Urban Legends Investigated: The Clock Man Video
Are you familiar with The Clock Man Video? It is a rather well-known meme, and originated from an animated Czech short video that aired on Nickelodeon’s Pinwheel show.
The short film follows a young girl who is taken on a trip by a mysterious man who crawls out of her clock. She is returned to her room just before sunrise by the mysterious man.
The movie was strange and unsettling, but before a long time, it was also thought to be a hoax, or possibly just a nightmare imagined by someone on the internet who recalled having watched this video, but who could not find it again.
It seemed to have vanished, but this scary image of a man climbing out of a clock was forever burned in the minds of several people who had watched it during the Nickelodeon’s Pinwheel show. So it had to be real, right, if several people recalled it?
Turns out that it is real.
The video
The video was created in 1976 by AAA Studio in conjuction with a Czech film production company Kratky Film. It is only seven minutes long, and centers around a young girl named Sally. The video is aptly named “O Parádivé Sally”.
Sally receives a new pair of gloves from her mother, but she manages to lose one. After searching for her missing glove, she asks the town wizard for help. The wizard conjures up a new glove for her, but under the condition that she needs to tell her mother exactly what happened when she comes home. Sally agrees, but since this is a cautionary tale, of course she does not tell her mother the truth when she arrives home. That night, the wizard crawls out of the clock in Sally’s bedroom, snatches her up from bed and takes her back to this house. The wizard gives her the task of crocheting stars out of magic yarn, which she must complete in one night. Sally completes the task, and the wizard warns her that she must always tell the truth, or the stars will fade.
The story itself seems rather harmless, and it has a nice message. But when you watch some stills from the cartoon, well…
You see what I mean. The wizard looks horrifying. Stuff of nightmares, y’all.
The Internet Search
A user on the Flood Forums in 2012 submitted a thread for a search for this short film, which he remembered watching as a child while he was ill and feverish. The haunting images were so burned in his mind that he wanted to look for it, years and years after seeing it.
Some users thought it was a hoax, like the Candle Cove Creepypasta, but Lost Media Wiki – a website associated with the research and seeking of pieces of media considered ‘lost’ due to the difficulty in finding them, started searching for the Clock Man Video as well.
The short itself actually couldn’t be found on the internet until 2017 when the original creators, AAA Studio uploaded it to their Youtube channel. They also uploaded an English dub in January 2018, if you are interested in seeing the full video.
The Verdict
The Clock Man Video is real. Whether is a terrifying cartoon, or a cute little video, I’ll leave up to you to decide for yourself.
Urban Legends Investigated
Previously in this series:
- Urban Legends Investigated: The Noise Coming From Inside Children
- Urban Legends Investigated: The Expressionless
- Urban Legends Investigated: Dear David – Part 1 / The Story
- Urban Legends Investigated: Dear David – Part 2 / Is Dear David Real?
- Urban Legends Investigated: Slender Man
- Urban Legends Investigated: The Bleeding House
- Urban Legends Investigated: Peter Bergmann
- Urban Legends Investigated: Missing in the Odessa Catacombs
- Urban Legends Investigated: The 1962 Halloween Massacre
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