Comedian Amy Poehler was born in Newton, Massachusetts in 1971 and grew up in the town of Burlington. The young comedy fan regularly consumed such television sketch shows as The Carol Burnett Show, Saturday Night Live and SCTV, but it was the experience of playing Dorothy Gale in her school production of The Wizard of Oz that made her fall in love with the stage and led to her pursuit of acting as a career. Although it was from improv where her career took off. During her time studying at Boston College in the early nineties she joined the student improv troupe My Mother’s Fleabag, and after graduating in 1993 she moved to Chicago where she ended up joining ImprovOlympic and later Second City (at the same time as Tina Fey who would become her friend and frequent collaborator).

In 1995, Amy Poehler became an early member of  an ImprovOlympic offshoot called the Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) before co-founding their own New York City branch in 1996 along with Matt Besser, Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh. The UCB has become second only to Second City in terms of cultivating talent in the world of comedy (which makes Poehler partly responsible for the careers of many actors and comedians who are still working today). Comedy Central even gave the group their own half-hour TV sketch show called Upright Citizens Brigade which ran for three seasons from 1998 to 2000, and years later the streaming service Seeso released The UCB Show, which Poehler hosted for two seasons from 2015 to 2017.

At the same time that UCB was growing in popularity, Amy Poehler was regularly making appearances in sketches on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and she had small roles on shows like Spin City and movies like Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo (1999) as well as the commercial bomb-turned-cult hit satire Wet Hot American Summer (2001) in which she played Susie, a role she would reprise years later in the 2015 Netflix miniseries Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp and its 2017 follow-up Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later. But it was her role on the NBC variety show Saturday Night Live that elevated her to stardom when she joined the cast from 2001 to 2008. On that show she introduced characters like Amber the One-Legged Hypoglycemic (“Yeah, I farted. Jealous?”), hyperactive preteen girl Kaitlin and Bronx Beat co-host Betty Caruso and she became known for impersonating celebrities like Hillary Clinton, Dakota Fanning, Nancy Grace, Kelly Ripa, Sharon Osbourne, Anna Nicole Smith and many others.

Poehler also scored a lot of laughs as a co-anchor on Weekend Update with Tina Fey (2004-06) and with Seth Meyers (2006-08) and she was a prolific sketch writer as well, often collaborating with SNL writer and Groundlings alum Emily Spivey. As an SNL viewer, Amy Poehler was always my favorite cast member of the early 2000s because she made me laugh the most (she would still be my favorite SNL cast member to this day if Bill Hader didn’t steal that crown a few years later). Poehler, along with other cast members like Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph and Rachel Dratch, were actually the most funny and most popular cast members in this period, which makes a lot of people view the 2000s as a kind of golden age for female SNL cast members. Amy Poehler even received Emmy nominations for her writing and her performance on the show.

During her final year on SNL, Poehler co-created her first original TV series, a Nicktoon called The Mighty B!, with Cynthia True and Erik Wiese. The show aired on Nickelodeon and its sister network Nicktoons from 2008 to 2011 and revolved around an optimistic nine-year-old Honeybee scout named Bessie Higgenbottom who was based loosely on a character Poehler created during her improv years. The magazine Variety commended the Daytime Emmy-nominated kids’ series for approaching a zany and inventive energy that not many girl-focused animated shows have, and this was Poehler’s intention, siting inspiration from SpongeBob SquarePants and her desire to make a show for girls that felt like an alternative to more rainbow and unicorn-filled fare.

After leaving SNL in 2008, Amy Poehler went on to write, produce and star in an NBC mockumentary series created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur called Parks and Recreation (2009-15) in which she played a deputy director in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana who navigates the local politics of the Pawnee Parks and Recreation Department with an optimistic and often comically oblivious point of view alongside a cast of hilarious co-workers and fellow Pawnee citizens played by Rashida Jones, Paul Schneider, Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza and Chris Pratt. Poehler’s work on this show earned her another Emmy nomination, this time for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy, and her writing also received recognition from the Television Academy as well as the Writers Guild of America.

Poehler returned to the world of animation when she co-created and starred in the sitcom Duncanville which ran on FOX and Hulu for three seasons from 2020 to 2022 and centered on a 15-year-old boy named Duncan (voiced by Poehler) who is an average and mistake-prone high schooler living with his mom (also voiced by Poehler), dad (Ty Burrell), angst-ridden sister (Riki Lindhome) and adopted sister (Joy Osmanski) while the object of Duncan’s crush was a girl played by Poehler’s Parks and Rec co-star Rashida Jones. The series was well-written enough and it had a decent run but I also found it pretty average given what I’ve come to expect from adult animated shows by this point.

Poehler also co-created the cerebral but widely acclaimed Netflix series Russian Doll with Natasha Lyonne and Leslye Headland and she executive produced and guest starred in her brother Greg Poehler’s sitcom Welcome to Sweden (which actually aired in Sweden on TV4 as well as in the U.S. on NBC and was partly based on Greg Poehler’s real-life experience moving to Sweden with his girlfriend) in addition to executive producing the Comedy Central series Broad City, the Hulu series Difficult People and the surreal Adult Swim series Three Busy Debras. Poehler also had guest roles in Undeclared, Arrested Development, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Simpsons, Wonder Showzen, Sesame Street, 30 Rock, Louie, Broad City, The Awesomes, Kroll Show, Difficult People and SMILF in addition to co-hosting the NBC reality show Making It with Nick Offerman from 2018 to 2021 and co-hosting the Golden Globes with Tina Fey three years in a row beginning with the 70th Golden Globes in 2013 and a fourth time in 2021 for the 78th Golden Globes, often receiving a glowing reception from those who have watched them.

Less prolific but still impressive was Poehler’s film career. She played Regina’s mother in Mean Girls (2004), she played the sister in a brother-sister villain duo in Blades of Glory (2007), she played an obnoxious surrogate mother opposite Tina Fey in the comedy Baby Mama (2008), she teamed up with Tina Fey again in the comedy Sisters (2015) which was written by Paula Pell, produced by Fey and executive produced by Poehler, and she also voiced Snow White in Shrek the Third (2007), Sally O’Malley in Horton Hears a Who! (2008), a computer in Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), Eleanor in both Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009) and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011), Jenny the turkey in the Thanksgiving-themed sci-fi comedy Free Birds (2013) and most famously Joy in Inside Out (2015) for which Poehler received screenwriting credit for adding additional dialogue to the film. Poehler would reprise the role of Joy in the 2024 sequel Inside Out 2.

Later on, Poehler tried her hand at making her own films, including Wine Country (2019) which she produced, co-wrote and directed and in which she starred opposite many SNL alums including Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer, Paula Pell, Emily Spivey and Tina Fey. The film centers around a friend group who goes on a birthday vacation to Napa Valley, and for a Netflix comedy it was decently received (although it’s not as sharp as any of these comedians’ best work) while Poehler’s debut as a director was also decently received.

Poehler also produced and directed the 2021 coming-of-age film Moxie, which just like Wine Country had its flaws but was also decently made. Although to this day the most positively received film she directed was the documentary Lucy and Desi (2022) which explores the relationship and legacy of TV power couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz alongside never-before-seen footage. The Prime Video release received several Emmy nominations (winning two) and was dubbed an entertaining, informative and affectionately made film.

As for what Poehler is doing now, these days she is doing what many comedians are doing: hosting a podcast. It’s called Good Hang and in it she mostly interviews her friends and fellow comedians in a low-key style. Which is great but I’m still waiting for her next big screen appearance. She’s too funny not to be seen and heard. Even her talk show appearances are funny. She’s kind of the human embodiment of her Inside Out character.