The first episode of The IT Crowd is perfection apparently. At least, several other countries seem to think so, judging by the number of times it’s been remade more or less frame by frame overseas.
We’ve already had a gander at German TV’s version, Das iTeam – die Jungs an der Maus. Germany, of course, has something of a track-record of remaking things more or less identically. The US, however, either remakes a show more or less frame-by-frame at first (e.g. The Killing) or it does something almost completely different, while still using some of the original ideas (e.g. Homeland).
Now, back in 2007 with The IT Crowd, the US took the former path, choosing to recapture the apparent perfection of the first episode with an almost frame-by-frame remake. Although most of the cast were American, the producers even went to the effort of importing Richard Ayoade to revisit the character of Moss for them. But, as so often happens with US identikit copies of comedies, it still wasn’t funny, as you can see from this delightful video from the pilot episode.
Interestingly for Community fans, Joel McHale here plays the part of Roy and Richard Ayoade went on to direct an episode of Community‘s second season – I wonder if he had a hand in that.
