A Studio Underd0g April Fool’s Joke Becomes a Reality, Proving that Everyone Loves a Pizza Party

What do Canned Unicorn Meat, a Tauntaun Sleeping Bag, an Apple Store Playmobil set with optional Line Pack, and the Studio Underd0g 01 SERIES Chronograph Pepper0ni have in common? All of these were introduced first as April Fool’s pranks before eventually transforming into real products (except the Apple Store Playmobil set — still a little mad at that one never making the leap). Back in the halcyon days of the internet, ThinkGeek specialized in this sort of April Fool’s nonsense. Today, Studio Underd0g is joining forces with Time+Tide to bring a little bit of that fun back.

You may remember that back in April, Studio Underd0g founder Richard Benc (with some help from Time+Tide’s Andrew McUtchen) released a teaser video for another in the brand’s line of food-inspired watches. But where previous releases like the Watermel0n, Strawberries & Cream, or Pink Lem0nade have been mostly content to draw their bright color palettes from eponymous inspirations, the Pepper0ni promised a more… overt take on its namesake.

While it quickly became apparent that the idea of a pizza-inspired 01SERIES Chronograph was meant as a one-off gag to celebrate the internet’s favorite holiday, apparently a huge number of you pizza/watch enthusiasts reached out asking after the watch. Now, nine months later, what was once a joke has become a reality — well, actually, two realities — because the real-life version of the Pizza Party chronograph comes in two distinct flavors: Pepper0ni (the design we saw back in April) and Hawiian.

If the pizza toppings didn’t do enough to separate these wild chronographs from previous releases, the vibrant orange and tan sauce, crust, and cheese-inspired take on Studio Underd0g’s signature multi-colored, multi-layered, and multi-finished dial certainly would. The familiar coarse finish is broken up by smooth score marks to imply slices, a move which works a treat here and really hammers home the pizza inspiration.

Both watches are powered by Seagull hand-wound ST-1901 and share the same 38.5mm stainless steel case but while the two watches share a lot, they are differentiated by a few small details. As the names would imply, each watch offers up different toppings — pepperoni, mushroom, black olives, and basil on the Pepper0ni vs. ham and pineapple on the Hawiian — and the watches come on slightly differently colored tan calfskin straps made for Studio Underd0g by The Strap Tailor.

I should quickly say that this is not the first time an April Fool’s watch has made it to market after shocking demand. H. Moser & Cie. released a trio of Vantablack dialed watches with black hands about a year after teasing the concept in a mock “introduction” on Instagram for April Fool’s Day 2019. But while those watches were tough to get thanks to price and limited production, Studio Underd0g and Time+Tide have come up with a new way of making their release difficult to get your hands on.

Forgoing the brand’s typical online drop model, the only way to get your Pizza Party watch is to pick it up directly from Richard or Andrew in person. The hope is that this will drive eager collectors to in-person watch meetups, fairs, and other events.

Availability of the watch will kick off with an (actual) pizza party hosted by Time+Tide at their retail store in Melbourne today, where an allocation of watches will be up for grabs. After that, each and every Pepper0ni and Hawiian Studio Underd0g 01SERIES Chronograph will be hand-delivered by either Richard or Andrew for a price of $650. Studio Underd0g