As has been repeated ad nauseam at this point, the release of The Avengers this Friday marks the first time that a batch of individual superheroes who aren't already part of an ensemble (like, say, the X-Men) have teamed up on the big screen in a live-action feature. It's a momentous occasion and all, but it's worth pointing out that television has already beaten them to the punch. Within the past few decades, both DC and Marvel have staged small screen crossover events that united some of their biggest heroes. So why aren't these special one-shots as celebrated as The Avengers? Easy... they're all pretty terrible. For the completest and the curious, though, here are the TV team-ups that pre-date Joss Whedon's new blockbuster. (Note: this list covers live-action TV shows only; these crossovers are a far more common event on the many, many Marvel and DC-related animated series out there, which are a revolving door for special guest stars.)

We should probably point out off the top that The Thick of It, the terrific British political satire created by Armando Iannucci -- the mind behind the new HBO comedy Veep -- is not technically cancelled. (It's definitely brilliant, though.) Since airing its first two series of three episodes apiece back in 2005, The Thick of It has returned to the BBC for a series of specials that aired in 2007 and an expanded eight-episode third series which ran in 2009. (BBC America aired the first two seasons stateside in 2006 and will start running the third season on April 28.) Additionally, a fourth season is currently being filmed and will air in the U.K. sometime in the fall.

It's the 25th anniversary of the Fox broadcasting network, a fact they are celebrating this weekend with a big retrospective special. But what are the odds that it will acknowledge one of the biggest mistakes in Fox history: the cancellation of Firefly after eleven episodes (which aired in the wrong order, to boot)? And while the Serenity movie and all of the related books and comics have since helped soften the blow, we still can't help but point out all of the sci-fi/supernatural series that Fox programmers chose to keep on longer than Mal and his crew. Sure some of them were worthy of the support -- but not most of them...

How in the world could anyone make a good movie out of the campy '80s cop series 21 Jump Street? Well, if you're the film's creative brain trust -- a team that includes stars/producers Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum and directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller -- your keep the basic premise of the show (undercover cops go back to high school) and change almost anything else. So instead of an earnest procedural where both the cops and teens learn Important Life Lessons, you've got a rollicking buddy action comedy about two guys who get the chance to relive their school days only to discover high school isn't quite how they remember it. The success of 21 Jump Street got us thinking about the best ways to reboot other fondly (and not so fondly) remembered '80s TV shows for the big screen. You're welcome, Hollywood.

I like Smash. I like its energy, I like the ensemble, I like the musical numbers and I like the way the show's writers have concocted a version of Broadway that feels rooted in a recognizable reality, while also allowing for the dramatic conveniences (and contrivances) that come with the territory of primetime network soaps. I also like that the show seems to have found a modest, but decent-sized audience. The premiere attracted 11.8 million viewers and if that number holds or increases in subsequent weeks (and here's hoping it does increase, because the show improves greatly in the coming episodes we've screened), Smash should be with us for a while and could turn on a whole new audience to the pleasure of an evening out at the theater, be it the Great White Way or your local repertory company. If you were one of the 12 million folks that tuned in and liked what you saw, I'd encourage you to check out an even better show about all the blood, sweat and tears (and laughs... don't forget laughs) that go into mounting a theatrical production: Slings & Arrows.

A reported 10 million viewers tuned into the premiere of Fox's new paranormal procedural Alcatraz, which finds a San Francisco homicide detective (Sarah Jones) teaming up with an Alcatraz expert (Jorge Garcia) and an FBI agent (Sam Neill) to investigate the bizarre reappearance of a group of prisoners who disappeared from The Rock some 50 years ago under mysterious circumstances. It's a great hook for a show... as anyone who watched The 4400 during its four season run in the mid-aughties knows.

In Glee's "Prom Queen" episode back at the end of Season 2, an unlikely character won the title of prom queen: resident homosexual bullying victim Kurt Hummel. After Principal Figgins called his name, Kurt fled the gymnasium, crying, with boyfriend Blaine on his heels. "We thought that because no one was teasing us or beating us up [for being gay], no one cared," Kurt said in the hallway, through tears. One drawn-out emotional scene later, Kurt finally got the resolve to enter the gymnasium and accept his crown and scepter, defiantly announcing: "Eat your heart out, Kate Middleton."

Frankly, we've been weary of writing about the alleged revival of Arrested Development. The series has a history of claiming to return from the dead, only to shatter the hearts of extremely fragile fans, to say the least. Now that the cast and creators have publicly announced a return, and that Netflix has reportedly picked up the rights to new episodes, we finally feel comfortable breaking our silence with a list of minor characters we very truly hope to see again after all this time, presented without comment just in case we find out in a couple of days that this has all been some kind of cruel, sick joke.

I'll be honest here: I was born the year Twin Peaks premiered, and I had never seen an episode, save for a clip of the famous Red Room scene. When I first saw the promos for American Horror Story, however, that creepy, surreal tableau was the first thing that came to my mind. The red backdrop in the ads was eerily reminiscent of the "waiting room" red curtains, and the rubber-suited mystery man coming from the ceiling towards a very pregnant woman just screamed David Lynch. So, naturally, I grabbed some coffee and donuts to watch both seasons of Twin Peaks and see what else they had in common.

Sometimes you watch a promo for an upcoming series and think it's been created just for you. That's how I felt in the fall of 1991 when I saw a teaser for NBC's Eerie, Indiana, a family-friendly, comedy-laced horror show about an ordinary kid Marshall Teller (Omri Katz), who moves with his family from New Jersey to a distinctly unordinary small town -- Eerie, Indiana, population 16,661. Like Marshall, I had recently been uprooted as well, leaving downtown Toronto for suburban Virginia. And while the community my 13-year-old self had moved to wasn't home to a still-alive Elvis Presley or an orthodontist who designed retainers that allowed their wearers to read the canine mind, it still seemed pretty strange and alien to me. When Marshall described Eerie as "the center of weirdness for the entire planet" in the show's great credits sequence, he basically summed up how I felt about my new home.