Mr Wilson & localims.

[Hastings]

So I have been skateboarding for a long time...

When you do a trick and your back foot slips off but the momentum of your board makes you do a comical splits slam, this I have always called a "Mr Wilson". I was taught this by the older skaters and took it as gospel that it was a given in skateboarding that this style of Slam was called a Mr Wilson.

Surprising to me this year of our good lard 2024, some 40 years after  I first stood on a skateboard, that this was just a localism and not known by other people. Now I think of it, it seems like such an in joke. Can anyone confirm? What have you been calling wrong for 40 years? Who the fuck was Mr Wilson?

[Lou Strux]

That’s been called a “Wilson” around here as well. Perhaps not a widely used term, but I certainly grew up with it as part of my colloquial parlance.
Origin is rooted in the Dennis the Menace comic strips of yore, wherein, Dennis’s curmudgeonly old neighbor, Mr. Wilson, would frequently come to grief by accidentally stepping upon Dennis’s skateboard, typically resulting in a humorous “ass-over-teakettle” slip-out scenario for poor old Mr. Wilson. 
Watching senior citizens fall down was a popular form of entertainment for past generations.
My, how far we’ve come!

[Uh Oh]

[Eric Dolphy]

In small town NZ in 1998 when I started skating, pushing mongo was called flamingo, or “flaminco maybe. Has anyone else heard that? Was that global or local?

[Welpok]

Shanked is one that we used in my area for around the last 20 years I've skated. Which is basically someone coming along and doing the trick you were trying. I'm sure this is a local term.

[Chavo]

I can also confirm Mr. Wilson shortened to "Wilson" is the same term we used. The comic was still popular, or at least known, in the '80s so there wasn't as much of a disconnect.

[Plan9Customs]

We used Wilsoned here since the 80s.

[lurkluke]

In small town NZ in 1998 when I started skating, pushing mongo was called flamingo, or “flaminco maybe. Has anyone else heard that? Was that global or local?

Defs not used here (West Coast Sout Island) in that era.

I can see how someone might mishear it and it just became the word.

[devils acrobat]

I remember seeing a sequence in Monster Skateboard Mag (Germany) as a kid where a drunk rando jumped on a board right before a gap. He did the classic 'ski-approach' of a non skater with both feet pointing forward and not sideways. He cleared the gap but landed with his body in a horizontal position and apparently broke his hips. The caption said he did a 'wilson'. I havent heard it since but this one stuck with me. Thanks for clarifying the origins y'all!

[Troubadour26]

My favorite localism is called a “chaos grind”. There was a guy in our town when I was a kid who was like kinda emo or scene or whatever and his name on MySpace was like xxChris Chaosxx and he had those crooked grinds that were between a crook and a nose grind and the other guys began calling them chaos grinds. I miss there being an actual skateboarding community in my home.

[Eric Dolphy]

Expand Quote

In small town NZ in 1998 when I started skating, pushing mongo was called flamingo, or “flaminco maybe. Has anyone else heard that? Was that global or local?

[close]

Defs not used here (West Coast Sout Island) in that era.

I can see how someone might mishear it and it just became the word.

Crazy, I was in Nelson. Not far away at all.

[Sick_McCrank_]

I did the opposite: landing with the front foot right in front of the nose and running into the ankle, twisting it pretty hard. And that was on a stupid hippy jump. No idea what should be called but it sucks.

[botefdunn]

This one is problematic, but im genuinely curious. Coming up in a small town in the early 90s, everything fell into one of two categories: gay or rad. I never thought of this as homophobic, though it obviously was. My question to others is, was this word just as common in skate scenes in other places at this time?

[Mean salto]

^thru highschool it was def like "don't be gay" but not even directly about being homosexual which was pretty taxing. Like if someone admitted to jerking off that would even be like omg gay. Luckily at least once I was done with school and met other skaters it was way less like that.
Altho there was def this other wierd thing of kinda false acceptance of gay stuff that I kinda think of as still being homophobic but as a straight guy I wouldn't really know. Basically like how they act gay on wildboys type stuff.


Anyway other wierd ones: axle grind for 5050s and calling all types of Muska flips hardflips but this is prob more people just not knowing what they were talking about and having no way to check pre internet.


Also thought the Mr Wilson was when your board shoots out so fast you land flat on your back. Like you don't even get a hand down in time maybe even with legs up in the air

[Gray Imp Sausage Metal]

Nose blunts were called sharp slides (opposite of blunt)
Back 360 no complies where you pivot around were called ballerinas
Straight pressure flips (I think kids call them pressure heel flips) were in flips

[behavioralguide]

Nollie o.g. and fakie o.g. being nollie bsts shoveit and fakie nosegrind to regular, respectively

[WarmUpZone]

I've always thought a Wilson was when your board shoots forward with your feet and you slam on your butt or back.
It isn't the splits. It's cause that is how Mr. Wilson slammed when he accidentally stepped on Dennis the Menace's skateboard.

From Thrasher's 2011 "Slam Demons" article:

Dennis the Menace was the comic-strip character whose ill-placed skateboard would often send his neighbor, Mr. Wilson, spilling onto the ground, ass-first. Don’t get it twisted, though. This charming heels-over-head comic scenario never included the snapped tailbone and severe thigh hemorrhage that an actual slam-dance can serve up.