a world-class professional skateboarder in California? Both in jest and all seriousness, Vasconcellos credits her hero, Reggie Rocket, from the cartoon Rocket Power - a sassy and tomboyish female character that usually saves the day. “I was obsessed,” she says. “My cousins and me were on rollerblades and BMX bikes, and I was surfing – I just really wanted to be Reggie. Reggie had purple hair, so I did my hair purple too. She was the voice of reason and, even through she was a cartoon, she was a role model for me when I was a little kid. She was always the crew’s secret weapon in contests, because nobody expected her to do what the guys did.”

https://www.monsterchildren.com/40617/nora-vasconcellos/

You started skateboarding as an activity in-between surf sessions. Why else?

When I was growing up I used to watch Rocket Power on Nickelodeon. It was a cartoon about kids who did action sports and I wanted to be Reggie Rocket. She was the only girl, she was always right, and she was super good at skateboarding.

https://www.complex.com/sports/2017/12/meet-nora-vasconcellos-your-favorite-skaters-favorite-skater

Like many of today’s skaters, Nora Vasconcellos' love for the sport began inauspiciously, from a seated position, looking at a television screen. For skaters of a certain generation, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, the ubiquitous 1999 video game, initiated youth into skate culture by the soreness of their thumbs from pulling off their favorite “special trick,” which taught skating as a means to achieving an end of technical excellence. However, the same year launched another beacon of this generation, the “woogity woogity woogity” disciples of extreme, Otto and Reggie Rocket, from the Rocket Power cartoon. This image portrayed skateboarding as gnarly and heroic while also normal and necessary. For Otto, Reg and their buddies Sam and Twister - who all lived in the fictional town of Ocean Park, California - “extreme” was a living, breathing entity to be chased out of the world, using all the boards and wheels at their disposal. And, in Reggie Rocket, there was an easily identifiable and accessible girl who skated. 

“I was obsessive about my Rocket Power,” Vasconcellos recalls. “I needed to watch it - needed to mountain bike and rollerblade and BMX. My cousins and I would watch it and then go do what they did and skateboarding was always kind of a part of it.”

“I loved the character Reggie Rocket,” she continues. “She was so sick. The purple hair, the whole thing. I want to see a live-action version of Rocket Power and I want to play Reggie. I’m putting that into the world! If somebody else plays Reggie I’m going to throw a fit.”

https://www.bitchmedia.org/post/pop-pedestal-reggie-rocket-nickelodeon-feminism

Reggie also introduced me and a generation of Nickelodeon couch casualties to zines. She’s known around town for her zine, or “The Zine” to Ocean City citizens. Maybe if Reggie were real, she would be a Bitch intern just like me. Maybe the Bitch Extreme Sports Correspondent? I wish.

http://feministing.com/2011/05/17/2-d-feminism-or-how-almost-everything-i-know-about-being-a-feminist-i-learned-from-cartoons-admit-it/

That’s why episodes of Nickelodeoan’s Rocket Power seem like a breath of fresh air: the show featured a strong and brainy girl athlete and had many feminist issues talked about in the show. Reggie snowboarded, surfed, roller skated, skateboarded, ran, played ball, played hockey, climbed, jumped, and wrote a local zine. The show often pointed out that girls can and should be taken seriously as legitimate athletes, especially in an episode where Reggie challenges a surfer’s magazine that thinks that girls don’t surf.

[Dwyck]

reggie wasn't the brain squid was the brain. this show did get me hyped on skating when i was a wee lad. they would skate in full pads and snowboard without helmets

[Yonnycage]

The Rhino was the best. WALTER?!?!?

[jimstolz]

I feel like I'm too old to relate but this is heartwarming AF. Nice post.

[bugtown]

Yet not one woman has done a super varial mctwist 900

[sharkin]

Rocket Power was the shit.

Inspired a generation of rad-dads. Dude was fried.

[slobplant]

Rocket Power was the shit.

Inspired a generation of rad-dads. Dude was fried.

Raymundo

[themeangreen]

My cousins and I loved Rocket Power!! I still do the 'hand shake' with my little cuz.

[os89]

I liked how they had to bomb the hill basically everyday to get down to the boardwalk. Then that one episode squid got the balls to do it with his dope ass helmet on a longboard.

[HugeBodBoyle]

At the height of its powers, I was a single dad and for some reason, this show comforted me in such an odd way.

Nothing but respect and love for Rocket Power.

[Christmas Complete]

Holy shit, this is a true return to form for LPQ, sorry I ever doubted you, sir.

[TwisT]

Pretty surprised... but have of us are the tony hawk pro skater generation, so I shouldn’t  be. Gnar for the research

[UselessAsshole]

I only remember how easy they made skateboarding look and that they made fun of people for wearing shoes at the beach so I didn't like it.

[Pissedoff30y/oskatedad]

I only remember how easy they made skateboarding look and that they made fun of people for wearing shoes at the beach so I didn't like it.

Growing up surfing as well i can assure you they make fun of shoobies irl too

[links, pics, and quotes]

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Rocket Power was the shit.

Inspired a generation of rad-dads. Dude was fried.

[close]

Raymundo

 

[UselessAsshole]

Expand Quote

I only remember how easy they made skateboarding look and that they made fun of people for wearing shoes at the beach so I didn't like it.

[close]

Growing up surfing as well i can assure you they make fun of shoobies irl too

Cool.

[h00man]

I started getting into skating around the time RP was out. I would watch it and be like "okay no, a lot of this shit is silly", but I still watched it.

[Coco Santiagos Kitten]

I thought this was pretty well known. I've definitely heard more than a few people being interviewed describing themselves as starting out skating by being "Rocket Power Kids." My generation had the same thing, but with Bart Simpson and TMNT.

[no habla mango]

michael j fox in back to the future.
or denver the last dinosaur starring in denver the last dinosaur.
he does the loop and some sex change in the intro.

[Bristol_Palin]

I was probably 10 or so when rocket power first came out. I remember a couple of my friends liking it but I couldn't stand it from the beginning because the characters were all dickheads. I thought they were supposed to be friends, but they were constantly treating each other like shit and being pricks.

[Coco Santiagos Kitten]

I thought they were supposed to be friends, but they were constantly treating each other like shit and being pricks.

Sounds like a crew of skaters to me.

[Tuff Lover]

Expand Quote

I only remember how easy they made skateboarding look and that they made fun of people for wearing shoes at the beach so I didn't like it.

[close]

Growing up surfing as well i can assure you they make fun of shoobies irl too

Where did u grow up? I've heard the term in Jersey and never equated it with people wearing shoes on the beach. Here in Jersey there are 2 terms Bennys and Shoobies. Bennys come from nyc and northern NJ; Shoobies come from Philly

I've never seen that Rocket Power show. If it got people into skating or surfing, that's cool.  I wonder if girls seek out old skate videos featuring girls like these videos. Imo Reyes and Torres have style






Also I'm curious if any posters here on slap are female...

[SHIREFLIP]

I am jealous of those of you whom grew up with Nickelodeon.

[no habla mango]

Expand Quote

Expand Quote

I only remember how easy they made skateboarding look and that they made fun of people for wearing shoes at the beach so I didn't like it.

[close]

Growing up surfing as well i can assure you they make fun of shoobies irl too

[close]

Where did u grow up? I've heard the term in Jersey and never equated it with people wearing shoes on the beach. Here in Jersey there are 2 terms Bennys and Shoobies. Bennys come from nyc and northern NJ; Shoobies come from Philly

I've never seen that Rocket Power show. If it got people into skating or surfing, that's cool.  I wonder if girls seek out old skate videos featuring girls like these videos. Imo Reyes and Torres have style






Also I'm curious if any posters here on slap are female...

maybe i'm wrong but the way it's presented in skate media and by girl skate companies like it just was invented by them last yr, i kind of feel like they're a people w/out a past. would be great if they do look back in the archives but it seems more of an au courant, trendy activity for the most part. i predict girl skating will die out before it fully sticks, kind of like 70s skating [and again early 90s and so on].

[Craig Lutzka]

Not gonna lie it was for sure one of the reasons I started skating. Also felt the need to share this....

[links, pics, and quotes]

maybe i'm wrong but the way it's presented in skate media and by girl skate companies like it just was invented by them last yr, i kind of feel like they're a people w/out a past. would be great if they do look back in the archives but it seems more of an au courant, trendy activity for the most part.

[no habla mango]

^ that kind of surgery can be done over the wkend 

[Tuff Lover]

Expand Quote

maybe i'm wrong but the way it's presented in skate media and by girl skate companies like it just was invented by them last yr, i kind of feel like they're a people w/out a past. would be great if they do look back in the archives but it seems more of an au courant, trendy activity for the most part.

[close]

She has style for days.