Space, the final frontier. Or in this case, the final efforts of aliens to understand what makes us human peons tick. The Emmy and Golden Globe-award winning series 3rd Rock from the Sun ran from 1996 to 2001. It featured four aliens posing as a "typical" American family as they gathered information about Earthly customs, sociological habits and important snack foods. They named themselves The Solomons, and as Dick (artfully portrayed by deadpan-humor king John Lithgow) himself put it, "Sally's the woman, I'm the tall dashing man, Tommy's the adolescent and Harry's the funny-looking one."

Aliens have had their moment in the sun onscreen many times, rising in popularity in a nuclear-obsessed 1950s and continuing to dominate in the space-d out '70s. But 3rd Rock turned the alien-invasion format on its head with its loveably clueless resident "visitors." As Sally (combat expert Kristen Johnston) once asked Professor Mary Albright (Jane Curtin), "Isn't there a place where people can have mindless sex with different partners?" Mary's response? "Yeah! It's called 'the '70s.'"

Welcome to Earth, baby!