The IT Crowd (pronounced /ˈɪt/ or /ˌaɪˈtiː/)[1][2] is a British The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land border, sharing it with sitcom A situation comedy, usually referred to as a sitcom, is a genre of comedy programs which originated in radio. Today, sitcoms are found almost exclusively on television as one of its dominant narrative forms. Sitcoms usually consist of recurring characters in a common environment such as a home or workplace and can include laugh tracks or studio, written by Graham Linehan and produced by Ash Atalla for Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began transmissions on 2 November 1982. Although commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel Four Television Corporation, a public body. The series has won BAFTA and International Emmy awards.

Three series have been produced to date. A Christmas special is planned for December 2009,[3] and a fourth series has been commissioned for 2010.[4]

Contents

Main cast

Complete List of characters on the IT crowd

Situation and plot

The IT Crowd is set in the offices of Reynholm Industries, a fictitious British corporation in central London London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been an influential city for two millennia and its history goes back to its founding by the Romans. The city's core, the ancient City of London, still retains its limited medieval boundaries. However, since at least the nineteenth century, the name "London" has also referred. It focuses on the shenanigans of the three-strong IT Information technology , as defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." IT deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to support team located in a dingy, untidy and unkempt basement – a stark contrast to the shining modern architecture and stunning London views enjoyed by the rest of the organisation. The obscurity surrounding what the company does serves as a running gag A running gag is a literary device which often takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling throughout the series – all that is known is that the company bought and sold ITV ITV is a public service network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up under the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC. ITV is the oldest commercial television network in the UK. Since 1990 and the Broadcasting Act 1990, its legal name has been Channel 3, the number 3 having no real meaning other than to (a fact which Denholm Reynholm forgot completely), and once made part-year profits of "eighteen hundred billion billion". The team consists of what Douglas Reynholm describes as "a dynamic go-getter (Jen), a genius (Moss) and a man from Ireland Ireland (pronounced /ˈaɪrlənd/ , locally [ˈaɾlənd]; Irish: Éire, pronounced [ˈeːɾʲə] ( listen); Ulster Scots: Airlann, Latin: Hibernia) is the third-largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of (Roy)".

Moss and Roy, the two technicians, are portrayed as socially inept geeks The word geek is a slang term, noting individuals as "a peculiar or otherwise odd person, especially one who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things including those of intellectuality, electronics, etc." Formerly, the term referred to a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the or, in Denholm Reynholm's words, "standard nerds". Despite the company's dependence on their services, they are despised, ignored, and considered losers by the rest of the staff. Roy's exasperation is reflected in his support techniques of ignoring the phone in the hope it will stop ringing, and using reel-to-reel tape recordings of stock IT suggestions ("Have you tried turning it off and on again? Power cycling is the act of turning a piece of equipment, usually a computer, off and then on again. Reasons for power cycling include having an electronic device reinitialize its configuration or recover from an unresponsive state of its mission critical functionality, such as in a crash or hang situation. Power cycling can also be used to reset" and "Are you sure it's plugged in?"). He expresses his "personality" by wearing a different geek T-shirt in each episode[5]. Moss's wide and intricate knowledge of all things technical is reflected in his extremely accurate yet utterly indecipherable suggestions, while demonstrating a complete inability to deal with practical problems like extinguishing fires and removing spiders.

Jen, the newest member of the team, is hopelessly non-technical, despite claiming on her CV A résumé is a document that contains a summary or listing of relevant job experience and education. The résumé or CV is typically the first item that a potential employer encounters regarding the job seeker and is typically used to screen applicants, often followed by an interview, when seeking employment that she has "a lot of experience with computers". As Denholm, the company boss, is equally tech-illiterate, he is convinced by Jen's interview bluffing and appoints her head of the IT department. Her official title is "relationship manager", yet her attempts at bridging the gulf between the technicians and the business generally have the opposite effect, landing Jen in situations just as ludicrous as those of her team-mates.

Development

The first series of six episodes was produced and recorded in front of a live audience at Teddington Studios Teddington Studios is a large British television studio complex located in Teddington, South-West London, providing studio facilities for programmes airing on BBC television, ITV, and Channel 4. The complex also provides studio space for channel continuity and series 2 and 3 were shot at Pinewood Studios Pinewood Studios is a major British film studio situated in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire. Approximately 20 miles west of Central London on what was the estate of Heatherden Hall, the studios were created in 1934 by Charles Boot and built within 12 months by the Henry Boot Company of Sheffield. Boot drew his inspiration from the latest Hollywood. The third series completed shooting in late October and early November 2008.

The first series premiered on 3 February 2006, the second series on 24 August 2007 and the third series on 21 November 2008.[6] Linehan is optimistic about doing a fourth series.[7] "Hopefully what's going to happen is we'll do a Christmas special this summer, and then another series later on," said actor Chris O'Dowd in an interview posted in May 2009.[8]

Cultural references

The show tries to add a large number of references to geek culture, mostly in set dressing and props. Dialogue (both technical and cultural) is usually authentic and any technobabble used often contains in-jokes for viewers knowledgeable in such subjects.

Foreign remakes

A pilot for an American version of The IT Crowd was filmed by NBC The National Broadcasting Company is an American television network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center. It is sometimes referred to as the Peacock Network due to its stylized peacock logo, created exclusively for color broadcasts before an audience on 16 February 2007.[9] Jessica St. Clair played Jen, Joel McHale played Roy and Richard Ayoade reprised his role as Moss.[10] The show was originally reported to have a midseason debut in 2007–08.[11] However, the remake was cancelled in 2008.[12]

A German version of the programme has been in production since June 2007, starring Sky du Mont, Sebastian Münster, Stefan Puntigam and Britta Horn.[13] Originally titled Das iTeam - Die Jungs mit der Maus (The iTeam - The Boys with the Mouse, where "Maus" is also a slang term for a young woman), the title was changed to Das iTeam - Die Jungs an der Maus (The iTeam - The Boys at the Mouse) at the last minute. The premiere episode was aired on 4 January 2008 on Sat.1. After the first episode was broadcast online, the adaptation received a mainly negative response from Internet forum users and blog writers. It was criticised for the quality of its translation and direction, and the poor performance of Stefan Puntigam as Gabriel (German version's name for Moss). The show was dropped by Sat.1 in January 2008 after the second episode due to low ratings.[14]

Awards and nominations

The series won the Best Sitcom A situation comedy, usually referred to as a sitcom, is a genre of comedy programs which originated in radio. Today, sitcoms are found almost exclusively on television as one of its dominant narrative forms. Sitcoms usually consist of recurring characters in a common environment such as a home or workplace and can include laugh tracks or studio prize at the 2008 Rose d'Or The Rose d'Or is a television award. It has been given annually in spring since 1961 at the Festival Rose d'Or. Since 2004, the festival has been held in Lucerne, Switzerland. Before 2004 the festival was held in Montreux, Switzerland, thus the Golden Rose of Montreux ceremony.[15] The website "The British Sitcom Guide" voted The IT Crowd to be the "Best New British Sitcom of 2006",[16] and it won the "The BSG Readers' Award" in 2007.[17] In November 2008, it was awarded with an International Emmy They are presented in various sectors of the television industry, including entertainment programming, news and documentary shows, and sports programming. As such, the awards are presented in various area-specific ceremonies held annually throughout the year. The best known of these ceremonies are the Primetime Emmy Awards, honoring excellence in.[18] In 2009 Graham Linehan won best script television actor at the Irish Film and Television Awards for his work on the IT Crowd. The IT Crowd won the BAFTA for Best Situation Comedy in 2009.

List of episodes

Main article: List of The IT Crowd episodes

DVD releases

One of the Series 1 DVD menus showing a parody of the many isometric adventure games such as Knight Lore and Head Over Heels.

Series 1

The first series was released in the UK as "The IT Crowd - Version 1.0" on 13 November 2006 by 2 Entertain Video Ltd. The DVD start-up sequence and subsequent menus are designed to resemble a ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd. Referred to during development as the ZX81 Colour and ZX82, the machine was launched as the ZX Spectrum by Sinclair to highlight the machine's colour display, compared with the black-and-white of its predecessor, the Sinclair ZX81.

The DVD also included a short film Thently, short subjects might be in the form of travelogues, human interest films or concert films. The form was so popular that virtually all major film production companies had fully-staffed special units assigned to develop and produce them, and many companies, especially in the silent and very early sound era, produced short subjects written and directed by Linehan called Hello Friend, which starred Martin Savage in a silent role, and also has appearances from Richard Ayoade and Little Britain's Little Britain is an award winning character-based comedy sketch show first appearing on BBC radio and then television. It was written by stars Matt Lucas and David Walliams. Its title is an amalgamation of the terms 'Little England' and 'Great Britain', and is also the name of a Victorian neighbourhood and modern street in London David Walliams David Walliams is an English comedian, writer and actor, known for his partnership with Matt Lucas on the sketch show Little Britain and its predecessor Rock Profile. Other special features include deleted scenes, outtakes, audio commentaries on all episodes and a tounge in cheek behind-the-scenes documentary presented by Ken Korda, a film maker created and portrayed by Comedian Adam Buxton.

The first series DVD was also released in Australia on 6 December 2006.

An American version of the DVD was originally planned to be released by BCI Eclipse for a 4 September 2007 release, but on 14 August 2007 it was announced that since the American version of the show had been pushed back to an early 2008 start, the DVD would be released on 18 February 2008.[19] Review copies were sent out in January 2008, with multiple websites, such as TVShowsonDVD.com TVShowsOnDVD.com is a website dedicated to cataloging, campaigning for, and reporting news about Region 1 television series releases on DVD. The site's slogan asks "Is YOUR Favorite Show On DVD?"[20] and tvdvdreviews.com[21], posting reviews. For unknown reasons the DVD was delayed again, and MPI Home Video MPI Home Video is a company that produces videos of historical films and rock films since 1976; it has owned the rights to the cult TV series Dark Shadows on video since 1989 and on DVD since 2002. It also distributes various TV series on DVD received the rights for the show and released it on 31 March 2009.[22]

Series 2

"The IT Crowd - Version 2.0" DVD was released in the UK on 1 October 2007, together with a box set A box set is a compilation of various musical recordings, films, television programs, or other collection of related things that are contained in a box containing both the first and second series. Initial plans to release series two without region encoding did not go ahead.[23] Retail chain HMV sold an exclusive limited edition version featuring a set of four postcards in the style of popular viral photos such as Ceiling Cat A lolcat is an image combining a photograph, most frequently of a cat, with a humorous and idiosyncratic caption in broken English—a dialect which is known as “lolspeak,” ”kitteh,” or “kitty pidgin” and which parodies the poor grammar typically attributed to Internet slang. The name "lolcat" is a compound word of the — here replicated as Ceiling Goth.

The disc contains a commentary track, outtakes and "Recording The IT Crowd" featurette. Whereas the first series DVD menus parodied 8-bit games, the Series 2 DVD menus parody 16-bit games and make reference to Zero Wing (all your base meme "All your base are belong to us" is a broken English phrase that was central to an Internet phenomenon, or meme, in 2000-2002, with the spread of a Flash animation that depicted the slogan. The text is taken from the opening cut scene of the 1991 European Sega Mega Drive version of the video game Zero Wing, a Japanese video game by), Mortal Kombat, Tetris and Lemmings. They were animated by London animation studio, CHASE. There are also several 'hidden' extras encoded into the subtitles.[24] These are done in much the same way as the base64 subtitles from Series 1, and include three JPG images and a text adventure game file The Z machine is the largest X-ray generator in the world and is designed to test materials in conditions of extreme temperature and pressure. Operated by Sandia National Laboratories, it gathers data to aid in computer modeling of nuclear weapons. The Z machine is located at Sandia's main site in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Episode 4 has a BBC BASIC listing, and Episode 6 has light bars in the corner of the screen which can be decoded using a light reader. [25][26]

The Series 2 DVD was released in the US on 30 June 2009. [27]

Series 3

A box-set containing all three series was released in the UK on 16 March 2009 under the 2ENTERTAIN label. A single DVD featuring all six episodes was also released on the 16th of March. As with both the series 1 and 2 DVDs, the menus are based on different games. In particular, such internet games as GROW CUBE, Doeo and flow.

Broadcasting

Online

In a first for Channel 4, each episode of the first series was available for download via the station's web site for the seven days preceding its initial TV broadcast. Downloads were only available for UK and Ireland viewers and were supplied in Windows Media Video Windows Media Video is a compressed video file format for several proprietary codecs developed by Microsoft. The original codec, known as WMV, was originally designed for Internet streaming applications, as a competitor to RealVideo. The other codecs, such as WMV Screen and WMV Image, cater for specialized content. Through standardization from the format. All but the first two episodes were encoded with DRM Digital rights management is a generic term that refers to access control technologies that can be used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals to try to impose limitations on the usage of digital content and devices. The term is used to describe any technology which inhibits uses (legitimate or otherwise) of restrictions.

List of broadcasters

References

  1. ^ Linehan, Graham "While I'm At It". http://users.livejournal.com/tao_/2006/02/08/#item43762/. 8 February 2006
  2. ^ Graham Linehan. The IT Crowd version 1.0 (commentary track). [DVD]. 2 Entertain Video Ltd.
  3. ^ http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2009/04/13/8713/linehan_slates_sketch_shows
  4. ^ "IT Crowd and Peep Show get new series orders". Den of Geek. 2009-03-19. http://www.denofgeek.com/television/221443/it_crowd_and_peep_show_get_new_series_orders.html. Retrieved on 2009-03-30.
  5. ^ "Chris O'Dowd: The IT Man From The IT Crowd". SuicideGirls.com. 09 May 2009. http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/Chris+O%27Dowd%3A+The+IT+Man+From+The+IT+Crowd/. Retrieved on 2009-05-11. .
  6. ^ www.radiotimes.com — TV Listings: What's on TV tonight
  7. ^ www.contactmusic.com — Chris O'Dowd - a fourth series has been comissioned
  8. ^ "Chris O'Dowd: The IT Man From The IT Crowd". SuicideGirls.com. 09 May 2009. http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/Chris+O%27Dowd%3A+The+IT+Man+From+The+IT+Crowd/. Retrieved on 2009-05-11.
  9. ^ "Richard Ayoade to star in U.S. IT Crowd too". http://www.sitcom.co.uk/news/news.php?story=000111.
  10. ^ "IMDB: The IT Crowd (2007)(TV)". http://imdb.com/title/tt0944954/.
  11. ^ "NBC Fall Preview". http://www.nbc.com/Fall_Preview/The_IT_Crowd/.
  12. ^ "NBC May Unplug 'IT Crowd'". http://www.zap2it.com/tv/news/zap-nbcmaydroptheitcrowd,0,7647371.story.
  13. ^ "German version". http://www.serienjunkies.de/news/ortstermin-setbesuch-16234.html.
  14. ^ Quotenmeter.de - Schluss mit lustig: Sat.1 wirft «Das iTeam» raus
  15. ^ "Rose d'Or Winners 2008" (PDF). Rose d'Or AG. 2008-05-06. http://www.rosedor.com/downloads/RdO_Winners_2008.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-05-07.
  16. ^ "The British Sitcom Guide Awards 2006". British Sitcom Guide. http://www.sitcom.co.uk/features/awards2006.php. Retrieved on 2008-09-08.
  17. ^ "The British Sitcom Guide Awards 2007". British Sitcom Guide. http://www.sitcom.co.uk/features/awards2007.php. Retrieved on 2008-09-08.
  18. ^ Linehan wins an Emmy for sitcom on the IT set Shane Hegarty, Irish Times, 26 November 2008.
  19. ^ "IT Crowd DVD News". http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=7845.
  20. ^ http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/reviews/Crowd-Version-10-Complete-1st-Season/6834
  21. ^ http://www.tvdvdreviews.com/itcrowd1.html
  22. ^ "Amazon.com listing for IT Crowd Series 1 DVD (Region 1)". http://www.amazon.com/Crowd-Complete-First-Season/dp/B001NOMOS8/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1230961884&sr=8-1.
  23. ^ Linehan, Graham "Please! My cheeldren need wine!". http://whythatsdelightful.wordpress.com/2007/09/25/please-my-cheeldren-need-wine/. 25 September 2007
  24. ^ Linehan, Graham "Good luck!". http://whythatsdelightful.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/what-if-we-ran-a-competition-and-no-one-came/. 22 July 2008
  25. ^ "Hacking the IT Crowd Series 2 DVD". http://bbcentral.wordpress.com/2007/10/25/hacking-the-it-crowd-series-2-dvd/.
  26. ^ "The IT Crowd Series 2 DVD Easter Eggs". http://www.narfation.org/misc/itcrowd/.
  27. ^ "Amazon.com Listing of Series 2 Region 1 DVD". http://www.amazon.com/Crowd-Complete-Second-Season/dp/B001YYQA0K/ref=pd_bxgy_d_img_b.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The IT Crowd

Categories: 2006 in British television | 2006 television series debuts | 2000s British television series | Channel 4 sitcoms | Computers in fiction

 

The above information uses material from Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Some facts may not have been fully verified for accuracy. [Disclaimers]
This page was last archived by our server on Thu Jul 23 08:52:15 2009. [ refresh local cache ]
Displaying this page or its contents does not use any Wikimedia Foundation's resources.
The owners of this site proudly support the Wikimedia Foundation.

[Hide]▼
[Hide]▲