ONM Remembered – #146

Saturday, September 14, 2013 at 11:00 am Comments Off on ONM Remembered – #146

“Who is Lucy Skyboarder?”


from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 92 (May 2000)

What I assume was once a rhetorical question (“Who’s Lucy Skyboarder? She’s the one on the hoverboard. No, over there. She’s got dotted lines and everything. You can’t miss her.”) is now a profound mystery for the ages. Who IS Lucy Skyboarder? And what “fab prizes” could you possibly have been awarded for correctly answering?

I’m a sucker for some cyberspace sleuthing, so I got investigating. Sadly, the Royal Mail’s “/breaktime/” address was not recorded by the Internet Archive, so I had to find some second-hand sources.
A press release states that Tim Vincent of Blue Peter fame launched the site to get kids writing in letters, particularly on the theme of what life would be like in the year 2050. Lucy Skyboarder is mentioned, but her identity is not revealed. The names of her polygonal pals are revealed, however! From left to right, we’ve got Cyber-Pup, Virtual Vinnie, and Robbie Rocker.

Apparently an eight year old girl from Hartlepool was among the top participants in the Break Time 2050 contest with her design for a flying skateboard, and got a stamp from Richard Branson for her efforts.

Heck, there’s even a trademark on her name! It expired back in 2010, though, so unless there’s also a copyright on her, I do believe it’s fair game to start pitching Lucy Skyboarder branded merchandise to your nearest shopkeep.

…I’m not sure what exactly I accomplished with this small bit of cyber sleuthing (who still don’t know who IS Lucy Skyboarder!), but I find it’s always an entertaining little distraction to dig up history on totally unremarkable events.

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