Since its humble beginnings, Action-Squad has developed into a parent organization for awesome endeavors. Action-Squad is: a small group of idiots from Michigan. It’s a web site designed to amuse those idiots and their friends. A professional design company. And an urban iditarod team.

On Saturday, March 6th, Action-Squad adds a historic (I know most people say “an” historic, but that’s never made sense to me. It’s not “an history book..”) fifth chapter to their growing legend in Chicago’s urban iditarod shopping cart race/food drive/costume party/beauty pageant, or Chiditarod for short. Since we may have some new visitors to the site after the race (Dave has designed “In Squad We Trust” buttons with the URL for distribution, contact him for yours today!) we thought it would be a good idea to give a little backstory on how Action-Squad went from a plucky group of Blinkies, Pinkies, and Clydes, to time-traveling prophets, hell bent on glory and PBR.

A (sort of) brief history, with links to the original A-S recaps:

2006: As part of his routine scouring of the Internet for the best in LOLCats and Alias fan fiction, Rev Dave found an invitation for participants in the first ever Chiditarod. A team is assembled, canned food purchased, and a theme (Pac-Man for the cart, ghosts for the team members) is created on the way to Home Depot to buy building materials the night before the race. Race day is an epic event, with Action-Squad being given a special “Best Use of a Vintage ’80s Arcade Game” medal, and finishing the race in 6th (or so) place in the race.

2007: The team made like Scott Bakula and took a quantum leap between years 1 and 2. We abandoned the idea of winning the race portion, and threw all our eggs in the Best In Show basket. The theme was a huge crowd-pleaser: Abe Lincoln and His Secret Service Detail. The cart was a miracle of modern engineering. It raced as a black limousine, but transformed at stops along the way into a podium from which Abe could address the crowd. The day ended the only way it could: with the Squad taking home the coveted Best In Show prize. A standard had been set for Action-Squad, and indeed, all future Chiditarod participants.

2008: The defending champs certainly felt the pressure to repeat, and rose to the occasion like an F-16 taking the highway to the danger zone. Things got off to a great start when Dave provided the Chiditarod 2008 logo, which got us free registration. The theme was Top Gun. The cart was a jet, complete with a moving cockpit canopy and goose-ejecting action. The team even included a costume change from flight suits to dress whites to better facilitate our (second place-winning) skit: singing “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” to a bar full of drunks. It was glorious. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to bring home the overall Best In Show. The judges, who admitted to misgivings about giving the award to the same team twice in a row, gave us second place.

2009: Still feeling the sting of their semi-snub, 2009 marked the most ambitious cart construction yet, and a reversal in building strategy. Instead of a structure being built around a traditional shopping cart, a 6.5 foot tall phone booth was constructed. The cart was disassembled (Johnny-5 style) and the pieces were attached to the booth. We were slightly surprised at how warmly the Bill & Ted theme was received, but it was hard to deny the radness of a “cart” that the entire team fit it. So hard, in fact, that the Squad became the first repeat Best In Show winner, and a surprise Best Skit winner for our re-interpretation of Bill and Ted’s history report.

Which brings us to 2010. Action-Squad enters the race as the only team to have participated every year. There have been some changes to the rules this year. Cart restrictions and racing rules have been lifted for teams participating in a special “Art Cart” category. Since our carts are always works of art, and we’ve never had a problem racing like everyone else, we opted to compete in the traditional category (also, we’d already started working under the old rules when the rule change was announced). So our cart will comply with size restrictions and still look rad as hell.

We’re also raising money for the Chicago Anti-Hunger Federation. Thanks to the generosity of our friends, family, and Fraggles, we’ve surpassed our goal of $500. But we’d love to be even more surpassy about it, so if you’d like to help, check it out. You can also bring canned food to the race. We have to collect 40 lbs to qualify.

What will our theme be? You’ll just have to show up AT the starting gate AT noon on 3/6 to find out. But perhaps I’ve said too much…(Registration actually begins at 10:30 at Wolcott and Hubbard, race begins at 12:15.)

A big thanks to everyone who has supported us along the way with their donations, cheers, booze, and designated driving. We couldn’t do it without you. Whaddaya say we do it all again on Saturday? I’ve got a gooood feeling about this…

MUSH!