Welcome to enjoi week.
"I never thought I'd be running anything. I was always afraid I'd end up packing boxes or schlepping skateboards on the phone. It just happened that I realized that no one gave a shit enough about A-Team to do anything about it, so I stepped up and quit. If I didn't do it, it wasn't gonna get done. I didn't see anyone else make an effort for shit. I guess I'm just a picky, whiny, little perfectionist. So sue me." - Marc Johnson
enjoi was started in late 2000 out of Dwindle Distribution with Marc Johnson in charge of things. The A-Team had run its course and the riders shifted to other companies in house. Rodney Mullen and Dave Mayhew joined with Marc for enjoi. Chet Thomas went to Darkstar, which expanded from wheels to include boards. Gershon Mosley switched to Blind.
Marc wanted to have a company with ads and products that would make you laugh. The imagery used by enjoi certainly harkens back to the early days of World Industries where it was Steve Rocco versus everybody.
Note: This is not the first ad for enjoi, but one from fairly early on.
For the quote: Skateboarder - April 2001 Volume 10 Number 5
Transworld - January 2001 Volume 19 Number 1
5 comments:
When Enjoi came out I pretty much freaked out. I loved Jerry and Louie's parts from maple and freaking Mj has always been a top 3. During this time I had a subscription to Slap and there was a huge presence of Maple-Enjoi-Tiltmode and what not. A great era
early on i collected the enjoi boards. got a number of them, including what i think is the original team board: the panda poo. loved the vibe, loved the design, loved the riders.
but it seemed to outgrow marc's interest, and i'm fine with that as well. marc does well in the girl/choc fam, and i'm sure he'll have a home there for as long as he wants. that's the way it should be. he's earned it.
enjoi was such a welcome break from all the gangsta techy overly-inner city vibe that was happening at the time. it was the anti-zoo york... to me at least.
good dudes, stupid fun, a relief from the harder-than-the-hard, hard as hard can get.
Agreed, Enjoi brought back the fun side of skating. You had as said above "harder than hard" image or the drugged out Cali stuff not to mention the birth of handrail kids going pro.
You got the "be careful what you wish for, you might get everything you wanted" ad scanned? My friend and I both had that on our wall. I was pretty young when enjoi started. They taught me about life... I definitely see a rocco vibe with some neil blender humor thrown in.
There was a ton of Tiltmode in Slap back then. It made for some fun and creative articles. You felt like you could relate to the crew for being regular skateboarders.
I agree that Marc did lose interest in enjoi. I think somebody who he was working with got fired from Dwindle and it wasn't the same for him. I'm glad that the company has kept going with basically the same mindset. It's also possible that after running things for a couple of years, he decided that being the boss wasn't for him.
It's definitely inspired by the old World Industries vide, right down to the fonts. I'm sure Blender is/was an influence for Marc, but most of the enjoi ads come off as more cynical than mysterious.
I didn't scan the "be careful what you wish for" ad, but maybe I'll work it in.
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