You won't want to miss out on the world-class speakers at TNW Conference this year 🎟 Book your 2 for 1 tickets now! This offer ends on April 22 →

This article was published on August 27, 2015

Modern tech commercials suck! In the ’60s, cool skater girls sold phones


I posted about how Rodney Mullen, who’ll be at this year’s Web Summit in Dublin, is the skateboarder that startups should listen to (as well as the greatest of all time) recently. Here’s another slice of skateboarding history that gadget fans might dig.

Patti McGee was the National Skateboard Champion back in 1965 and the New England Bell Telephone Company thought she’d be the ideal person to promote its efforts to get people to pony up for a second phone line.

McGee recalls on her YouTube channel that she was paid $500 for filming her ride through “a really nice house” which was “super fun to skateboard through.”

She’s the first woman to have been inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame, deservedly so. Now 72, she’s still rolling.

Patti McGee 1965 National Skateboard champion TV commercial [from Patti McGee]

Thumbnail image: LIFE magazine. 

 

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.