Saturday Night Live has become a well-oiled machine of bringing up some of the greatest names in comedy. And with SNL 50 fully finished in the 2025 TV guide books, we’ve really seen it all. The historic Saturday night show’s stars have had plenty of infamous Studio 8H moments, sketches that went awry, and certainly some that didn’t age well. Amy Poehler weighs in on the dated angle and shares her feelings about it all.
The Parks and Rec star had fellow alum and pal Will Forte as a guest on her podcast, Good Hang with Amy Poehler. There, the two shared some good laughs and covered a lot of ground, including the NBC reunion limited series (available to stream with a Peacock subscription), which highlighted this topic of aged skits. Poehler highlighted how the special showcased decades worth of young comedians on the show playing people out of their range, in her words:
They had that segment, which was like, 'Here's all the ways we got things wrong.' And they showed way inappropriate casting for people. We all played people that we should not have played.
SNL 50: Beyond Saturday Night Live’s four episodes truly covered a lot of surprising ground from auditions to the writers' room. And the spotlight the Inside Out actress detailed was one of the more tangible elements audiences could recognize, since many of the personas made it to live TV.
Poehler then opened up and got real about realizing how many times an SNL character didn’t have true legs to stand on, due to a specific comedic take. But as she came to learn and more fully recognize the missteps, she has a very positive way to move ahead, saying:
I misappropriated. I appropriated. I didn't know. I did know. It's very real, and the best thing you can do is make repair, learn from your mistakes, do better — it's all you can do.
The frank outlook is very on-brand for the funnywoman. She’s always been one to jump in head first, learn from the experience and move ahead with new knowledge. I’m not surprised by the how she's gone about it, and I'm glad for her that she’s maneuvering within the subject with intentionality that works for her.
Then, Poehler added her pointed thoughts about growing up within the world of comedy, sharing:
The part about getting older and being in comedy, is you have to figure out: Everything has an expiration date.
The thought is a thought-provoking one, that’s for sure. But it seems to have helped cement her rank in the ever-changing and developing realm of joke tellers. Alongside her personal trajectory, Saturday Night Live’s stylings have evolved, too.
We’ll have to wait and see what SNL will bring us this fall (aside from the 30 Rock icon who’s retiring), as the show and alumni like Poehler continue to move past those bits that didn’t age well.
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