I've found Tomlin funny and perceptive at times in the past; her Ernestine the operator routine, which she did not reprise has sent me into hysterics. But I haven't been enjoying Tomlin … since that plodding sense of social consciousness started hanging heavy over most of her work. It's as though, through her performances and her humor, she must teach lessons continuously.

So we learn that the unwed really want to pull in double harness while the marrieds wish they were single, that hip posturing is laughable, that the handicapped are people, too [this lesson via Tomlin's "Crystal the cripple" character, a bit which stretched the limits of taste uncomfortably]. These are not exactly revelations. They are the kind of things we could expect Rod McKuen to write poems about.

Lynn Van Matre, "Didactic Bits Gild the Lily," in Chicago Tribune (© 1977 Chicago Tribune), March 4, 1977, p. 2.