History Main / FloatingClocks

Yes, you heard us right. Clocks. And not just your garden variety SpinningClockHands either. No, this is something entirely different. For some reason, the "space" you travel through when traveling through time looks like a surrealist dimension filled with giant, floating, semi-transparent clocks that fade in, drift vaguely towards the camera and then fade out again, ticking loudly all the while, only to be replaced by another, visibly different clock, all hovering upon a celestial backdrop resembling a starfield, [[HyperspaceOrSubspace hyperpsace]], or in extreme cases, the AcidTripDimension. This sequence rarely lasts more than about a minute, and can often resemble a faster-paced, more clock-oriented version of the opening sequence from ''Series/TheTwilightZone''. Less serious works will often include an obligatory cuckoo clock and/or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit-Cat_Klock kit-cat klock]]. Much more rarely, an ExplodingCalendar may appear as well.

Yes, you heard me right. Clocks. And not just your garden variety SpinningClockHands either. No, this is something entirely different. For some reason, the "space" you travel through when traveling through time looks like a surrealist dimension filled with giant, floating, semi-transparent clocks that fade in, drift vaguely towards the camera and then fade out again, ticking loudly all the while, only to be replaced by another, visibly different clock, all hovering upon a celestial backdrop resembling a starfield, [[HyperspaceOrSubspace hyperpsace]], or in extreme cases, the AcidTripDimension. This sequence rarely lasts more than about a minute, and can often resemble a faster-paced, more clock-oriented version of the opening sequence from ''Series/TheTwilightZone''. Less serious works will often include an obligatory cuckoo clock and/or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit-Cat_Klock kit-cat klock]]. Much more rarely, an ExplodingCalendar may appear as well.

[[folder:Film--Live Action]]
* ''Film/TheTimeMachine1960'' uses this as part of the opening credits.

* {{Lampshaded}} and {{Justified}} in "WesternAnimation/MiloMurphysLaw''. The timestream has lots of clocks, which Dakota says was probably someone's idea of a joke. Later on, he ends up [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext causing those clocks to be there in the first place by hitting a living pistachio with a bag of clocks from a dystopian future where said living pistachio plants overthrew humanity]].

* {{Lampshaded}} and {{Justified}} in "WesternAnimation/MiloMurphysLaw. The timestream has lots of clocks, which Dakota says was probably someone's idea of a joke. Later on, he ends up [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext causing those clocks to be there in the first place by hitting a living pistachio with a bag of clocks from a dystopian future where said living pistachio plants overthrew humanity.]]

* The 1960 version of ''TheTimeMachine'' uses this as part of the opening credits.

* {{Lampshaded}} and {{Justified}} in "WesternAnimation/MiloMurphysLaw. The timestream has lots of clocks, which Dakota says was probably someone's idea of a joke. Later on, he ends up [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext causing those clocks to be there in the first place by hitting a living pistachio with a bag of clocks from a dystopian future where said living pistachio plands overthrew humanity.]]

* {{Lampshaded}} and {{Justified}} in "WesternAnimation/MiloMurphysLaw. The timestream has lots of clocks, which Dakota says was probably someone's idea of a joke. Later on, he ends up [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext causing those clocks to be there in the first place by hitting a living pistachio plant by hitting it with a bag of clocks from a dystopian future where said living pistachio plands overthrew humanity.]]

* [[Lampshaded]] and [[Justified]] in "WesternAnimation/MiloMurphysLaw. The timestream has lots of clocks, which Dakota says was probably someone's idea of a joke. Later on, he ends up [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext causing those clocks to be there in the first place by hitting a living pistachio plant by hitting it with a bag of clocks from a dystopian future where said living pistachio plands overthrew humanity.]]

* The page picture comes from a ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' [[HalloweenEpisode "Treehouse Of Horror"]] [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E6TreehouseOfHorrorV episode]], where Homer accidentally travels to prehistoric times with a malfunctioning toaster.

* ''Anime/Superbook'': The time travel back to biblical times had some clocks in it.

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "Roswell That Ends Well" when the ship literally fills up with clocks after falling through a time vortex.

* The page picture comes from a ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' [[HalloweenEpisode "Treehouse Of Horror"]] episode, where Homer accidentally travels to prehistoric times with a malfunctioning toaster.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/BackToTheFuture'' has a pair of crooks steal the [=DeLorean=] as a getaway car after a robbing, and accidentally travel to 1990, Sydney, Australia. When that happens, this is what they see for a few seconds through the windshield.

* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'': Sakuya can temporarily freeze time, usually seen in animated works as clocks appearing and fading all over the screen.

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "Roswell That Ends Well" when the ship literally fills up with clocks after falling through a time vortex.

!!Examples


[[AC:AnimeAndManga]]

[[AC:Literature]]
* A variation on this trope occurs in some adaptations of ''Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland'', wherein Alice's fall into the rabbit hole is depicted with floating clocks everywhere--in these cases, she's not really traveling through time so much as she's traveling to another world.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* The TitleSequence of the [[Creator/PeterCapaldi Twelfth]] [[Series/DoctorWho Doctor]] features an interesting variation, with the TARDIS depicted as traveling through a dimension that isn't exactly ''filled with'' clocks so much as it ''is itself a clock'', and an infinitely spiralling non-euclidean one at that.

[[AC:Music]]

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* {{Touhou}}: Sakuya can temporarily freeze time, usually seen in animated works as clocks appearing and fading all over the screen.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "Roswell That Ends Well" when the ship literally fills up with clocks after falling through a time vortex.

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/floating_clocks.jpg]]

Wannyanpuu's Fan PV for Heat-Haze Days [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E57LEjf6pw Youtube]] [[http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm16450214 Niconico]], uses clocks for time travel and a new clockface is smeared with blood on each jump back.

Yes, you heard me right. Clocks. And not just your garden variety SpinningClockHands either. No, this is something entirely different. For some reason, the "space" you travel through when traveling through time looks like a surrealist dimension filled with giant, floating, semi-transparent clocks that fade in, drift vaguely towards the camera and then fade out again, ticking loudly all the while, only to be replaced by another, visibly different clock, all hovering upon a celestial backdrop resembling a starfield, [[HyperspaceOrSubspace hyperpsace]], or in extreme cases, the AcidTripDimension. This sequence rarely lasts more than about a minute, and can often resemble a faster-pased, more clock-oriented version of the opening sequence from ''Series/TheTwilightZone''. Less serious works will often include an obligatory cuckoo clock and/or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit-Cat_Klock kit-cat klock]]. Much more rarely, an ExplodingCalendar may appear as well.

* DoraEmon: Nobita's desk drawer is linked through some kind of hyperspace that, with a special vessel, you can use to travel through time. Said hyperspace has a lot of distorted clocks flying around.