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Marla

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“ I am the daughter of the Big Giant Butt and his human wife and the only survivor of his 14 children. They sent me to Earth for the same reason: to study human life. ”

–Marla, revealing her hybrid identity in "The Big Giant Head Returns"

Princess Marla Daphne Love-Butt, often simply called Marla, is a supporting character of 3rd Rock from the Sun.

Background[]

She is an alien/human hybrid who was sent down to the planet Earth with a similar mission to the Solomon clan and works as a waitress. She first appeared in season 1 episode "Body, Soul, And Dick".

Marla was born as a daughter of a human opera singer and The Big Giant Butt. As a baby, she was born the youngest child and only survivor of her 14 children. As a baby and early childhood, Sally used to babysit her.

Personality[]

Marla is an intelligent, soft-spoken, and well-mannered young woman who's a little shy as well. She never worries about things too much and loves to liven things up. Despite this, she can be stubborn and sarcastic when things stop going according to plan, but she actually cares for her friends and remains a romantic sweetheart and starts relationships with men, sometimes out of goodwill and affection. In the beginning of the series, she had a vocabulary that was limited to a few words at a time.

Marla has an emotional attachment to inanimate objects and acts protective towards them. In "I Brake for Dick" she forbids everyone not to touch her Jean-Luc Picard doll without her permission, because it's "one of my favorite things on Earth". She mentioned loving her toothbrush in "The Great Dickdater", thus writing a will saying that it goes to her "ghost". Marla also collected stuffed animals since early childhood in "Collect Call for Dick". She also expressed a fondness for Harry's videotapes in later episodes.

After she got pregnant with her daughter Sarah as of “Frankie goes to Rutherford”, she developed a much calmer personality and safety returned to her home planet at the end of "Why Dickie can’t Teach."

Similar to Sally, who she admires and has a lifelong bond with, she has a healthy relationship with Nina and Vicki.

Physical Appearance[]

Marla stands at the same height as Nina, and she has honey brown hair that she either wears in a bun, loose, or a ponytail and black rectangular glasses. She also has baby blue eyes, and wears makeup consisting of blush, lipstick, nail polish, and eyeshadow. As of Season Four, due to having a different actress, Marla’s hair was currently lighter blonde, turquoise eyes, but she retained her glasses.

  • Her usual outfit is a teal dress with black mesh sleeves, a functional zipper at the back, golden teardrop-shaped earrings and black flats. She also wears red lipstick.
  • In "Truth or Dick", "Big, Fat, Angry Virgin From Outer Space", "World’s Greatest Dick", Dick Jokes", "Seven Deadly Clips", "The Great Dickdater", and "Feeling Albright", she wore the standard Blue Cheese waitress uniform with her name tag misspelled as “Mariah”.
  • During Judith’s Christmas party in "Jolly Old St. Dick", she wore her hair down with an evergreen dinner gown with ornaments and jingle bells throughout, a tinsel-styled necklace, two snowflake bracelets (one of each wrist), mistletoe earrings, and fuchsia high heels. She also sported red lipstick, pink blush, and cherry red lipstick.
  • As shown in "I Brake For Dick" and "Charitable Dick", she wore a black blazer jacket over a pale baby pink corset and pink baby doll dress with crimson patches and shoulder pads.
  • Her party dress in "Fun with Dick and Janet: Part 1 & 2" resembles Sally’s red dress but more leg-length and has a sweetheart neckline and it says “D” for dress. She wore a matching choker, purple lipstick and eyeshadow, and hot pink shoes.
  • She dressed up as "Little Bo Peep" for Halloween in "Scaredy Dick" and during a flashback in "A Dick Replacement."
  • As depicted in "Auto Eurdicka", Marla wore a green tartan skirt with a dark indigo blouse and black v-neck vest at the cold opening and beginning of the episode.
  • At the bar in "What's Love Got to Do, Got to Do With Dick?", "The Big Giant Head Returns", and "Dick and Harry Fall Down a Hole", she has a green sleeveless velour dress with a white contrast collar and yellow smiley face buttons, pantyhose, and fishnet leggings, and brown boots.
  • In "Dick Behaving Badly", "Sally Fourth", "Paranoid Dick", "The Big Giant Head Returns Again, Pt 2", and "Why Dickie Can't Teach", Marla has her hair done in pigtails and donned a pinkish crimson nightgown as her pajamas with a bath gown made of faux bear fur and pink slippers.
  • She sports white thigh-length daisy duke-style shorts with a pastel pink blouse with purple, blue, and emerald green floral pattern and a white buttoned jacket and black flat shoes in “Near Dick Experience.”
  • In "The Loud Solomon Family: A Dickumentary", Marla’s hair is loose and red lipstick on her lips and she wore a short red dress with a black belt around her waist and see-through off the shoulder parts and a pearl necklace and teardrop-shaped earrings and pink high heels.
  • Marla wears an off-pink sweetheart dress with a white pearl necklace and a red bracelet and pink ballet flats in “Dick puts The ID in Cupid.” She also puts on a red headband with it at the end of the episode and throughout "Frankie Goes to Rutherford."
  • Her new outfit in "Les Liaisons Dickgereuses" and "Fear and Loathing in Rutherford" consists of blue acid-washed jean skirt that reaches her knees and a black belt with a neon purple off-the-shoulder blouse with a purple cat in the center with black and white stockings with horizontal stripes and black lace-up boots with high heels.

Note: Marla wears a magenta bunny eared hat that’s easily laced up with almost all her clothes, and she likes to put it up and down like a hood. But it’s really her transmission device that allows her to contact her home planet.

Throughout the Series[]

Season 1[]

We see Marla as a background character in "Lonely Dick" when she moved into a house next door to the Solomons' apartment building. Later, she is seen as she watches Harry selling Orca cosmetics to customers.

In the following episode "Body & Soul & Dick", Marla was seen crying at a funeral as she sits in the middle row at the professor’s funeral. Later, she sympathetically comforts Tommy after hearing his love triangle problem. Tommy can't understand her language, but learns she's still learning English.

In "Truth Or Dick", Marla works as a waitress at The Blue Cheese, and as she was taking The Solomons's orders, Harry and Tommy made questionably harsh jokes about her hair, which began to piss her off. Later, she accepted Harry’s apology to making fun of her at the restaurant.

In "I Enjoy Being A Dick", as she talks about her raise, the jealous Sally interrupts her by wanting to work as a waitress. Marla fell off her chair but she got up, anyway, and gave Sally a lecture about having the same idea as her. But later, Marla expressed shock as she saw Sally and Harry working together at a different restaurant, as she ordered her lunch with a frown. Marla later offered Sally and Harry pumpkin pie with cookie dough ice cream, which they accepted.

In "Selfish Dick", Tommy points out to Harry that Marla has a boyfriend named Charles, so the latter feels disappointed to hear that.

Season 2[]

In a short scene of "See Dick Continue to Run, Pt 2", before Evil Dick can seduce her, Marla manages to hit him in the head with her purse and chase him out of her living room. She then locked him out and calls him a pervert.

In "Big Angry Virgin From Outer Space", Marla was delivering her customers’ orders when she saw Dick and Mary at their table. But before she could take their orders, Mary began talking about virginity and sex, but Marla began to feel uncomfortable.

In "Much Ado About Dick", she meets up with Sally at the mall. Then, she shows her her bags of clothes. Sally asked if she's trying them on for size, and Marla said yes.

In "World's Greatest Dick", she is seen making a milkshake for Tommy at The Blue Cheese when Dick came to explain Tommy's education and Marla covered her ears after she served Tommy his treat. Later, she rapidly knocked on the Solomons' door and after Sally answered it, she ran into the apartment, barefoot and still wearing her uniform, begging Harry to "hurry up in [the closet]", but he calmly tells her that he's still using it and asked why she can't use her bathroom. Marla answered, "Plumber's there!" She sang a little song and agreed to use the Solomons' real bathroom and seconds later, soccer punches Harry in the mouth.

In "My Mother the Alien", she can be noticed at the store while shopping.

She was moving her furniture in "Dick Jokes" when Dick came by to her house and complimented her living room, and Marla smiled and hugged him. Next, she begins to laugh at all of his jokes.

Marla wrapped gifts in "Jolly Old St. Dick" while her group was led by Judith Draper and the former told the latter that she was not good at wrapping gifts, but she accepted her invitation to her Christmas party, anyway. In the background of the mall, she was talking to her coworkers. At the dinner party, she sat across from Mary, who proposed a toast to everyone, whom she thanked for coming on this occasion. After Mary was finished, Marla applauded and said, "I do!"

In "I Brake for Dick", Marla was getting mani-pedis with Nina when the latter brought up Dick's car accident and the fact he run over a squirrel. Marla requested chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream via note, much to her friend's confusion.

In the following episode "Dick Behaving Badly", Marla was seen admiring herself in the mirror and Edward appeared and tells her to hurry up. At the meeting she carried around her Jean-Luc Picard paper doll, denying everyone's permission to touch it.

Season 3[]

Marla attended both of Dick's weddings: one is of him and Mary's and the other is of him marrying Janet Solomon. [1]This scene happened in the recap of the following episode.[2] Later, she begins to speak full English, much to everyone’s surprise.

In "Scaredy Dick", as she was applying makeup, she was talking about the Halloween party with Vicki on the phone. As she gazed into her mirror, admiring her Bo Peep costume, and Edward gave her helpful advice on going to parties, and later she tells him that she's breaking up with Charles.

In the episode "Eleven Angry Men and One Dick", Marla carried groceries into house and helped her neighbor for her help. Tommy came in and helped with her. She and Dick were summoned for jury duty. Later in the ending, she tells Dick that she and Charles broke up.

Marla appeared in various clips throughout the episode "Seven Deadly Clips" and one deleted scene shows her boxing Harry and she soccer punches him in the mouth.

Sally discovers Marla's breakup after she discovered that he had a wife in "Tom, Dick, and Mary" and she and Edward fed her cookie dough ice cream to comfort food.

Marla was doing a manicure and watching "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour" in the Solomons' living room when she spots Dick's train set, and he asked her if she likes it and she said yes. [3]

We see Harry going to Marla's apartment walking in place and ringing her doorbell, and she answers it two seconds later. He asks her if she can could hang out, and she accepts. Later at the cinema, Harry and Marla both agreed that sitting in the front section is a bad idea and they moved back, so they can see better. They sat down and had ice cream together and Harry accidentally revealed that he asked Marla to be his new best friend because he's bored with Rodney, causing the shocked Marla to spit ice cream on his face and she accepted his apology.[4]

List of Episode Appearances[]

Season 1[]

Season 2[]

Season 3[]

Season 4[]

Season 5[]

Season 6[]

Relationships[]

Marla had a good relationship with her family, despite not knowing throughout her entire life, as well as her friends, and boyfriends.

The Solomons[]

Marla sees The Solomons as her friends, especially Sally and Harry, upon nicknaming them "When Harry met Sally". She and Sally flirt with guys together, work together, and even stand up for each other. In "Sally and Don's First Kiss", Marla encourages Sally to continue her relationship with Don Orville.

Nina Campbell[]

Nina Campbell is another one of Marla’s friends since Season 1, and their friendship is similar to a sisterly bond. They like to help each other when they have problems and shop and get their nails painted together.

Mary Albright[]

She is also friendly with Mary Albright as they excitedly talk about New Year’s Day and Valentine's Day, and they look out for each other. Marla also planned Mary’s baby shower in "The Big Giant Head Returns Again, Pt 1."

Vicki Dubcek[]

She considers Vicki Dubcek as one of her best friends and they were almost inseparable, causing a lot of people to think they’re sisters. Marla is the only person who believes in Vicki’s hallucinations, and they always forgive each other after their arguments or bad actions. As of Season 5, Vicki ignored Marla to care for her son, Eric Travis Dubcek.

Edward[]

Edward is Marla's mentor and bodyguard who accompanied her to Earth on her mission and always looks out for her. In the episode "Truth Or Dick", Edward mentioned to Marla that she can only see and hear him as a human. In "I Brake for Dick", Marla accidentally put Edward up for the community charity auction and tries to literally win him back, which she later succeeded, showing how much they much they mean to each other. Another example of their relationship is when Edward recorded an audition tape for Marla to be Yummy Sweeties Treat Co., unaware of their age limit for girls age 8-12, according to Sally in "Will Work for Dick".

Marla described Edward as "one of the bravest people I ever knew and loved" in "Dick, Who's Coming to Dinner?" In "Dick Puts the ID in Cupid", they argued about Miles, and the main reason Edward doesn't trust him is because he's a mutant, and in the next episode, Marla realizes that he was right about Miles, and the pair reconcile.

Trivia[]

  • Marla was originally going to be named "Xena", the Big Giant Head’s adoptive daughter with a giant crush on Harry.
  • And she also sported a brown bun in her hair and glasses were on her face all the time.
  • She considers Valentine's Day as her favorite holiday.[5]
  • As mentioned in "Sex and the Sally", she is a fan of Gilligan’s Island, Showbiz Pizza and Family Feud in "Superstitious Dick and Japanese mythology in "Rutherford Beauty."
  • Marla has bad gift-wrapping skills in "Jolly Old St. Dick".
  • She was extremely fond of cookie dough ice cream in most scenarios of the series.
  • Marla appears to have self-defense. [6]
  • Marla temporarily joined the Navy in the episode "Near Dick Experience".
  • Marla didn't bring up her species or her title as princess, until "The Big Giant Head Returns".
  • Marla is the first alien/human hybrid in the series.
  • She is one of the few recurring characters who altered their appearance over the course of the series.
  • Marla is also one of the several character (outside of the main characters) who appeared in every season.

Gallery[]


References[]

  1. ↑ 1. Fun with Dick and Janet, Pt 1
  2. ↑ 2. Fun with Dick and Janet, Pt 2
  3. ↑ The Great Dickdater
  4. ↑ Auto Erodicka
  5. ↑ Dick Puts the ID in Cupid
  6. ↑ See Dick Continue to Run, Pt 2
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