• April 6, 2001

(AP) - The NBC comedy "3rd Rock from the Sun" will end its six-season run on May 22, the network said Thursday.

"We're grateful to the 3rd Rock producers and the out-of-this-world cast who provided NBC with so many seasons of sheer lunacy," Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Entertainment, said in a statement. "Their loopy and creative humor will make this one of the classic series of the 1990s." Zucker gave no reason for the program being dropped.

The show, about aliens trying to blend in among earthlings in an Ohio college town, stars John Lithgow, Jane Curtin, Kristen Johnston, French Stewart, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It debuted on Jan. 9, 1996.