The Clock Crew
The Clock Crew is an Internet community that bases itself on art and animation, primarily on Macromedia/Adobe Flash, making cartoons for the site Newgrounds.com, where it was "born" and is now hosted.
The Idea for the Clock Crew began when Coolboyman, a member of Newgrounds, created the alias Strawberry Clock, proclaimed himself "King of the Portal", and started spamming extremely low-quality Flash movies to provoke venomous responses for his own entertainment. These include "Donald Duck Porno", "Dickey Mouse" and other extremely mediocre movies of the sort. This created a huge response from people who absolutely hated him, much to his enjoyment.
Except one fateful day, August 15, 2001, StrawberryClock submitted B. Of course, the same reactions followed from many, but instead of being automatically deleted from Newgrounds' portal (known as being blammed), it somehow managed to be 'saved' and entered the portal itself, where it could no longer be deleted. This, of course, generated even more rapid reactions against it and the hate spiral and attention it got ended creating something a lot bigger, the Clock Crew itself, when other members, such as PineappleClock, OrangeClock, RaspberryClock, AppleClock and many others, rose up from the crowd and proclaimed themselves followers of StrawberryClock, submitting movies in his name and whatnot, and it all snowballed from there.
OrangeClock was more responsible for the CC's current traditions. His Flash movies had shaped what a clock actually "was", namely an object with a clock on it, and had also designed the CC's first logo.
Every member of the Clock Crew usually creates a clock avatar, which is an object with a clock for a "face." These range from simple objects like fruit and vegetables, to abstract and creative concepts (like Strangeclock, an impossible cube). The Clock avatar serves as a character, and the clock is the actual "face".
This Internet group is still alive today, with over 300 registered members and its own collection page in Newgrounds.
It also celebrates Clock Day every August 15, the day that StrawberryClock submitted B. Every Clock is compelled to submit a Flash animation on Clock Day to celebrate the occasion.
- Animate Inanimate Object - The Crew themselves.
- Butt Monkey: Turd Clock. No matter who the writer is, if he's in it, he's a butt monkey.
- Catch Phrase - A few clocks have phrases they're known for.
- Strawberry Clock's most notible ones are 'B!' and 'Can I drive?'
- Depending on the Writer - The personality of various clocks varies between authors as either completely pulled out their ass or based on the person who designed the character.
- The Ditz - Strawberry Clock as a character is often portrayed as a mix of this and an egotistical Jerkass.
- Evil Counterpart - The Lock Legion, although none of them are really at all evil. Some of them are in fact alt accounts for Clocks.
- Expressive Mask - More often than not, their faces contort as if they were single eyes.
- Follow the Leader - Several other alliterated gangs showed up, such as the Glock Group.
- A better-known example is the Barney Bunch, who are mainly infamous for their crude videos starring Drew Pickles on YouTube, Newgrounds, and YTMND. Several members of the BB have names ending in "Barney" as an homage to the CC.
- Other groups that have sprung up are the Kitten Krew, Star Syndicate, the aforementioned Lock Legion, and N00b Nation.
- A better-known example is the Barney Bunch, who are mainly infamous for their crude videos starring Drew Pickles on YouTube, Newgrounds, and YTMND. Several members of the BB have names ending in "Barney" as an homage to the CC.
- Synthetic Voice Actor - Speakonia is a guarantee at least once if there's actual dialogue.