While The Big Bang Theory springs to mind whenever anyone discusses a “nerd show”, Britain’s The IT Crowd was actually the first sitcom to celebrate nerd culture. I’d seen a few clips of the wildly hilarious show a while back, but never got around to the full episodes.

Determined to get the most mileage out of my Netflix free trial month, I re-discovered The IT Crowd and pretty much devoured it in one sitting. And let me say that in terms of Geek Chic-ness, it is fabulous. Richard Ayoade, Chris O’Dowd, and Katherine Parkinson star in the program, which highlights the often comical disconnect between an IT Department and the folks upstairs.

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Know Your Geek: About The IT Crowd

• Created by Graham Linehan in 2006, The IT Crowd ran for four series of six episodes each. A special finale episode was aired in September 2013.
• The show revolves around the three staff members of the IT Department at Reynholm Industries: Moss, a genius-level nerd who knows just about everything about computers, but is incapable of telling a plausible lie; Roy, an IT technician who despises his job; and Jen, their hapless, technology-illiterate relationship manager.
• Rounding out the cast of characters are Richmond, the friendly Goth who lives in the basement and Douglas Reynholm, the lecherous, idiotic CEO of the company.
• Roy and Moss’s social awkwardness frequently leads to misunderstandings and bizarre, ever-escalating shenanigans, such as an unwitting assistance in a bank robbery and Moss almost being eaten by a cannibal. Although Jen is the “normal” one in the IT Department, the show makes just as many jokes at her expense as it does at Moss and Roy’s.
• The pilot episode of an American version starring Richard Ayoade, Joel McHale, and Jessica St. Clair was filmed in 2007, but was never aired.
• The IT Crowd relies less on pop culture references for humor and more on situational comedy. While it’s often compared to The Big Bang Theory, it’s not really fair to compare the two shows: the uniquely zany British humor of The IT Crowd is more comparable to that found in American shows like Community or Modern Family.

Outfits Inspired by The IT Crowd

You might not know what IT stands for (what doesn’t it stand for?), but you can definitely take inspiration from the main characters of Reynholm Industries’s IT Department!