Clock Crew

The Clock Crew (abbreviated as CC) is a Newgrounds Flash Crew that is said to have been established by StrawberryClock, an alt of Coolboyman, on August 15, 2001, with the submission of B to the Flash Portal. 
StrawberryClock/Coolboyman was not actually involved in the formation of the Clock Crew, though it was clearly formed around his character. In fact, a founder group of fruitclocks- OrangeClock, Pineapple etc. created the group with their own characters and added the character Strawberry Clock - a strawberry with a clock face- as the foremost character in the CC movies.
== The Movie "B" ==
Strawberry Clock first submitted the movie "A", which was blammed, then "B", which was also blammed at least once. However, when he resubmitted it on August 15th it scraped through judgement, low enough to get Turd of The Week. A group of other NG members used this movie, which the CC portray as historic, as an icon in the formation of the Clock Crew. B has over a million views and hundreds of reviews, despite being nothing more than a letter B with no animation- which is against
Tom Fulp's specifications for a flash submission.
== Creating the Crew ==
Three Clocks emerged on Newgrounds in September 2001, shortly after B went through Judgement, inspired by StrawberryClock and defended the controversial 'spamming' by StrawberryClock. These were OrangeClock, AppleClock and RaspberryClock, of which Orange is credited on the Clock Crew website as starting the Crew. PineappleClock joined soon after, creating the set of five original fruitclocks. From this, with submissions and dialogue on the BBS, the Clock Crew came into being.
== Strawberry Clock and the Clock Characters ==
The author, StrawberryClock, has never been much involved with the Clock Crew although the character created from his avatar- a Strawberry with a clock for a face, sometimes crowned, is in countless Clock movies. The CC usually depict this character, Strawberry Clock, as a bumbling, often selfish leader of a group of characters of fruit, vegetables or other objects, all of whom have clocks for faces. They are usually portrayed as living in a realm called Clocktopia, with Strawberry Clock as either king or as a sort of leader of a group of friends. He is also popularly portrayed as the self-proclaimed king of the (or sometimes teh) Newgrounds Portal.
Top scoring examples of Clock Movies in their own lore and world include:
Strawberry Goes Camping
The characters and world are also often adapted to parodies. Top scoring examples of this include:
The Lord of the Rings parody series and Clock Trek.
== Collaboration and Cameos ==
The Clock Crew have helped each other to make movies right from the earliest days, with a mention in the credits for a fellow Clock making, say the preloader, the music etc. This fellowship extends into dropping little cameos of their Clock friends into each others movies, often in very random situations, such as the many in the background of SBC Makes Frontpage.
== Clock Movie Style ==
The Clock Crew style of movie, usually involves using simple images of objects made into characters using a clock for a face, often with simple hands and no arms and moving by bouncing without legs. The voice is usually, a computer generated voice, usually Speakonia and the speaker is indicated by a waggling indicator over the character. All of these methods make the characters and movies very easy to make without much animating skill, although that does not mean that all movies of this type are neccesarily crude or without skill. Originally the CC put the letters CC in front of most of their movies, but their website later advised against it, stating that they feel many users will be biased against such movies and vote against them without even viewing them.
===Speakonia voices===
Originally, authors like Orange Clock made movies with their own voices, then Speakonia came to be used in most clock movies, then copied by the various following Ock and other crews. The Clock Crew parody "Behind the Magic" plays with the Speakonia voice by showing the characters use their "real" voices "off camera".
=== Limbs/Hands ===
These can be anything from a total lack of limbs, such as OrangeClock's movies, where objects move as if manipulated by hands that are not seen, through round circles for hands, through to hands and wrists. Some characters have full bodies, such as RobertClock, SuccubusClock, and AnonDaveClock.
=== Movement ===
Most Clocks move by bouncing, a relatively easy-to-animate option, accompanied by a bouncing sound in the better-made movies. Orange Clock is occasionally seen rolling and RupeeClock made the cameo clocks in the background of SBC for Frontpage move in a variety of ways from rolling to sliding.
== Clock Crew Games ==
A number of games have been made with Clocks as a theme. The earliest is probably Orange Clock's joke game Clock Assasin VI just 1 month after B was submitted. IcedTeaClock's LeekClock VS ClockCrew is a defender game, which won Daily third, was Front Paged and is in the Clock Collection. StrawberryClock created a game called B: The Video Game, which has a high score, presumably because it is by SBC. Although all you have to do is get the SBC icon to collect B's, the leaderboard shows people have collected over 7,000 B's to be at the top of the board.
== Clock Crew Membership ==
At first, the founder members were simply some people who submitted flash with Clock Names, then they gradually became a formal crew, with websites being set up to organise members and have forums to talk to each other and plan things together. Today, the idea for becoming an official Clock Crew member is much more formal. Potential members are expected to get involved in creating and submitting Flash animations; to choose an original name and to behave in an appropriate manner. Rules and advice on becoming a member were on the Joining Page of the Clock Crew site.
== Clock Crew Website ==
Over the years, the Clock Crew has had a number of websites, but in 2007, Newgrounds stepped in to sponsor their own website. Their site (now down) was a substantial web site with forums; a members list; a map of Clocks around the world; their own official Clock encyclopedia and all the rules and info that organize a large international group with selected membership. AlphaClock and RibsClock were the admins for the Clockopedia site.
== Recognition by Newgrounds ==
The Clock crew was the first crew on NG to be recognised by Newgrounds, by having its Clock Day- 15th of August- recognised on the Portal with banners and adverts. This is always one of the biggest days on the NG calendar. CC also has a number of Collections on NG. Furthermore, in 2007, Newgrounds decided to support the Clock Crew by sponsoring their website.
==Spin-offs==
Back in 2003, a small group broke off of the Clock Crew; the Lock Legion, which was composed of former clocks and people who wished to annoy the Clock Crew. What started as a joke became the second biggest Flash Crew on Newgrounds. While they continued to contribute to the Portal, other spin-offs started appearing. The Clock style is copied- each group swaps the clock face for a symbol of their group, such as a keyhole for the Lock Legion and an anchor for the Dock Division. These groups took on a similar name, usually a random object and synonym for a group, collaboration, or organization starting with the same letter as the predetermined object. Examples include the Star Syndicate, the Uzi Union, the Block Band, the Glock Group, the Barney Bunch, and the Plastic People. These groups are often short-lived, but some manage to make a name for themselves and become established at least long enough to get a Collection on Newgrounds.
The Clock Crew officially regard these other crews using their style as "ripoffs" and usually view them in a negative light; they tend to claim that such groups are created out of mostly ex-clocks thrown out for negative reasons. However, in practice, a number of Clocks belong to one or more other crew and continue as members of each.
To quote Flounderfruit of the Clock Crew in a Clock thread in August 2011:
"Actually SocomSquad is ripping off UziUnion which is ripping off GlockGroup which is ripping off LockLegion which is ripping off us. Get your facts straight!"
This appears to be correct- if the Locks were the first to copy the Clocks, then the Glock Group was copying that idea, if the Uzi Union were the first gun group to pick up on the Glock, then the SocomSquad was copying them.
A parody of the whole idea of the Clock Ripoffs was submitted in the name of a mock ripoff called the Comets.
==Clocktopia==
Clocktopia has been well depicted in many Clock Crew Flash movies. The most famous were The Clock War Trilogy which explains how Clocktopia came to be with the fruit clocks mainly ruling over the weird clocks and vegetable clocks and the other was the well known highly critical response, Life In Clocktopia which talked and showed a half comedy half drama series about StrawberryClock and the gang doing everyday stuff until late 2010 the author deleted all the flashes complaining that the Anti-Clock Crew was 0-bombing all the flashes and he was mocked for caring over such a little 0's. Life In Clocktopia was explained later
== Beyond Newgrounds ==
A long list of Clock movies have been submitted to other websites, including YouTube. The Clock Crew have a User on YouTube, Clockcrewdotcc through which many of the major Clock Movies are uploaded onto YouTube. ﻿
== Links ==
*The Clock Crew Fandom Wiki
*The Clock Crew website
*The original Clock Crew website (Web archive)
*Clockopedia, the official Clock encyclopedia (Web archive)
Category:Crews
Category:Clock Crew
Category:Flash Crew
Category:Editor's Choice
Category:Flash series