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The 10 Nerdiest Things in The IT Crowd Office


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?Britain’s The IT Crowd is a veritable geek goldmine that gets better and better the more you dig. The main characters — Roy and Moss — are dyed in the wool geeks who work in a big corporation’s computer department under their boss Jen who knows zilch about technology. Full episodes of the show — which will hopefully start its fifth season soon — revolve around Dungeons & Dragons, trying to see Inglourious Basterds on DVD before someone spoils it, game shows and homemade, yet big budget, Star Trek porn parodies. Heck, even the opening credits are done in the style of a classic videogame. With so much geekery taking center stage, you might miss some of the easter eggs placed around the sets. We’re talking everything from independent comic books and vinyl toys to t-shirts and decorations that can sometimes take a few episodes to notice and identify. Better yet, the main office set gets switched around every season so there’s always something new to see. You’ll notice from the screencaps on the next page that there’s plenty of geek goodness to chose from. It was rough narrowing down the list and even identifying some of the items, but the Topless Robot research department was up to the task. Here are the 10 greatest geekster eggs in the first four seasons of The IT Crowd!


10) Frank

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?Jim Woodring’s Mickey Mouse-like Frank character is the star of all kinds of surreal, beautifully drawn and completely trippy comics from his own self-titled comic to this year’s Congress of Animals. The IT Crowd must have been big fans of his because Frank popped up several times. The very first episode kicks off with a partially-obscured version of “Frank in the Pond” (to the right of the door) that you can see better in later eps. In later seasons “Pond” got swapped out for what looks like a poster version of the cover to The Frank Book, which you can see part of in entry #2. As if that weren’t enough, Moss has a Frank vinyl figure behind his desk that you can see in entry #3.


9) Jimmy Corrigan Toy

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?Roy’s desk is eternally packed with a wide variety of vinyl figures. There’s so many that even the crack Topless Robot team couldn’t name them all, but our personal favorite is the Jimmy Corrigan looking worriedly over his shoulder. They make quite the pair in this shot.


8) Roy’s Pac-Man Kill Screen T-Shirt

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?Roy’s got the best collection of nerdy t-shirts this side of Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. While we’re big fans of the 8-bit digital Bert and Ernie seen in “Calendar Geeks,” his Pac-Man Kill Screen T-shirt from errorwear wins out in our book. That 256th level is a bitch, just ask Billy Mitchell.


7) Space Invaders Decorations

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?Like the previous seasons before it, the third kicked off with another set overhaul. One of the best additions this time around was the Space Invaders aliens and laser cannons cut-outs taped up all over the office. You can see some on the front of Roy’s desk, but they pop up all over the place. Bonus nerdy item: The V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes mask above Roy’s shoulder.


6) Original Game Boy

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?You could probably do an entirely computer-based list about this show calling out all the vintage gear, but that would require an upgrade to our personal knowledge. The one piece of vintage technology we will call out, though, is the original Game Boy on the shelf behind Moss’s desk (over his right shoulder).


5) Tales Designed To Thrizzle #2

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?Michael Kupperman’s hilarious series of satirical strips better known as Tales Designed To Thrizzle made the trip across the pond and landed right behind Roy in that spotlight “behind the desk” spot. Well, not exactly spotlight considering it’s on its side, but you get the idea.


4) Judge Dredd Statue

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?We’re pretty sure every geek in the UK is automatically given a handful of 2000 AD issues or trades to read. The IT Crowd gang took it a step further by giving the law his own physical presence in the background (to Moss’s right on the shelf). The statue itself was created by Dark Horse and First 4 Figures and is called Dredd Vs. Death if you’re super curious.


3) Fantastic Four Comic

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?We didn’t even see this one the first time around, but watching a show specifically to find all kinds of cool geekery turns up some interesting finds. Look real close at the book Moss is reading here and you’ll see that it’s got the faces of Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch and The Thing on the back cover. We can’t quite figure out which book this is, but assume at least one person in the comments will tell us how obvious it is and how dumb we are.


2) Love and Rockets

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Much like Jim Woodring, the set designers and producers must be fans of Los Brothers Hernandez’s long running Love and Rockets because the first two episodes of the second season have Jen reading — and seemingly enjoying — the collections. In “The Work Outing” she’s looking at Heartbreak Soup while in “Return of the Golden Child” she’s on Maggie The Mechanic. How great would a L&R episode be for the fifth season? Bonus nerdy item: The Maakies Drinky Crow vinyl figure on Roy’s desk.


1) Enid Doll

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?While the box for this doll based on Enid from Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World graphic novel appeared in the beginning of the third series, we didn’t spot the doll itself until the fourth. Even then, it was rough getting a clear image, but you can see her in the background of this image sporting the Batman-esque “Teen Bondage Latex Mask!” Eagle-eyed Clowes fans will also notice that Roy’s reading a copy of the Twentieth Century Eightball collection in the fourth episode “The Red Door” as well as another Eightball reference in one of the images above, can you spot it?