Amy Poehler knows her audience. Shortly after taking the stage Tuesday for a live recording of her podcast, Good Hang, she posed a simple question: “How psyched are you that this show is at six o’clock?” The crowd responded with a thundering roar of approval, a wave of elder-millennial enthusiasm that might have been loud enough to prick the ears of a Times Square Elmo harassing tourists several blocks away.
The folks assembled that night—a murder of morning people—had come to New York’s Town Hall theater to see Poehler show off her superpower: corralling other famous people for interviews that are relentlessly positive yet somehow also not boring. Gene Siskel liked to judge movies using a surprisingly difficult-to-pass test: “Is this film more interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch together?” Good Hang dispenses with the film and goes straight to the lunch.
Amy Poehler, Abbi Jacobson, and William Jackson Harper
Spotify
In the 18 months since its debut, Good Hang has earned critical acclaim, a devoted audience—it’s a frequent presence on Spotify’s top podcasts chart, where it currently outranks celebrity-fronted programs including Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert and SmartLess, a show cohosted by Poehler’s ex-husband Will Arnett—and the inaugural Golden Globe for best podcast. Poehler accepted that award this winter with a speech that neatly summarized Good Hang’s ethos: “This is an attempt to try to make a very rough and unkind world filled with a little bit more love and laughter—and laughing with people, not at them.”
The live show’s audience, filled with women in floral maxidresses and bearded men who probably host their own podcasts, was more than ready for love and laughter. (Minus, perhaps, the woman sitting directly in front of me, who spent the moments before the show googling the name “Amy Poehler.”)
They reacted warmly when Poehler revealed her surprise guest: D’Arcy Carden, an alum of The Good Place (created, like the Poehler vehicle Parks and Recreation, by nice-guy showrunner Michael Schur) and Broad City (executive produced by Poehler). They might have been even more excited to learn who Poehler had invited for the show’s first segment, in which she and an also famous friend of her main interviewee “speak well” behind that person’s back, explaining why they are so great: The Good Place’s William Jackson Harper and Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson.
D’Arcy Carden and Amy Poehler.
Spotify
As she chatted with Harper and Jacobson, pushing them to effusively praise Carden, Poehler cracked a joke about what she hoped Carden would get from their conversation: “I just want people to feel like they’re watching their own funeral.” It was the darkest line of the night, and one of few that approached the edge Poehler’s shown in some of her previous work—on SNL, in her hall-of-fame-worthy stints hosting the Golden Globes with her close friend Tina Fey. Poehler voices Joy in the Inside Out movies; on Good Hang, she’s also the embodiment of that emotion. “These are tough times. We’re just trying to have a good laugh,” she told Savannah Guthrie last year while announcing the podcast on the Today show. “I think sometimes we ask women to be teachers and healers. I’m looking for some good, dumb fun.”
Guthrie, for the record, was all for that. “No gurus! Please, I don’t want to learn anything,” she jokingly said to Poehler at the time. “I would like to leave dumber. Can you promise me that?”
Alas, Tuesday’s audience did not leave Town Hall dumber. But as promised, there were no huge revelations either—beyond the realization that good improvisers know how to conduct an entertaining interview. Carden and Poehler had an easy rapport born of their similar backgrounds: In the aughts, Carden was a star student at the Upright Citizens Brigade, a comedy institution cofounded by Poehler. Both women were quick to riff on the last thing the other had just said, following tangents that had them gamely singing a few bars from the opening number of Annie and extolling the virtues of character actor Ann Dowd. They hooted about the gag gift Corden brought Poehler: a plastic piece of corn that, improbably, played arias at the touch of a button. (For just $15, you, too, can own an ear of Opera Corn.)
Their chat was zippy and light, as cozy as the green fisherman’s sweater Poehler wears in Good Hang’s key art. Like good improv, it would also be more fun to watch or listen to than it would be to read about.
At one point, Poehler likened the moment a future comedian realizes they’re funny—and begins to understand that there’s an addictive quality to eliciting laughs—to “when a vampire is born.” It was an apt and evocative turn of phrase, hinting at the potentially unsavory qualities that might drive a person to seek attention professionally. But soon after she said it, she and Carden moved on, turning to Carden’s time starring on Broadway and in Peacock’s airport-novel adaptation The Five Star Weekend. Both of them are big fans of the show’s star, “the adorable, wonderful” Jennifer Garner: “What a peach!” said Poehler. “A peach and a plum,” Carden agreed.
Harper, Jacobson, Poehler, and Carden onstage with the band.
Spotify
Sometimes, a peach and a plum hit the spot. “You are such a good actress: grounded all the way through, deeply funny, and very real,” Poehler told Carden right before their conversation ended. “And I find that to be the same way you show up as a person. It’s very rare.” The appreciation was mutual. A few moments later, Harper and Jacobson returned to the stage to join Poehler and Carden for a group performance of Tom Petty’s “American Girl.”
The final chords rang out; the comedians bid their audience farewell. And as we left, we checked our watches and smiled: It wasn’t even 8 p.m. yet.
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