Everything in the 80's sucked; it was the worst decade ever!

Hah! Not for me, Nick. I had a Rude Dog shirt and loved it. I wore it til it was threadbare and two sizes too small!

Glad I wasn't Nick's friend in the 80's! ;-) how could you say such terrible things! Clothing...shows...music ALL RULED! Rude Dog is totally rad.

The only good thing about the 80's was my rude dog tank top and I met my wife.

Found this and thought it was worth a look. My favorite T shirts ever. Operating as such, the company existed exclusively as a proprietary designer, scoring its greatest success with its creation of "Rude Dog" in 1986, by which time Sun Sportswear had expanded its production capabilities to include five hand presses and five automatic presses. Initially, "Rude Dog" was emblazoned as a character on T-shirts, but as the popularity of the Sun Sportswear-created figure grew enormously after its introduction, "Rude Dog" appeared on a plethora of items, including skateboards, beach towels, and socks. By the end of the 1980s, the "Rude Dog" character had turned into a valuable revenue-generating engine of its own, enjoying such widespread popularity that the apparel items decorated by Sun Sportswear could not satisfy consumer demand. The character was licensed to other manufacturers as a result, appearing on 21 different types of consumer products and giving Sun Sportswear a welcomed yet unanticipated boost to its business. Despite the phenomenal success of "Rude Dog" as a licensed character, Sun Sportswear's most important move in the market for licensed products came not as a licensor but as a licensee. For the first six years of its existence, Sun Sportswear derived all of its business from designs created by its own team of artists, with "Rude Dog" ranking as the biggest success. In 1987, however, the company added licensed designs to its product line and opened the door to a lucrative market that in less than half a decade would account for roughly half of its total sales volume. The decision to produce and sell licensed designs stood as a watershed development in the company's history, equalling the significance of the diversification beyond the T-shirt market and the development of a mass merchandiser customer base in 1983.

I wish I still had my "Rude Dog Buzzes the Beach" pink t-shirt. That was wonderful.

I still have most of my Rude Dogs around here somewhere. "Buzzes the Beach," "The World is my Fire Hydrant," "Cat Patrol." Didn't have "Bites the Vette," wish I did. Lost my "Party Pooch" at a party, trading clothes around. It happens.

badbob: want to sell them?? ;)

I was born a decade too late :(

I'd Kill for a Nobel Peace Prize AND a Rude Dog Buzzes the Beach PICTURE OF A T SHIRT, let alone a real one!!! Any chance of a picture of your shirt? I was hauling DEA agents when I was a kid in the 80's in a worn out Cesspool 206 and an agent had one of those shirts---WOULD NOT SELL IT TO ME!!!!

i have a Rude Dog University t-shirt (turquoise) and a Rude Dog pin.

Worked for Sun Sportwear for years.. Loved it...we had some great tees...and great Merchandising lines.

Eeeeeew, ick, blaaaaah, eeeeeeeeeek! Guess that pretty much sums up the 1980's:)

I had a "Rude Dog - On Patrol" beach towel, it finally disintegrated and got "retired". Sniff.

I have a worn out & shrunk up Rude Dog that read "Rude Dog says if you got an itch, scratch it "

My favorite Rude Dog t-shirt was made of a white fabric that was extremely wrinkled (almost like it was pressed that way). I assume that it was some kind of cotton blend, but am hoping that maybe someone here knows the name of the fabric.

Where can I find "Good Dogs Gone Rude" t-shirt?

I still have a Rude Dog tank top that you can literally see through and now has 3 small holes. It's my yard-work shirt and I still love it. It says "Rude Dog in Paradise" and at the bottom in small letters "No Dog is an Island".

I worked there throughout the 90's best place ever!!!

I went thrift shopping the other day and came across a shirt with Rude Dog on it and thought it looked interesting, I snagged it for $2 and it's actually in great condition! So content!

I know I still have a valentines day shirt with rude dog- says, "Kiss Me, I'm Rude!" I also ran across a sheet of stickers of Rude Dog, that have survived in my junk. "Born to be Rude" "Bad to the Bone" "Rude Dog Unleashed"!! Too funny. Target should revive Rude Dog!

camped all the way from Vancouver Canada in the eighties with my daughter...4 years old...got her a couple very cool Rude Dog t.shirts...best one was Rude dog on a surfboard...with all his "privates" hanging out...hahaha

I lived in Arizona in the mid-80s and the Rude Dog t-Shirts were cheap at Target so I bought a bunch for work (construction) and within a few weeks I had the nickname Rude dog. A few friends still joke about it.

Loved the Rude Dog cartoon...Rude Dog and the Dweebs.

I worked at Sun Sportswear from 1987 to about 1995-ish in suburban Seattle area. I was one of the artists that had the opportunity to design Rude Dog graphics. A few of mine were Buzzes the Beach and Bites the Vet and Yearbook Class of 88 Disobedience School which was a back tee print but became a poster. The actual props need to go to the original creator of Rude Dog Brad McMahon he was my hero.Amazing talent and sense of humor. You should know that if anyone farted though he would dry heave. Fun fact. As a salaried artist he received zero commission on RD sales which were in the millions of units not to mention the offshoot products that were licensed out. I remember seeing kids at Disneyland wearing a Rude Dog shirt and telling them I drew that and they would often say things like "you must be RICH!" Yep nope kid but the owners of the company are. For us designers (there were around 10 of us in the art dept) Rude Dog was so fun to work with coming up with puns and slogans. The Day That Rude Dog Died was when Sun Sportswear sold out to an animation company that absolutely took all of what was pure and original and beautiful about the character and butchered it into a crappy unfunny badly drawn interpretation. Sun's art dept had no control or input and when we as the original artists saw the cartoon we were all NOOOOOOOOOO! I don't remember designing any more tee shirts after that abysmal cartoon went on the air. For those of you that have positive memories of the carton ok cool but you must have been pretty young and no idea what the original vibe was. Sorry I'm a stickler for grammar and punctuation but my comma key doesn't work and it's driving me nuts I can't type one. Anyway thanks for the trip down memory lane. I'm gonna see if I can post the image of my last remaining RD artwork--- the original wall poster of Class of '88. I'm an old man now in case you haven't figured that out so give me some slack for my computer skills or lack thereof. Peace.

I worked at Sun Sportswear from 1987-91. I was 23 when I started. It truly was a cool place to work. The Rude Dog gear was the best designed by some truly talented artists. A shame that they got no credit and Rude Dog is basically public domain now. I was a young parent at the time and the company store really helped my wife and I make ends meet. Our boys grew up in Rude Dog gear and others. From t-shirts to sweatshirts to sweatpants and shorts. At Christmas my entire extended family got Rude Dog gear for Christmas. I worked in the shipping department and I got to see first hand just how popular our product was by the many thousands of dozens of garments we shipped out each month. Things really came to a head when we licensed the Batman logo in 1988. Every major department store chain in North America had to have some of the iconic black t-shirts with the yellow bat as Michael Keaton's Batman hit the theater. If I recall, Walmart and Kmart each ordered 12-15 thousand dozen shirts. Sun was pretty good to their employees as well. Every year the annual July 4th bbq and Christmas party with it's lip sync competition were must attend events And for thanksgiving each employee got a free turkey. I don't have any of the old Rude Dog garments left but I do have a stuffed Rude Dog in pretty good condition that sits on my bedroom dresser to remind me of those fun times.