3rd Rock from the Sun/Awesome

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Dick gets one of these on 3rd Rock from the Sun. After spending the episode bemoaning the fact that physicists like him get no respect, and after a botched attempt at taking part in a police interrogation, Dick looks pretty down in the dumps. Then this happens:

Cop: I know you did it, Jonesy. You jumped the fence and you stole the money.
Suspect: But you got no proof. Besides, I couldn't jump that fence. It's physically impossible.
Dick: Physically impossible? That's where you're wrong. You may not have much respect for the law, Jonesy, but there's one law you can't break: Coulomb's Third Law of Universal Gravitation!
Suspect: What?
Dick: It states that the force between two objects is proportional to the algebraic products of their respective charges as well as the inverse square of the distance between them! But of course you knew that, didn't you, Jonesy?
Suspect: Um ... not all of it.
Dick: You're object X, and the fence is object Y. Now, where V is the velocity of the two objects, and R is the distance between them, and E is a unit vector directed from the first object to the second, we see that the fence proved little challenge!
Suspect: Yeah, well, I guess ...
Dick: You guess? I bet you guess. And so we see that X equals zero while Y approaches infinity. That's how you avoided the security camera! That's how you managed to get back over the fence! That's how they found you exactly 1.3 miles from the crime scene, proving that you, and only you could have perpetrated this heinous crime! There's the proof!
Suspect: Okay, okay! You got me! I did it! I did it! I did it! My God, what kind of a cop are you?
Dick: I'm not a cop! I'm a physics professor!

    • It becomes even more awesome when Dick reveals that his equations didn't prove anything aside from the fact that Jonesy is orbiting the sun.
    • In another episode Dick convinced the other professors to go on strike and the Chancellor called their bluff due to Dick being a terrible bluffer. At the end of the episode, Dick uses his terrible bluffing to his advantage, pulling a reverse double bluff on the Chancellor in order to get back the letters of resignation. The result is another Crowning Moment for Dick:

Chancellor: Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to present these letters to the Board of Trustees.
Dick: Oh, of course, the Board. Yeah, they were certainly right about you. You are a real operator.
Chancellor: You know people on the Board?
Dick: No, I have no friends on the Board. [pretends to fidget]
Chancellor: You don't know anything.
Dick: You're right, I know nothing. You have no reason to worry about losing your job over this "debacle". [makes air quotes] I don't know why I did that, I'm not quoting anyone. [Chancellor sets the letters down] What are you doing with those?
Chancellor: I'm thinking of giving them back to you. What do you think of that, Dr. Solomon?
Dick: I think that would be a huge mistake, Chancellor.
Chancellor: Would it? [pushes letters towards Dick]
Dick: Yes, accepting them was your greatest triumph. [pushes letters back]
Chancellor: You'd like to see me fired, wouldn't you? [pushes letters back]
Dick: No. And believe me, I have no designs... on your position. [pushes letters back]
Chancellor: Oh, I'm sorry, Solomon, but I can read you like a book. You lose. I'm rehiring the faculty. [pushes letters into Dick's lap] Now, take your letters and get out of my office!
Dick: Well, it looks like you've outsmarted me once again. [laughs to himself] I mean... damn!

  • After spending the whole night by the phone waiting for Brad to call, Sally ends up taking matters into her own hands...

(Sally, still wearing the red dress from their date, kicks down Brad's apartment door.)
SALLY: Hello, Brad.
BRAD: Sally...
SALLY: I've come to check your phone...

  • Don at Career Day.

Don: Sorry I'm late kids, but I was just involved in one of the world's most scariest police chases.
Student: How did it end?
Don: The guy got away (moans)... but I rolled my car! (cheers)

  • After Sally is made High Commander by the Big Giant Head, she orders Dick, as the replacement security officer, to kill a tabloid reporter doing a story on Vicki's half alien baby. Dick fails, so Sally decides to kill the guy herself before Dick informs her that high commanders, as "upper management", aren't allowed to kill. So Sally makes herself security officer again. Dick points out she can't be both the high commander and security officer so Sally, exasperated at this point, makes Dick high commander again. His first act? She can't kill the reporter. Sally tries to make herself high commander again before Dick says "can't do that, lieutenant".

Sally: You had this planned all along!
Dick: That's why I'm High Commander. ...and no, I didn't!

  • Two from Dick and the Single Girl:
    • Tommy and Harry are trying to write an X-Files episode. Tommy suggests they start with a fight. Harry takes it literally. And wins. He then starts typing the script with the suggestion Tommy shot down, all the while he's got Tommy pinned to the floor with his foot.

Harry: Scully... and Mulder... at a picnic! (Tommy angrily writhes on the floor)

    • Mary getting the best of the Scary Librarian who's been after Dick, and Dick's response upon seeing Mary beat her in a fight.

Dick: Oh, Mary! I am so turned ON!

  • Take the cast and add a random dance scene (or how about two?) for instant awesome.
  • Dick's Sitcom Arch Nemesis, the lunch lady, insists on charging him a quarter for crackers when everyone else gets them for free. After spending the entire episode fretting over why she dislikes him and trying various methods to get on her good side, Dick declares to her he refuses to let her dislike of him dampen his day, dumps his purse of quarters on the counter, and walks off with the entire bowl and a smirk. It even comes with a Bond One-Liner.

Dick: "If there's any extra...buy yourself some crackers."

  • In the last few minutes of Dick And Harry Fall In A Hole, Sally does her best impression of a Drill Sergeant Nasty to get Dick and Harry(who have resigned themselves to just staying there forever) to just get off their butts and get out of the damn hole, at the behest of a "hole" expert played by Alan Cumming who claims that they'll need weeks of deprogramming.
  • In The Big Giant Head Returns Again Part II, Vicki attempts to murder Harry's new girlfriend out of frustrated jealousy. Sally attempts to stop her, only for Vicki to hold her off with her hair-curler/molecular destabilizer. Then Harry shows up and promptly seduces her in order to distract her long enough for Sally to get the destabilizer away from her.

Vicki: How dare you trick me with your flesh?!
Harry: Well that's what it's THERE FOR!

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