The IT Crowd Wiki
Advertisement
Denholmn-796555
Yesterday's Jam
Episode information
Episode No.

1

Series

1

Original airdate

February 3, 2006

Roy's Shirt

RTFM

Cast and crew information
Writer(s)

Graham Linehan

Director(s)
  • Graham Linehan
  • Ben Fuller
Producer(s)
  • Ash Atalla
  • Jo Hunter
  • Derrin Schlesinger
Main cast
Guest stars

John Willie Hopkins as Harry the Postman

Chronology
Next episode

Calamity Jen

Yesterday's Jam is the first episode of the first series and the first ever of The IT Crowd. The show introduces all the main characters of the show and sets a backbone for future episodes. Yesterday's Jam original aired on the 3rd of February 2006 on the UK TV channel, Channel 4.

Brief overview[]

The unloved and socially-awkward Roy and Moss give computer-illiterate Jen a less than lukewarm welcome to the IT Department. Soon, however, they realise a female presence in their team can have its benefits...

Synopsis[]

Jen Barber (Katherine Parkinson) goes for a job interview with Denholm Reynholm (Chris Morris). After falsely saying that she is experienced in computers, she is made head of the IT Department where she meets Roy Trenneman (Chris O'Dowd) and Maurice Moss (Richard Ayoade), who are rightly convinced that Jen has not a sufficient knowledge of computers to work in IT and decide to report their discovery to Denholm.

However, after learning that Denholm has become obsessed with his staff working as a team and firing all those who don't, Roy and Moss are forced to abandon their plan and put up with Jen. They return to the basement and try to put their differences aside, and organise a party with many of the employees from the upper floors. After getting extremely drunk at the party, Roy tells Moss to recite the story of their trip to Amsterdam. Moss gets confused and accidentally tells them the story of when he and Roy ordered prostitutes in Amsterdam and, out of fear, brought them to a funfair.

After scaring all the attendants of the party away, Moss, Jen, and Roy are forced to put up with each other and to work as a team.

Behind the scenes[]

  • The episode was originally aired alongside the following episode, Calamity Jen, on Friday, 3rd of February, 2006.
  • The episode has been remade in both the American and the German adaptions of The IT Crowd.
  • In the German adaption, the episode is renamed Brötchen vom Vortag or Yesterday's Bread Rolls.
  • The episode's title comes from a dialogue between Moss and Roy, in which Roy complains about his treatment from his fellow employees, to which Moss says that "They toss us away like yesterday's jam" to which Roy replies "That doesn't really work as a thing because jam lasts for ages".
  • In one scene, Moss receives a package which contains two Harry Potter books that he had ordered. The books are the adult and the Bloomsbury editions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which Moss refers to as the 'new Harry Potter book'. However, the episode takes place in late 2005 while Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in 1997, which means the books were certainly not new.
  • In the pictures of Moss & Roy's day at the fair with a pair of prostitutes which are shown over the credits, one of the prostitutes looks to be portrayed by Natasia Demetriou who first began her acting career in 2012. Ironically she also stars in both 'What We Do In The Shadows' & 'Toast Of Tinseltown' alongside Matt Berry, who later portrayed Douglas Reynholm in The IT Crowd.
  • The teamwork montage between the new colleagues is set to Mike Post's theme tune for 'The A-Team'.
  • The scene in which Denholm Reynholm is "speaking" to his computer may be a reference to the film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; specifically to a scene where the character of Montgomery Scott speaks to a 20th century computer in a similar fashion.

External links[]

v - e - dSeries One of The IT Crowd
Yesterday's JamCalamity JenFifty-FiftyThe Red DoorThe Haunting of Bill CrouseAunt Irma Visits
Advertisement