
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 21, 1990                   TAG: 9004210500
SECTION: SPECTATOR                    PAGE: 5   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: DIANE HAITHMAN LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SPECIAL DRAWS AWARENESS TO DIRE STATE OF THE EARTH

"Global warming, deforestation, toxics, desertification, garbage overload, water pollution, ozone depletion."

That is the alarming diagnosis for Mother Earth (played by Bette Midler) in "The Earth Day Special," a two-hour, all-star program to air Sunday on ABC (at 9 p.m. on Channel 13 in the Roanoke viewing area). It celebrates the 20th anniversary of the first Earth Day.

Among the myriad Earth Day documentary and entertainment specials airing in the next few weeks, this one is perhaps the most ambitious. Barbra Streisand, Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, Jane Fonda, Robin Williams, Carl Sagan and Magic Johnson will participate, along with the casts of "The Cosby Show," "The Golden Girls," "Jeopardy!" and "Married . . . With Children," plus 300 extras and a high school marching band.

The program, whose full title is "Time Warner Presents the Earth Day Special," will weave the performers into a narrative story in which Midler's Mother Earth, dressed in a spectacular gown of garbage designed by Robert Turturice, lies dying in a hospital in Anytown U.S.A.- and it is up to the residents to save her.

Armyan Bernstein, executive producer of the special with Richard Baskin and Paul Junger Witt, said that he was inspired to create an environmental program when he and his girlfriend were watching news reports about hypodermic needles, vials of blood and other medical refuse washing up on East Coast beaches.

Bernstein said that the producers decided to use celebrities only because they believed that people would listen to them. "If they'd watch me, I'd do it," Bernstein joked.

What they're asking, he said, is for people "to gather around the hearth - the TV set is today's hearth - and become part of an electronic town square meeting and contemplate where we are and where we're going.

"Nobody involved in this show has any pretensions that this show will save the Earth," he added. "You hope to empower people, so that they can make the difference. We don't own the Earth. We are of the Earth."

by CNB