History Main / FloatingClocks

* Advertising/DairyQueenLips: Well, one clock appears, anyway, when the lips travel back in time to the Stone Age.

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 FadeIn, drift vaguely towards the camera and then FadeOut 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/TheTwilightZone1959''. 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.

* in an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Grim takes Mandy back in time to stop himself from changing Billy's grade floating in the time stream passing a lot of clocks and watches.

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/TheTwilightZone1959''. 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.

* In pre-Crisis Franchise/{{Superman}} or ComicBook/{{Superboy}} stories, whenever Clark time-traveled, the years he passed would occasionally be shown in the background of the timestream. Occasionally the ExplodingCalendar variant would appear (calendar pages with the year on them), either in the background or being "torn through" by the Boy of Steel/Man of Steel. 1970's "Superboy" #164 used FloatingClocks, as he only was going back in time to earlier in the day.

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

* In ''Videogame/DayOfTheTentacle'', when our heroes [[https://youtu.be/LDRkaZJWK80?t=236 pass through the time tunnel]] a couple of items float on by, amongst them, a ticking clock.

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

* ''Animation/PleasantGoatAndBigBigWolf'': In episode 4 of ''Pleasant Goat Fun Class: The Earth Carnival'', floating clocks appear in the background when Miss Earth uses her wand to take everyone to the prehistoric age.

* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', during the "Parable" storyline, uses of Susan's slow time spell become [[https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/parable-132 associated]] [[https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/parable-152 with a background]] [[https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/parable-180 full of clocks]].

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[[quoteright:350:[[Franchise/{{Doraemon}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/polish_20200222_134946929.jpg]]]]

* The ''WesternAnimation/BackToTheFuture'' episode "Einstein's Adventure" has a pair of crooks steal the [=DeLorean=] as a getaway car after a robbing, and accidentally travel to 1790, Sydney, Australia. When that happens, this is what they see for a few seconds through the windshield.
* {{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]].

* A more horrific example: 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 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/TheTwilightZone1959''. 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.

* ''Animation/PleasantGoatAndBigBigWolf'': In episode 4 of ''Pleasant Goat Fun Class: The Earth Carnival'', floating clocks appear in the background when Earth Sister uses her wand to take everyone to the prehistoric age.

* ''Manga/{{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. The series provides the page image.

* The page's original picture comes from the ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E6TreehouseOfHorrorV "Treehouse of Horror V"]] story "Time and Punishment", where Homer accidentally travels to prehistoric times with a malfunctioning toaster.

* The Black Moon arc of ''Anime/SailorMoon R'', which is based around time travel, does not feature this in-story, but [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE5ytLd-zxQ the opening]] shows the main characters on an otherwise featuresless field on floating clocks and swinging pendulums.

* ''Manga/{{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.

* The page picture comes from the ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E6TreehouseOfHorrorV "Treehouse of Horror V"]] story "Time and Punishment", where Homer accidentally travels to prehistoric times with a malfunctioning toaster.

[[folder:Film--Live Action]]

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/TreehouseOfHorror https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/floating_clocks.jpg]]]]