Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Have a Special Tradition When Touring Together

Christy Piña
·2 min read
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Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have been friends for decades, dating back to the start of their comedy careers in Chicago in the 1990s.

Fey began writing for Saturday Night Live in 1997, eventually becoming the show’s first female head writer. Poehler joined as a castmember in 2001, and together, they eventually became the first female duo to host the sketch comedy series’ “Weekend Update.”

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Since their SNL days, the women have gone on to star in films together like Mean Girls, Baby Mama and Sisters. They’ve also written memoirs with full chapters dedicated to their friendship. And to this day, SNL is still something they do together.

“If [we have a show on] a Saturday, we go to our room, and we watch SNL from the hotel room,” Fey told Sunday Today’s Willie Geist in a preview clip for their full sit-down interview that airs Jan. 14. “We love watching it together. If we’re not together, we’ll live-text during it.”

She continued, “It’s like someone who played sports, like, ‘Oh, I see. You know what? I bet this moved up from dress.’ And we root for everybody. That is very true. And the head writer in me is always like, ‘Huh. Interesting. Maybe the game could’ve been clearer.'”

Fey joked that her children always tell her she ruins things for them because she always looks at SNL and other TV shows and films from an analytical perspective.

She and Poehler kicked off the Restless Leg Tour in April 2023 in Washington, D.C., and have since done shows in cities including Boston, Chicago, Denver, Austin, Las Vegas, Atlanta and San Francisco. This year, they’ll do their first shows in New York and potentially Los Angeles at a later date.

The stops along the live comedy tour tend to happen on weekends, so the women can be home with their families during the week and handle their individual professional obligations, before hitting new cities on the weekends.

“It’s such a paid mom’s weekend because we go there, we’re like, where should we — I hear there’s interesting vintage shopping in whatever city we go to. And then we have like a nice lunch,” Fey explained in the teaser for the weekend morning show, before jokingly adding, “Just like [Chris] Rock and [Dave] Chappelle.”

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