Good luck!
July 22, 2008
Well, I guess I’ll just have to tell you. We hid an Easter Egg in the IT Crowd Series 2.
In fact, we hid lots of Easter Eggs in the DVD. In fact, the DVD was not just a DVD, but a fiendishly complicated collection of clues that would, we thought, eventually lead some clever Nancy Drew-type to our special mystery prize–a bright yellow Lamborghini laptop (you may have noticed Moss with it in series 2).
“Make sure”, said the lawyers, “that it really is a test of skill and judgement. No questions like: Which of these is a part of the body? A. Shoe. B. Head. C. Hat. Make sure they’ve read the terms and conditions. And make sure there’s a closing date.” So we did all that, and watched the website hosting the competition receive 12,000 unique visitors. We jumped up and down with glee when at least three other sites popped up on the interwebs, each having stumbled across parts of the puzzle – yes, it was hard, but people were solving it – hurrah!
One clever German site even published a walkthrough for … well, for what we thought was the most complicated bit. But as the closing date neared, it seemed that we might have made the competition a bit too hard. Or, as we discovered when the competition finished, very, very, very much too hard indeed.
So, as the proud posers of possibly the most difficult competition ever, we still have a shiny yellow laptop to award.
And you still have a clutch of Easter eggs to find.
How long have you got? Not long!
Why, That\'s Delightful! 
Is today April 1st?
Is the answer “Graham is a sly and crafty fox”?
Do I win?
damn it… I have to get back my DVD box set that I lent to a friend!
Aaarrgh! WHY did I opt for the TV/DVD combo that is impossible to hack into region free-ness?
You can buy dvd players from Wal-Mart for under $40 that can be turned into a multi-region players with a region-free code. In general, the less expensive the player, the more likely there is a region-free code for it.
That is surely the grumpiest bearer of a holiday-related chocolate treat that’s ever been seen. Cheer up, Moss!
Fneeuurgh. That’s the sound of my brain coming out of my ears. It’s like notpron (which was ace, but lost me after about 30-something levels where you had to start reverse backwards second guessing yourself and learning about computer programming and stuff).
Well, I’m out (I can only answer three or four of the questions, and the only one I’m sure of the answer to is ‘What’s your e-mail address?’). I think you need to be a) a person what works with computers or b) a nerd or c) both to figure the whole of this out in a way which isn’t apeing most of the answers from clever people on t’interweb. And despite an A level in physics, I think I might electrocute myself if I even go near ‘a few electronic bits and pieces’. I had a lot of fun trying, though! I hope whoever wins enjoys the yellow Lambourghini-ness!
(Perhaps one day there’ll be a DVD with Easter Eggs which require my expertise. Although, you’d really have to be scraping the barrel to write a sitcom about how drugs work.)
I saw that there were things to solve.
I saw that they were really hard.
I gave up.
Oh, and that thing with the subtitles to solve the brokenness of the playback? That doesn’t work.
Thanks, Rick! I’ll look into that.
oh no! I want a free shiny laptop and to make you pay extra for postage and handling to Australia! Has it actually been released in Australia yet? (i fail at being a fan.) If not, then that’s not fair and i insist a brand new easter egg is created for the Australian release which enables me to win Moss’ glasses. oh alright then, not Moss’ glasses, just the chocolate egg that he doesn’t seem to be enjoying in that photo up above. oh alright then, just a piece of lint from his jacket. oh alright then, just an email that says ‘You win!’ in flashing letters.
Well Bianca, as a fellow disappointed Aussie, I just bought season 2 from Amazon UK. Most DVD players are able to be de-regioned (even the name brands) and if you buy one of those cheap Chinese ones (nothing racist, they are in fact made in China) they seem to have very little in the way of security built in.
Mind you, it hasn’t helped me with any Easter Eggs.
Enough talk of DVD’s.
This has to be one of the oddest (and strangely mesmerizing) things on the net: ants flying through the air in extreme slow motion propelled by the rapid closing of their jaws. Great music too.
I swear, these little fuckers will take over the world sometime very soon.
I believe what we just witnessed is their equivalent of the NASA Space Program. Once they’re up to full fitness – they’re coming to get us.
Superb clip.
Eh, I’m realising that I’m not exactly a 100W bulb. What is an Easter Egg? Do you have to be some kind of hacker ninja to get at it? Am I the only one who hangs out in here who doesn’t know what this scary technology business is all about? I’m off back to my amiga 500 to play Speedball 2. It’s safer living in the past.
[…] Good luck! [image] Well, I guess I’ll just have to tell you. We hid an Easter Egg in the IT Crowd Series 2. In fact, we hid […] […]
How long have we got? It says it ends in June, which I’m sure was last month :)
Can Irish Citizens who aren’t resident particpate?
Assuming I can get hold of one of these laptops for around £1800 and I take an extra job on UK minimum wage of £5.73 and the bloody inland revenue take around half of that, I will have to spend around 630 hours slaving away to get me one of these laptops, which far less time than I’d spend trying to win this competition.
I’ve painted my current laptop yellow and stuck the badge on.
yes, Oliver, there’s been an extension…Sean, do you know what the new date is?
good luck to u as well.
good luck and best of luck to u as well.
John- Cheers, the friendly advice is appreciated but after a dodgy experience with buying from overseas I try to avoid having things posted as much as possible. Of course, if it’s NEVER released in Aus then I will order it from Amazon!
Hi everyone – the new closing date is 23rd August 2008 – the website should reflect this later this morning.
Graham – do you think your readers would like a hint, or is that cheating?
God damn you, Graham Linehan! :D
I now know that I’m going to spend the rest of my mother’s birthday ignoring my mother and trying to figure out what the hell is going on with this DVD!
Graham, dunno if you’ve ever heard of this but thought you’d get a kick out of it…
Graham, thought you’d get a kick out of this… http://bloodbus.com/blog46_freaktopia.php
Smithy, that’s very good stuff.
Coming from Kirlcaldy myself I know a bit about rough buses.
You are Mr Bloodbath thuough, are you not sir?
No need to be shy. Very good stuff. I’ll be tuning in again tomorrow.
Good luck with Mr Linehan. Hope he reads it.
Nice to see I’m not the only one who’s got no clue whatsoever about this Easter Egg lark! Kudos to Graham for such perverse cruelty…
Bloodbus is great by the way; he’s got the magic touch! What a hellish existence though. Like dirty old Scrublin, but even more miserable. My thoughts are with you, Mr. Driver!
Aaah, how long have you got?
I’d just like to let you know that despite the fact you’ve been an idol of mine for a number of years now, Mr Linehan, I’m really want to hate you for this devilishly impossible task! I came across that German site and I’m still left with a mouth so wide open in bewilderment that people have started taking shots to chip golf balls in.
Good day, sir… (Grr…)
Sean, yes, a clue would be great!
I’ll do a clue. Actually, there’s already been a clue. Aaaaah, Kirstenin got it.
I am a cunning one, Linehan, there’s no getting anything past me… (Except when it went over my head completely first time round and only clicked about 2 days later… minor technicality.) x
I’m confused….
What exactly is the competition, as in, what do we have to do to get to whatever it is we need to win???
I’ve tried clicking, double clicking, i even stretched to googling the question.
My brain hurts.
Aha! I now have 4 of the 8 questions!! (Albeit through Googling them)
I suspect the final 4 will be a tad more difficult
If only I had a photo-transistor….
Mez. How long have you got?
“If only I had a phototransistor…”
So true in life, not just here.
I think I’ve got more chace of growing that lovely geeky man’s beard than building a phototransistor. Though I think it’s actually just a red herring. Indeed, I have many theories but not the technical mind to back them up. I propose that we join forces and win the laptop on behalf of Graham’s commenters. Not just because I’m stupid and can’t work it all out myself. Nuh-uh.
You’re not alone Mezz. I haven’t a bog what’s going on here. I did a bit of googling and this is the exact moment I realised I was out of my depth:
“The next step is to join all txt-files and to remove accidentally inserted spaces. A simple
sed -e “s/ //g” subtitles-*txt > base64.txt
entered on the console will do.”
Kathryn – the clip from ‘4 Computer Buffs’ isn’t a red herring – it’s a hint. The important thing is *what* Dr. Thornton’s doing, not *how* he’s doing it.
Everyone else – if you have the DVD in your hands, and you’re reading this post, then you already have absolutely everything you need to answer all the questions.
Dr. Thorne, I mean. Not Dr. Thornton. Whoops, sorry.
WHAT?!?!?!….. *BOOM!*
I’m just gonna get in a nice brown box and stay there until this whole thing blows over….
Sean, I’m sure you’re a lovely fellow, but you’re making me feel impossibly thick! :D
Knowing him personally, I can vouch for Sean’s loveliness. But he has a brain that could probably be classified as technology suitable for military use, it’s that massive.
Good luck to people having a go, it all sounds far beyond my knowledge and abilities.
I think I am only missing the answers to “What’s the codec talkback frequency?” and “What was Roy’s losing poker hand?” Any hints on these?
But then again… I am from germany and it seems only people from the UK can win :-(
Any clues to finding out what Roy’s poker hand was? I’m completely stuck with that one! Can’t seem to find any references to it anywhere, besides the tiny part in the episode itself :(
It’s over then?
I wonder who won… This is all very exciting!
So, who is the winner? i really wonder …
Hey, I never even REALIZED there was a competition until last week!
Still it worked well that it wasn’t too loudly advertised. But heck, I’ll be looking forward to the possibility of there being another one come the end of next season :)
Already got an idea this could be similar come end of season three.
I was a runner up. Woo! Thanks Graham and Talkback Thames and 2Entertain and all those lovely type people!
I think this competition was unfair. This guy from germany published all question (only the last one missing) on a site which is linked by on Wikipedia. So anyone who wanted to take part on this thing had to copy and paste the stuff into the form (the competition site was linked on his page to) – so the only think someone must be able was to enter “it crowd competition” into google (no, without the google – or the internet will crash) and click on the correct page (one of the top 5) or go to wikipedia and click on the links there.
Great work.I really appreciate your blog .thanks for sharing this post
What was Roy’s losing poker hand?