I have a Clock model in Backbone: var Clock = Backbone.Model.extend({}); I'm trying to get an instance of that that has the latest information from /clocks/123. Some things I've tried: a "class"-level method Clock.fetch(123) // TypeError: Object function (){ ... } has no method 'fetch' creating an instance and then calling fetch on it: c = new Clock({id: 123}) c.fetch() // Error: A 'url' property