Amy Poehler recently opened up about her time on Saturday Night Live—and in the process, the actress made a bold admission about some of her old sketches.
During a chat with her former SNL co-star Will Forte on her podcast Good Hang With Amy Poehler, the comedian, 53, confessed that the NBC series “got things wrong” many ways years ago.
From 2001 to 2008, Poehler portrayed countless off-the-wall characters, while Forte’s run lasted from 2002 to 2010.
“There are so many things that I look back now and I go—you think, ‘Oh, it’s all about getting a laugh,’” Forte, 55, said of the show.
“Agree,” Poehler replied. “That’s the part about getting older and being in comedy, is you have to figure out everything has an expiration date.”
The Parks and Recreation actress specifically brought up the “In Memoriam” segment during February’s SNL50: The Anniversary Special, which called out problematic characters and moments in past SNL sketches.
“They had that segment, which was like, ‘Here’s all the ways we got things wrong,’” Poehler recounted. “And they showed way inappropriate casting for people. We all played people that we should not have played.”
To that, she then confessed, “I misappropriated. I appropriated. I didn’t know. I did know.”
She added, “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.”
Meanwhile, Tom Hanks, who introduced the cringey SNL look-back during the 50th anniversary episodes, made a valid observation.
“Even though these characters, accents, and let’s just call them ethnic wigs were unquestionably in poor taste, you all laughed at them,” he pointed out. “So if anyone should be canceled, shouldn’t it be you, the audience? Something to think about.”
During her SNL run, a few of Poehler’s more eyebrow-raising impressions included Yoko Ono, Michael Jackson and Kim Jong-il. Other problematic practices through the years included cast members wearing blackface—something Jimmy Kimmel publicly apologized for doing in 2020.
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