The IT Crowd

The IT Crowd is a sitcom because of the conventions used in the program. A sitcom is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment and in this program, the common environment is the workplace and is limited to this. This is also known as 'The Comic Trap' because Roy and Moss cannot tell the boss on Jen not knowing anything about computers, because of fear of being fired so they have to learn to work together. There is also canned laughter present which is a cheap replacement to a studio audience. A laugh track is often employed because of a lack of time, space or money to have an audience and also where certain situations may lack humour in the writing and the writers need to maintain the comical facade of the show. Also, the characters of the show are stereotypes of nerds which allow an easier understanding of the characters without full development of their lives to occur. As well, there is a repetitive opening sequence towards the start of the program and a popular and catchy theme tune.