Aubrey Plaza and Amy Poehler reunite on 'SNL' for 'Parks and Rec' sketch

Aubrey Plaza made her hosting debut last night on “Saturday Night Live” alongside musical guest, Sam Smith.

The show on Jan. 21 was full of surprise cameos, including Plaza’s former “Parks and Recreation” co-star and “SNL” alum, Amy Poehler.

During the show’s “Weekend Update” segment, Plaza and Poehler appeared behind the desk not as themselves, but rather as their "Parks and Rec" characters April Ludgate and Leslie Knope to talk about what they know best: working for their local government.

“Everybody should get involved where they live,” Plaza said. “If you’re young, you should get a job as a garbage man or something.”

When co-anchor Colin Jost inquired if there were other job options for individuals in the local government, Plaza side-eyed the comedian, adding, “You want me to list them? Okay, fine. Drive a bus. You don’t have to be on time, nobody cares. Work for the water department, you can drain the reservoir and find all the bodies and murder clues. Or just be a dogcatcher and just say you couldn’t find any.”

“Because when you look for the local government, doing the bare minimum is doing your part,” she said.

Jost inquired what someone should do if they wanted to work hard at the job, a question which prompted her to bring out Pawnee, Indiana, local government superfan, Leslie Knope.

Poehler appeared behind the desk, but rather than talk about local government, she was more interested in discussing “SNL” and asking Jost her own questions about the show. Even when the comedian tried to turn the conversation back to the original topic by asking what it takes to run a federal agency, Poehler gave a generic response before saying she’d rather pick Jost’s brain on his own job.

“I used to watch this when Seth Meyers did it by himself with no one else and he made it look really easy” Poehler, who anchored the segment for several seasons during the aughts, said to Jost.

By the end of the segment, Poehler still hadn’t contributed to the original conversation, but did get to swap spots with Jost to deliver the last joke for “Weekend Update.”

After deeming two other jokes “too mean,” Poehler picked an option well-suited for Knope, expertly delivering her joke to the camera: “A town in Alaska has launched a bus service for puppies. The service has expanded to puppies thanks to the heroic activism of canine civil rights icon, Rosa Barks.”

Poehler also appeared as herself during the show’s monologue. Plaza ran into her former co-star backstage at “SNL” while she was giving a live tour of Studio 8H, a throwback to her early days in the NBC Page Program.

The “White Lotus” star has spoken about her experiences as an NBC page, including telling Conan O’Brien on his podcast in August 2022 that she would often tell lies when giving tours of his studio, which she echoed in her inaccurate tour during the monologue.

She also opened up about auditioning for “SNL” and her time as an intern in the show's design department from 2004 to 2005 during a recent appearance on “The Tonight Show.”

“They loved me because I did not care about set design at all and they wanted an intern that had no interest in learning what they did because they were moody b-------,” Plaza told host Jimmy Fallon, another “SNL” alum. “In fact, their office was labeled ‘The Moody Room.’ They were so grumpy.”

When Fallon asked if she had gotten to talk to the cast at all while she was an intern, Plaza said she was mostly “lurking in the shadows,” adding, “I was a creepy stalker. Now I’m gonna host it, so my master plan worked!”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com