In reality, time relates to every existing thing on this planet. Alternately, imagine an artistic world where everything is related to time.
One group of artistic pioneers have made that idea excel in animation. Their purpose is to create a supportive community for amateur animators and artists focusing on clock themes; to provide a completely unique entertainment experience for viewers and followers. They have formed a network where every clock artist is free to express themselves in any fashion, however most choose flash animation. Some may choose still image artwork or music media instead, but the main focus of the group is flash animation. Who are they? The Clock Crew. Founded in 2001 after the initial mass appearances of the famous “Strawberry Clock” character, the Clock Crew was formed.
When The Clock Crew initially began producing animations, they had flooded the Newgrounds.com portal so much that people who didn’t like them requested The Clock Crew be banned. The crew had gained popularity through intrigue of its unique content and mass productions. Soon many others began joining the group. Eventually a support website for The Clock Crew was started which is still active and boasts well over 4,500 members. The Clock Crew community is very large, but groups and smaller sub-groups have formed for each specific area of clock entertainment. The main groups feature different media aspects for artists. Sub-groups are formed for more precise concentration areas of these groups. For example, there is an Audio Collaborations group with three sub-groups named “Music Remixes”, “Musician Tribe” and “The Music Group”.
Strawberry Clock: King of NewGrounds.com and undisputed Star of most animations by The Clock Crew.
Known as “King of the Portal”, Strawberry Clock is perhaps the most famous icon among the Clock Crew. It is commonly believed that this crew was started by Strawberry Clock, but The Clockopedia (we’ll explain what this is in a second) says the original crew actually consisted of three other clocks: Apple Clock, Raspberry Clock and Orange Clock. Orange Clock was the founding member of The Clock Crew. Strawberry Clock definitely had the most and worst quality animation submissions in the beginning, making it the most popular clock. Orange Clock was famous for good quality animations and setting trends in styles of presentations. Eventually other fruit clock characters surfaced, such as Grapes Clock and Pineapple Clock. Eventually clocks started to evolve in other representations from food to drugs. As a result, two clock classifications were adopted: fruit clocks and weird clocks. Any clock character that is not a fruit clock is considered to be a weird clock. The fruit clocks still remain the most famous characters.
By now, every reader is probably wondering what these animations are about. Most animations submitted by The Clock Crew focus on some form of an extraordinary adventure or a farce of a popular movie or event. When something happens that normally would be bad or dangerous, these animations weave abstract fun and humor into the plot to create an entertainment quality that intrigues and fascinates the viewer. Although the animations are far from professional, the quality of entertainment is definitely good, fun and unique in each one and creates a respectful integrity for each presentation. After viewers watch several of these abstract animations, understanding how the spread of popularity happened so quickly is easy. Quirky situations with unpredictable events coupled with the impossible notion of a clock manifesting itself as a piece of food or fruit (and being heroic) make these animations comparable to none. Choppy sounding narration is common in these presentations, adding to the simplicity they project. The majority of animations are published on the Newgrounds website, but there are several that have been posted on YouTube also, including many of the famous Strawberry Clock adventures.
The first flash animation ever submitted to NewGrounds.com by The Clock Crew consisted of...just the letter B!
The most significant day of the year for The Clock Crew and Newgrounds alike is August 15th. Deemed as “Clock Day” in 2001 when the famous “B” production was submitted to Newgrounds, this date is considered the birthday of the crew. “B” was a submission from Strawberry Clock, aka Coolboyman. This presentation gained fame because its entire content was simply the letter “B” with a white background. After the submission was published, its popularity soared because it was so simple yet controversial. Perhaps other Newgrounds artists felt insulted that their hard work did not rival such intriguing simplicity. Each year on August 15th, Clock Crew members submit their best material and most visit the forums and chat sections of the website to honor the epic day The Clock Crew documented its existence.
Originally, there was much resistance on Newgrounds to these new clock animations coming through the portal. Groups who didn’t like The Clock Crew made anti-clock animations depicting the destruction of the clock characters and tried desperately to have the crew banned. Refusing to fight fire with fire, The Clock Crew nobly responded to these negative animations offering kindness and help to those who hated them, which increased the anger of the opposing side. Many people tend to root for the underdogs in life, so of course this meant even more popularity for The Clock Crew. Their unique and unpredictable response reflected their unique and unpredictable style. Strawberry Clock was the crew character who submitted the famed “B” presentation which made many Newgrounds users very upset.
The Clock Crew was banned from creating a Wikipedia.org page (shame on you, Wikipedia!), so the group formed their own wiki called “Clockopedia” where designated editors are allowed to post information pertaining to the group, its activities and history.
Although this wiki is helpful, obtaining a page on Wikipedia is a goal still strongly sought, so much in fact that The Clock Crew has formed an online petition for supporters to sign to reverse Wikipedia’s unfavorable decision. With a multi-feature website which includes a forum, chat and links to Clockopedia and Newgrounds, the artistic productions of The Clock Crew are easily accessible. Plenty of contests and events flourish and keep the website very active. Enjoying the freedom of expression in their clock creations, users submit new content every month knowing it will be appreciated by fellow Clock Crew members and fans for its individuality.
In the course of being online now for several years, we at Online Clock have watched and enjoyed dozens of video animations made by various members of The Clock Crew.
All we can say is that, if you’re a fan of wild, anarchic art, you owe it to yourself to go to NewGrounds or YouTube immediately and search for any video about Strawberry Clock and/or The Clock Crew. But be careful: these video animations are often wild, irrelevant, anarchic pieces of art; and they’re sometimes not politically correct and not safe for work. Just try to keep an open mind and remember that clocks just want to have fun. 
Sure, the quality of the individual animations varies, but on the whole The Clock Crew has released a great deal of truly fun, interesting art to the world…and we think this is pretty darn cool. There’s enough boring stuff in this world, and it’s great that people still make things for the fun they get out of doing it.
To all of the members of The Clock Crew – we salute you!
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