Tomlin’s trademark wry delivery can be observed in David O. Russell's offbeat 2004 comedy I Heart Huckabee’s, where she plays part of a husband-wife “existential detective agency,” alongside Dustin Hoffman. The philosophy that the loopy-but-profound duo of the film, Bernard and Vivian, share, considers everything and everyone in the universe connected, as if part of a big blanket. This sentiment doesn’t seem all that far afield, actually, from Tomlin’s own proffered take in performances and interviews, which often emphasizes the inter-connectedness of humanity.

After psychiatric shock therapy, The Search for Signs’ Trudy is able to channel the entire human race (and thus the other characters Tomlin evokes in the show); Trudy observes: “Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.”

Upon bestowing the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on Tomlin in 2003, a center spokesperson astutely mentioned that Tomlin "uses humor and irony as her vehicle for truth.” The same year, Variety offered this Tomlin sound bite: "I have always felt that humor was a wonderful vehicle to let us become connected with each other and ourselves…I try to portray the similarities and polarities in men and women, so that we can acknowledge and embrace our collective consciousness."

Throughout her career, Tomlin has specifically chosen roles that suit her and that mesh with her personal and political philosophies.

In a 1976 interview for The Advocate, Tomlin tells the late Vito Russo that upon receiving a script that didn’t jive with her politics, she “just sent it back with a note and I said, 'Thank you for thinking of me for this, but I cannot participate in it because of my own personal views. It simply isn't radical enough from a feminist viewpoint.'"

Born in 1939 in Detroit, Tomlin moved to New York in the mid-sixties to study acting with Charles Nelson Reilly while she waited tables at restaurant Howard Johnson’s to pay the bills. A lucky break in the form of a regular comedy gig on TV’s The Garry Moore Show came in 1966, and in 1969 she was begged to join the regular cast of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, a popular ensemble cast comedy show on NBC that Tomlin remained on, playing deliciously funny characters such as Edith Ann and Ernestine, until 1973.

It was in 1971, while still on Laugh-In that Tomlin met (and wooed) Jane Wagner. After seeing J.T., an after-school special for children on CBS written by Wagner that Tomlin later told Christopher Guly of Newsweekly was “like what I dreamed of for a monologue for a character,” Tomlin wrote a letter to the writer, then a stranger, to invite her to LA to work on Tomlin’s next comedy album.

Wagner did end up moving out to California and developing a professional relationship with Tomlin--a professional relationship that quickly became personal as the two fell in love.