The Clock Crew is an online Internet community moderately experienced in the medium of Macromedia's Flash format. Their members take their name from the avatars that they use to represent themselves online, which are in the form of a clock face embedded in an object, usually a type of fruit.

History

The Clock Crew began somewhat accidently in the Summer of 2001, when a then 14 year old
Coolboyman submitted a wave of crappy flash movies to the Newgrounds Portal under the alias of StrawberryClock (a name influenced by the band "Strawberry Alarm Clock"). These included Dicky Mouse, Donald Duck Porno and the ever popular B. While most of the Newgrounds public found these 'toons' to be wastes of space, some found these poorly devised creations to be hilarious.

One of those people, namely OrangeClock, joined Newgrounds and he too started submitting flash movies. By the end of the year over a dozen 'Clocks' had gotten into the act, in what turned out to be fad lasting almost half a decade.

Style

'Clocks' (the members of the Crew) ideally only need the word 'Clock' in their user name and/or an avatar, with their Flash (if any) being a completely seperate entity. However, there are specific rules to what makes a genuine, true-to-the-roots 'Clock' Flash:

'Clocks' may only talk using a text-to-speech program (usually Speakonia).

Speech must be visually represented by an oscillating crystal (similar to the one that appears over the heads of Sims in The Sims) next to the speaking clock.

Specific words must be misspelt in the fashion of 1337 speak.

A 'Clock' has no legs, meaning it must bounce everywhere. They do sometimes have disembodied arms for holding important objects.

Celebrity 'Clocks' such as StrawberryClock and PineappleClock must have their personalities represented correctly. Strawberry is often shown as a retard, quoting gibberish interspersed with catchphrases such as "B" and (possibly unofficial) "I want to drive", whereas Pineapple is shown to be a more intellectual individual.

All 'Clocks' must pledge allegiance to StrawberryClock through the phrase "StrawberryClock is the king of the portal" (portal in this context is often spelt 'pr0tal') in his presence. In fact, this is a deciding factor as to whether someone is a true clock.

Asking for viewers to vote 5 (which is the highest score a user can submit on Newgrounds.com and will thus increase the score of the Flash submission) at the end of the movie (usually text saying "Vote 5!" or "Vote fiffen!") is a stereotypical custom of the Clock Crew, and usually no longer done except for utter authenticity.

Legacy

Despite there being a prejudice towards the Crew thanks to their rubbish masterpieces encouraging more Flash artists to submit terrible Flash, some members actually produce fantastic
work. There have also been some fantastic collaborations amongst the Clock Crew that have led to some of their best work.
The fact there is a certain quality to at least some of their work probably explains why there are still so many new clocks jumping on the bandwagon (often to inadvertently corrupt the Crew's name with more Flash trash), and why so many people have tried to copy their style.

Influenced Groups

The Clock Crew inspired the creation of:

Lock Legion

Star Syndicate

Pube Muppet (a series of cartoons based mainly around characters comprised of defaced Muppet photos asking people for rediculous homosexual favours: created by DrunkMagiKoopa but used popularly by the Clock Crew)

Tricky The Clown (a cartoon character favoured by the Clock Crew)

Ph33r Craze (a style of cartoon popularised by RaspberryClock and GrapesClock)

Mass Voters (people who, on the instruction of an author, will go to a site where the author's Flash submission is under judgement and give it the highest score possible, thus making the movie seem more popular than it really is. Groups like the Star Syndicate have borrowed this custom.)

Plus groups designed to annoy the Clock Crew including:

* Magnet Crew

* Compass Crew

* Sock Crew

* Cock Crew

* Rock Crew

* Finally the incredibly obscure (although these have been sighted):

** Brick Brigade

** Communists (known Communists: Lemon Communist and Orange Communist)

Known members:

StrawberryClock (A.K.A. Coolboyman A.K.A. The King Of The Portal)

OrangeClock

RaspberryClock

AppleClock

PineappleClock

KnottsberryClock

GrapesClock

FatalBerryClock (A.K.A. FaTaLBerryClock A.K.A. F8L)

CarrotClock

RadishClock

BiologicalClock

BoysenberryClock

BurritoClock

ZipstykeClock

MilkClock

AvocadoClock

Traekwon

ShastaClock

Olskoo

MagicClock

AtomicClock

CabbageClock

KoalaClock

ArcticClock

OnionClock

Grog

SchoolClock

SynjClock

Zebu Clock (A.K.A. TheZebu)

Hamburger_Clock

IcebergLettuceClock

AMPM Clock

X Clock

ShieldClock

ChickenClock

NefClock

GrandfatherClock

ClockCrew Website NOTE: May not be official site