Everything about Amy Poehler is impishly angelic. This delightful juxtaposition runs deeply through her comedy, as well, starting with the stark contrast between her appearance and love of raunchy humor. A Massachusetts native, expletives come naturally to her. She follows each shocking and Boston-accented “f*ckin’ asshole” (words she has uttered on many talk shows, to the audience’s delight) with a full-bodied and gleeful laugh. “Poehler’s laugh begins as a chuckle and crescendos to a side-splitting guffaw,” describes Sean Evans of the Daily News. However, her adorableness is not cloyingly sweet nor that of a girlish people-pleaser, but rather a misleading outer appearance that makes her raunchiness and ridiculousness all the more comedic. x

happy birthday, amy! (16.09.1971)