this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2025
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Mildly Interesting
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1998 feels like a completely different world. Iβm watching through 3rd Rock from the Sun, watched S03E21 which aired in April of 1998. In the episode Dr Albright, a college professor, hires Sally, one of the main characters who is an alien posing as a human, as her research assistant. In the episode Albright hands Sally a handwritten speech and tasks her to fact check the speech by visiting the library. π Canβt imagine a situation like that occurring today.
I love 3rd rock from the sun
Oh snap, are you at the episode with Randy yet? (Season 3, episode 27) It ends in a cliffhanger to end off Season 3,
Spoiler
wherein Harry gets kidnapped to be put in a carnival.You'll notice, in the start of Season 4, that Randy never returns. This is because Randy was played by Phil Hartman, who died only 8 days after the last episode of Season 3 aired on TV.
When I first watched the series, I was a kid and didn't know why his character was abandoned. Learning about it later, and knowing what a key figure he had in animation (voicing characters on The Simpsons, and being the person that Futurama's Zapp Brannigan was designed to be played by), watching that arc felt very different.
RIP Phil, you're still missed.