3rd Rock from the Sun/Funny

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • One particular moment from the first season:

Dick: You think you're pretty clever, don't you? I happen to know that every word in your book was published years ago. Perhaps you've read... the dictionary!

  • The first season is just full of one-line hilarity. Another one, from the very first episode when the aliens arrive at the Dean's faculty party:

Hostess: Won't you come in?
Sally: If you'll back up.

  • "I try to mold us into a perfect family to blend in and what do I get? A surly teenager, a sister obsessed with a man, and a brother who drinks too much! I ask you, is there any other family in America like this?!"
  • The episode where Dick and Rodney dresses as women to infiltrate Mary's study group. Meanwhile, Tommy considers telling August that he's an alien.

Tommy: I can't stand this anymore, I've got to tell you something and you're not going to believe this at first and it might even make you sick. It's about my family.
[cue Dick running into the room in drag]
Dick: Well, that was a wash! [takes off shoes and wig] The woman I love won't let me be a woman! I need some herbal tea and a fat free cookie.
[Dick exits, leaving August looking horrified]
Tommy: Listen, August, what I needed to tell you is that -
August: Don't speak, Tommy... don't speak.
[she hugs him]

  • In another episode, Alissa walked in on Tommy (actually the oldest of the aliens) cuddling a distraught Dick. Alissa was freaked out and ran from the room. Tommy immediately said "Alissa, look, he's really my dad I'm living with!" After a Beat, Tommy realizes that made it sound even worse.
  • In the episode from the first season when Harry first found out about the "thing in his head", Dick assures him that "it's not in the part you use -- it's in your brain."
  • Harry deciding that clothes are one big scam.

Tommy: What should I wear to school tomorrow?
Harry: EL NADA!

  • William Shatner, in a guest appearance as the Big Giant Head, gets off a plane and talks about how he had looked out the window and seen "something on the wing". Dick (John Lithgow) replies, "Same thing happened to me!" This is a double Shout-Out to a classic Twilight Zone episode starring Shatner, which was later remade starring Lithgow.
  • Harry's "dance of death" with a power tool.
  • "When you're thinking of giant heads, think of the BIG Giant Head."
  • In the first season, after Mary spends a weekend away, an overjoyed Dick runs to her in slow motion. It leads to Mary trying to crawl away from Dick on the floor as Rodney glomps her, all the while Nina's hitting him with a newspaper. It must be seen to be believed.
    • Especially the part where it wasn't filmed in slo-mo - the actors did it all themselves. See for yourself.
  • Two Faced Dick altogether. Basically, the Big Giant Head switches Dick and Sally's brains for the duration of the episode. John Lithgow has to act like Kristen Johnson's character, and vice versa, right down to the body language and tone of voice.
  • In Dick Solomon Of The Indiana Solomons, the unit is mistakenly invited to a family reunion for some guy named Richard Solomon. During the reunion, Harry meets Uncle Abe and starts to take on his mannerisms, and the two Statler and Waldorf their way throughout the whole episode.
  • The entire episode of Dick vs Strudwick, especially towards the end of the episode where Dick turns discussion of Strudwick's new physics textbook into a Jerry Springer -esque brawl.
  • In one of the early episodes where the aliens are discovering some of the frustrations of human family life. Dick and Sally are arguing and Tommy comes into the kitchen.

Tommy: You know, August finds us quite charming in our naive determination to stay together.
[Tommy drinks from milk carton]
Dick: You tell your little girlfriend August to mind her own business!
Sally: Yeah, and don't drink out of the milk carton!
[Tommy loudly spits milk back into carton]
Tommy: Fine!

  • When Mary's brother Roy comes to visit her at work and runs into Nina and her boyfriend Rodney.

Roy: Gosh, you don't sound black on the phone...
Nina: *Beat* It's just something I picked up in spy school.

  • Dick's trouble using the copy machine, until he declares "I'm going to beat you with your own toner!" At the end of the episode, Mary tries to show him how to do it, only to run into the same problem and also pull out the toner.
    • She doesn't pull out the toner. She starts hitting the machine with her fist, and THEN Dick hands her the toner.
  • When Sally and Kyle thinks Alissa is going to break up with Tommy:

Harry: Oh god, there's nothing we can do! We're POWERLESS against ALISSA!

  • In one episode, we find Dick reading through a physics textbook, laughing his ass off. Then he pulls out the Dr. Seuss...

Dick: "When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle's on a poodle and the poodle's eating noodles...they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle." (slowly closes book, looks at cover) This man is a genius.

  • The baby food scene. Featuring Joseph Gordon Levitt visibly cracking up.
  • Dick's leather pants.
  • Dick's Failed Attempt At Drama after an argument with a neighbour. "Fine! We can tell when we're not wanted!" He storms out. Harry, Tommy and Sally don't move. Dick comes back. "We're not wanted." They get it and follow him.
  • Dick not understanding how Good Cop/Bad Cop is supposed to work.

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