Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 21, 1994 TAG: 9405210087
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-17 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By Patricia Brennan The Washington Post
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Between Tomlin and writer Jane Wagner, Edith Ann has changed a bit since "Laugh-In." She still has that nasal voice (she and Tomlin are asthma sufferers) and a rocking chair, this time situated on the porch of her parents' house in Edgetown, near airports and freeways.
"That's just part of her environment," Tomlin said, "growing up in a deteriorating city."
She has a baby brother called Mister Mister and a ragin', rappin' teen-age sister named Irene, a bit like Tomlin, who grew up in Detroit. "I was like that," she said. "Maybe I looked a little more hoody."
Edith Ann's mother is a security guard; her father, who worked on the Stealth bomber, is unemployed. Edith Ann wears big red boots and uses colored pencils in her diary to indicate her moods. She is wise beyond her years, trusting, logical and often pained by what goes on around her.
"How big do I have to get before the growing pains stop?" she asks the school psychologist.
"With Edith being a kid, you can look at all sorts of these things day in and day out and at moral questions without being heavy-handed," Tomlin said. "You have a child here who's sensitive. She's not perfect, but she's a very smart child, and she's indomitable. We have a chance to catch her in that moment of discovery in making a choice."
This story has themes involving the homeless and ecology. When the town sprays against the hated megflies, two harmless Tweedle-beetles nearly die as well. They find shelter inside the house on a chia pet near a fish tank where the occupants appear to be in danger of going belly up.
Edith Ann meets a homeless woman named Twinkle - a politician once, she tells Edith Ann - who tries to help the child get into her house when she loses her latchkey. In doing so, they break a window, and a neighbor calls the police.
There's a mildly happy ending: Edith Ann and Twinkle circulate petitions and get the neighborhood to clean up, but Twinkle is still homeless.
There are many themes Tomlin has in mind for "Edith Ann." She turned down a role in "Pret-a-Porter," filmed in Paris, to lobby ABC President Ted Harbert for a series instead of the periodic specials he wants.
"I believe in the value of it so much," she said. "I think Edith could be a very wonderful voice for children and adults. You can't show everything and can't do everything in a couple of shows. There are so many different things we can do."
Animation, by Arlene Klasky and Gabor Csupo, blends traditional animation, real objects and still photography in a technique called "texture mapping."
by CNB