The Search For Clockman: Nickelodeon's Mysterious Lost Short | blameitonjorge

I am looking for a particular animated short that terrified me as a child I've been looking on and off for it for nearly four years maybe it doesn't exist maybe nobody should ever find it but if someone can its the flood this short animation was terrifying as a child the scene is still burning in my mind 28 years later it's of a young boy sleeping in his bed above the bed is a ticking clock all the lights in the room are off and it's very dark suddenly the clock begins to slow down it's ticking and eventually it stops on midnight when the clock stops a greenish bluish man climbs out at a clock the boy wakes up just in time to see this man dressed in black grab him out of bed and kidnap him by carrying him through a window the clock man takes a boy on some kind of terrifying adventure and brings him back to his bed before sunrise [Music] in 2012 a user known as commander Santa posted this message on to the flood forums in the hopes of uncovering a missing animated short from his childhood little did he know however that this thread would kickstart the search for one of the most sought after pieces of lost media a search that lasted for five years a piece of lost media known as clock man the original thread by Commander Santa that initiated the long hunt for clock man was that first dismissed as creepypasta baits and nothing more than a troll looking for attention others questioned his memory given that he was according to one of his responses sick when he allegedly viewed it leading some to believe that may have been nothing more than just a fever dream I remember feeling great terror whilst watching it the clock man abducted the little boy and took him to places where he did not want to go I can't remember where exactly but I seem to remember the boy repeatedly asking to go home clock man just ignored him like he couldn't hear him kept dragging the boy through all kinds of scary places I remember being scared for the boy and just wishing the clock man would take him home his responses to these accusations added to the whole creepypasta feel of it all such as his desires to see clock man one last time before he passed away and how he thought of the short throughout all aspects of his life junior high high school college and even now as the father it seemed that clock man really haunted him and he truly became obsessed with finding it however for every dismissal there were multiple users who believed him commander Santa was a respected member of the community and he was a 1 to troll his fellow members his description of the plots and appearance of the clock man were so vivid so detailed that many couldn't help but believe him and inevitably many others just love the idea of what he was describing and joined along for the ride beginning a five-year hunt for this supposed stop-motion film commander Sansa described what he remembered of the clock man's appearance a large bushy beard and a long cape several animated shorts were ruled out early on even though they were eerily similar to clock man such as the clock store [Music] The Sandman in the opening to Nutcracker fantasy but look out if you were awake past bedtime the Ragman would catch you and when he did she said he would smile wickedly point his crooked cane and turn you into a mouse [Music] an incredibly helpful clue was given by commander Sansa as well pinwheel commander Santa was positive that clock man had appeared on pinwheel a children's show that was sort of like Sesame Street's that aired on Nickelodeon from 1977 to 1990 the series had a total of 260 one-hour episodes throughout its entire run meaning that around 260 hours of content would need to be scoured through to find clock man and a large amount of it just wasn't readily available online there were also many other factors that stood in the way clock man was not the official name of the shorts nobody knew what it was called and pinwheel didn't have any sort of home media release with commander Santa's thread receiving over 800 comments within 24 hours the stories of this short spread across the internet like wildfire within a single day spread to world of warcraft forums minecraft forums Yahoo Answers pitbull tank and of course 4chan specifically the ax paranormal board within the same year that the original thread was posted on the flood commander santa went to 4chan for help upon his post an anonymous user responded with the second official plot summary for clock man holy I remember this Shore it was like claymation with poorly made dolls and the animation was real stuttering and it started with the kids mom telling him goodnight and closing the door behind her after shutting off the light then the door slowly creaks open while a generic wind sound blows and the camera cuts to the kids room at the foot of his bed he struggles to open his eyes as they slowly droop and he eventually gives in and goes to sleep then it cuts to the clock while the second hand slowly takes 212 when it hits there's like a low bell ringing sound and the camera goes back to the foot of the kid's bed the clock Mans ahead it Peaks into the room like the clock were a window unlike what the Opie's image shows the clock man's head then recedes back and his arms come out and pushes the clock open like a door revealing a big dark hole behind the clock then clock man hops out of the hole and the kid wakes up and stares beady-eyed at the clock man then the clock man starts doing like a weird Irish rivers dance oh and the clock man looks a little different from the picture he was wearing like an all-black turtleneck sweater and black bowler hat his skin was green and I don't really remember him having a beard but he did have a big toothy smile and two real big eyes with very tiny pupils the 4chan users description of the events heavily differ from commander Santos for instance the user remembers the clock man appearing with green skin no beard and a turtleneck sweater and a bowler cap instead of a cloak additionally he recalled that a clock man did an Irish dance upon his entrance to the child's room despite the amount of differences between the anonymous users account of the shorts and his own description commander Santa confirms that they are talking about the exact same shorts and that one of them must have just missed remembered some details around this time commander Santa purchased DVDs a pinwheel despite there being no official home media release of the show fans have compiled many episodes into DVDs and made them available for purchase despite his best efforts he was unable to find the clock man on any of the DVDs the story of clock man became widely known in 2012 with Commander Santa's post on the flood however it can actually be traced all the way back to us early as 2004 on a website known as the animation nation on a thread where users were discussing horror elements and Western animation a user named Michael W Howe posted about a few finding shorts he had seen on Nickelodeon's pinwheel when he was younger sitting in plain sights amongst the other descriptions was a paragraph that sounded eerily similar to clock man I found it once at my first elementary school and then I forgot what it was called then there was one based on this story of a little girl who lost her red shoes so she asked a local wizard for help who could appear and disappear anywhere he helped her but told her she had to tell her mom the little girl goes home and doesn't hoping the wizard would forget but then the music gets eerie as the narrator says but the wizard did not forget and we see him appearing and disappearing along the house floors till he suddenly pops out of her clock and steals her away demanding to know why she didn't tell her mom she makes up for it by sewing stars to put in the night sky and the next day is returned home and tells her mom the truth and then of course there was the at the time this description was glossed over and not much thought was given to about others however when house post was rediscovered in 2012 this was seen as a huge turning point that converted all of those who didn't believe clockman was real anyone who doubted commander Santa and the anonymous 4chan user reconsidered when seeing this obscure post from almost a decade ago that lined up with their descriptions this was definitely not a creepypasta this was real [Music] despite the hype and excitement that spurned from the discovery of michael w house post the search died down and remained dormant for about two years then out of nowhere the creator of the lost MediaWiki known as die kate reignited the search Daiki published an article on the lost media wiki detailing the search so far as well as his own efforts to contact various nickelodeon ploy ease that would have information on pinwheel and more specifically clock man after having little to no success with reaching out Daiki decided to contact michael w how the two sent messages back and forth solidifying the description from the original animation nation post and elaborating on its the version that came out of these talks is perhaps the most detailed and in-depth description of clock man yet the show starts with the girl getting a new pair of shoes from her mother who cautions her not to lose them the girl wanders off a ways to play but upon planning to return home she finds she can't find her shoes after looking everywhere for them she remembers there's a wizard nearby who might help her the strange thing is we see the wizard appearing and disappearing in trees and in various areas around his home the girl asks the wizard for help and he gives her replacement shoes but tells her that she needs to tell her mother what happened however the girl goes home and doesn't during the episode a female narrator can be heard I still remember her going she felt that the wizard would forget their deal the scene then changes back to the Wizards abode with him looking a little upset the scene then cuts to inside the girls house where she's in bed with a pendulum clock near her bed as the narrator whispers in an eerie way but the wizard did not forget we then see two floors of the house with the wizard appearing and disappearing several times first on the first floor then on the second then outside her door scared she hides under the covers and then the pendulum stops and a window forms on the clock out of which the wizard appears and takes her to his place where he man's to know why she did not tell her mother the truth the girl claims she was afraid of what her mother would say if she told her she lost the shoes the wizard said something and there were buildings that turned into skyscrapers my scant memories that he said he used his magic to make tall buildings but don't quote me on that he then is willing to forgive her if she'll knit stars to place in the sky she does so and he returns her home the next day she tells her mother what happened and instead of her mother calling the police to arrest the wizard the mother forgives her daughter and all as well we also see the wizard watching them through a telescope smiling that's about 90% of what I remember from the segment I probably saw it quite a few times growing up I still watched pinwheel up until Nick took it off unfortunately I just have my memories of the episode I recall it almost moved like it was stop-motion paper animation like they laid the characters on the backgrounds and moved them around I want to say maybe around the time I was five to seven years old how describes a similar tale to the one he posted way back in 2004 it was new vivid details I fills in the blanks he describes a narrator the environmental layout of the shots the animation style even some of the lines spoken how states that he had seen the short multiple times as a child on pinwheel it was around this time that commander Santa had decided to banish himself from the flood forums he decided to leave the forum's until clock man was found as a sort of sign of commitments this made I Kate's attempts to contact him extremely difficult but he was eventually able to speak with them in early 2015 on the site nintendo age however he was unable to get any new bits of information out of him thanks to his in-depth talks with Michael W Howe resulting in a much more detailed description Daiki tried once more to contact people who had worked on pinwheel in the past however instead of contacting the studio he decided to contact the creators directly almost immediately died Kane was successful in making contact with a member of the pinwheel team Michael Karp a writer director and voice actor on pinwheel responded to a post IKEA had left on a stage 32-page Karp responded with a vague memory of the clock man short saying that the film was most likely produced for the first season a pinwheel around 1980 to 1981 however as carp had come on to the series during the second season he didn't have any knowledge of the clock man shorts he did know someone who did though executive producer Tippi fortune Tippi fortune also known as Louis fortune was an executive producer on pinwheel at the time that Klockner would have supposedly aired on the show Michael Karp was kind enough to give Dyke a her email address who then went on afford her all the information he had in the hopes of a solid lead Tippi responded pretty quickly impressed with Dyke AIDS investigative skills stating that unfortunately she just doesn't remember the clock man short she did reveal something pretty interesting though most of the films that aired on pinwheel were acquired by Co films this company had a large library of films from around the world and made their money from selling these films to other studios such as HBO and Nickelodeon however Studios like Nickelodeon eventually began to produce their own material and there was no longer any need to purchase films from Co the founder Bernice Coe attempted to sell off the company but there were no buyers it's not really known what happened to the company but it's no longer in business when tippy attempted to Google the company Bernice Coe and her associate min levy there were no results It was as if they vanished despite the lack of information she was able to provide Tippi included the emails of the members on the pinwheel team that were heavily involved in acquiring programming for the show she also included a list of children's media organizations that could have a lead on the clock man shorts while one of the members James Callisto did reply to other members known as Lewis Phillips and Bob Pearlman did but unfortunately they didn't have any information that died key already knew additionally the organizations that he was able to gain contact with didn't have any new information either Daiki then focused in on Co films as the key to finding the clock math shorts Bernice Co unfortunately passed away in 2001 but died key was able to get into contact with her daughter Jane who enthusiastically responded looking to help in whatever way she could throughout the long search for clock man many false leads popped up from time to time setting the community up for disappointment the most common story that many mixed o'clock man up with was the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale the red shoes the story follows a poor orphan girl who was adopted by a rich woman eventually causing her to become spoiled soon she is gifted with a beautiful pair of red shoes which she decides to wear everywhere she wears in the church but is scolded by an old woman saying that only black shoes should be worn at church she ignores her and wears in the church again the next time except this time a red bearded soldier appears and talks to the shoes saying oh what beautiful shoes for dancing never come off when you dance the shoes begin to dance with the girls suffering from the constant movement she eventually gets her feet amputated but the shoes still don't stop she finally gets forgiveness before ascending straight to heaven yeah these old fairy tales they didn't mess around many understandably confused this story with the clock man given the similarities between the two the shoes the bearded man the rule of the mother the themes about not being spoiled so on and so forth and the clock man short that we've heard about the girl so stars into the sky as a way to atone for her punishments while in this story the girl suffers and then dies from amputation many assume this was changed in the short due to its airing on pinwheel but then it was later debunked as its own separate story one of the largest red herrings in the search would be the Irish origins of the tale and the river dancing we heard about from the anonymous 4chan user this was also proven to be false another false lead came in the form of the seven o'clock man many a pinwheel shorts came from Canada so it was speculated that clock man was inspired by cubic folktales in the seven o'clock man a man hides in a child's bedroom and steals them if they do not go to sleep after their bedtime while it did seem kind of similar to the version of clock man we've been hearing about it didn't fully match up with commander Santa's description and at the time this was the closest thing we had that is until December 10th 2017 five years since the search I began a lost media wiki user by the name of my trade nerd was doing their own research in the clock man in the hopes of finding a lead they searched for an educational film titled the wizard on WorldCat a worldwide library catalog after scouring through several pages they instead found a listing for a short titled Sally which had a youtube link after following the link they found that the video was identical to the descriptions made by Commander Santa and Michael W Howe that's right they found it on YouTube the video had been uploaded by AAA Studios the current owners of the shorts the video was sent to Commander Santa who confirmed that it was indeed the clock man the long search was finally over the actual name of the short was old Paradise Sally I hope I'm saying the right or simply about dressy Sally in English it was producing communist Czechoslovakia in 1976 by AAA Studios otherwise known as art an animation studio the short was based on the story of the same name which in turn was inspired by an old English folktale titled the old man at the White House from 1897 the actual short was remarkably similar to the second description given by Michael W Howe with a few differences such as the red shoes actually being orange gloves as Czechoslovakia was a communist nation at the time the filmmakers never knew where their film ended up being sold off to and went on to be sold off to the learning company of America who dubbed it into English and titled it Sally which eventually was picked up by Co films leading it to be broadcast on pin with the clock man finally been discovered a new search began for the English dub on January 11th 2018 about a month after the original was discovered the English dub appeared online thanks to a discussion between las media wiki user Tommy Shadow and the organization known as AV geek an educational film preservation group who had a dub in their archives a week later a full HD version was uploaded online she fell asleep but the wizard did not forget [Music] he picked her up and carried her to his magic chamber and so ends one of the longest and most eventful lost media searches in recent history what began as nothing more than just creepypasta speculation became reality thanks to the dedication and hard work of people like Daiki Michael W Howe Knight Reynard and so on the clock man was finally found [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 4,085,445

Rating: 4.9247622 out of 5

Keywords: Blameitonjorge, blame it on jorge, urban legends, disturbing cartoon moments, kid shows, lost media, cartoons, disturbing moments, mystery, clockman, pinwheel, the search for clockman, o paradive sally, commander santa, the flood, about dressy sally

Id: p3hBYS6M-m0

Length: 23min 8sec (1388 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 15 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Liz-B-Anne]

Dang, didn't know Nickelodeon was around in the '70s! TIL.

Edit: How the hell is THAT film creepy? Dude must've been having a fever dream. :|

[u/Purecorn]

the clockman

[u/Steve3sc]

Anyone remember the original version of The Goonies where the Fratellis made the kids walk the plank on One-Eyed Willie's ship and jump into the lagoon where there was a giant Octopus waiting to devour those meddling kids?

Must have been too hardcore for the censors to see the bad guys try to straight up murder the main characters, so they edited the octopus right the fuck out. But they left a line that mentions the octopus in one of the final scenes.

(I got dibs on this shit if it turns out to be Mandela Effect)

[u/retawgnob]

Where can i find more stories of lost media?

[u/HoltbyIsMyBae]

I find it so interesting what details were misremembered.

[u/Suprehombre]

There's tons of cartoons I vaguely remember being on Nickelodeon, but being sk young not remembering the names.

[u/Traies]

This is insane. This is the premise of the first dream I can ever remember having as a child. (Way before Nickelodeon was about in the UK, or at the very least in our house). I thought about this dream a lot and still do and it wasn't until I was in my teens or early adulthood that I realised that the clock was most likely me hearing my own heartbeat, and I always thought it kind of interesting that even as a tiny kid, like toddler age, I had the idea that if the ticking stopped, the bad thing would happen. Was literally me in my bed in an empty room with a ticking clock and nothing else.

[u/Tmf278]

Does anyone remember an old black and white cartoon in the "cuphead" style of animation but it was based on "Old King Cole"? I remember it being highly disturbing because they put Old King Cole under this machine with two punching gloves that look liked boxing gloves, and they repeatedly punched him in his big fat belly until all his fat came out his mouth or somewhere, and when he came out of the machine he was skinny as a stick. I remember it being disturbing because Old King Cole was struggling and screaming for help while he was bing punched and squeezed as his insides came out. Anyone else ever see this?

[u/electronsarebrave]

Thanks for the recommendation, I enjoyed this.