Amy Poehler may be another celebrity-turned-podcaster who enjoys submerging herself in cold water in the mornings, but that doesn’t mean she’s interested in that great obsession of modern culture, self-improvement. Her new show, Good Hang, was conceived in opposition to the wellness and therapy-adjacent shows out there that promise to make us “better” people.
Instead, she promises us a low-stakes, high-comedy hour with other comedians and friends, with absolutely nothing instructive smuggled in. Each episode contains an interview – guests so far include Poehler’s longtime “comedy wife” Tina Fey, her Parks and Recreation co-star Rashida Jones, and the great Martin Short – preceded by a short conversation about the guest with a panel of other comics who know them. The conversations aren’t particularly deep or self-congratulatory: they are breezy, funny and light.
Poehler and Fey discuss touring together, their shared dislikes (rich celebrities with “side hustles” and brand deals, being humourlessly “roasted” by Harvard “nerds”) and their workaholic tendencies. She and Short discuss the rich history of Saturday Night Live and Short’s on-again-off-again relationship with fellow (original) cast member Gilda Radner. She and Jones reminisce about the years they spent together filming Parks and Rec and the pressure of an exceptionally successful parent (Jones’s father was the composer and producer Quincy Jones).
But some of the show’s best moments are its silliest: there are chaotic scenes, such as when Short teases Poehler about her collection of objects that look like food, then ridicules this show-and-tell tangent as inappropriate for an audio medium. Funniest of all is when Poehler’s Saturday Night Live co-comic Rachel Dratch joins a group video call and is assailed by tangled headphones, a dying microphone battery, a ringing doorbell and a barking dog.
Good Hang
The Ringer
[See also: David Hockney writ large]
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This article appears in the 10 Apr 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Spring Special 2025