How Jon Hamm Made Amy Poehler Laugh After Awful News at SNL: "It Was a Big Swing..."
"I laughed so hard, I probably peed myself," Poehler recalled in her book Yes Please, adding, "I believe that going through crying to laughing adds like five years to your life."
During SNL50: The Anniversary Special's "Audience Q&A" segment, actor Jon Hamm had a burning question for Tina Fey and Amy Poehler: "Am I funny?
The answer, of course, is yes — something Fey and Poehler know well, having co-starred with the 18-time Emmy nominee in 30 Rock episodes and SNL sketches, respectively. But back in 2008, when Hamm hosted Saturday Night Live for his first of three times (four, after his upcoming April 12 episode), Poehler and Hamm had a major ice breaker moment on set that could've gone very wrong. Instead, it just might've sealed a friendship that endures today.
Amy Poehler first recounted the incident in her 2014 memoir, Yes Please (excerpt via Time). The two were on set of a pretaped sketch for Hamm's October 25, 2008 episode, "Don Draper's Guide to Picking Up Women." Poehler wrote that, being due with her first child the day after Hamm's show, "I was huge."
"So I remember saying to my doctor, Dr. G, ‘I’m gonna do the show and I’ll come in Sunday, and maybe we’ll do it Sunday/Monday," Poehler wrote. But after the shoot, she called Dr. G's office and and "the receptionist was crying. I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ and she said, ‘Oh, he passed away last night.’
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Amy Poehler was "hysterically crying" when Jon Hamm made a jaw-dropping joke
"I was due the next day. So it’s my first kid, I’m in a Mad Men outfit, I turn to everybody and I hysterically start crying, and a really pregnant woman crying is terrifying," Poehler wrote. "And it was like the punch line to a joke, it’s like, my doctor just died and I’m due tomorrow."
That's when Hamm stepped up with what he later admitted to Seth Meyers was a "big swing," and unleashed a dry humor that Hamm hadn't gotten to showcase in his breakthrough Mad Men role.
"And Jon Hamm, who I am just getting to know, comes over and puts his hands on my shoulder and is like, ‘This is a really important show for me. I’m gonna need you to get your s---t together.’ And I laughed so hard, I probably peed myself – I believe that going through crying to laughing adds like five years to your life."
With that, a budding friendship was born, with collaborations on screen and off. Hamm appeared as the character Ed on several episodes of Parks and Recreation, and Poehler even co-hosted a joint "losers lounge" Emmys party for those who went home without a trophy in 2013.
Jon Hamm told his side of the story on Late Night with Seth Meyers
Meyers was still in the SNL cast when Hamm first hosted, and he asked Hamm about it during a February 2025 visit to Late Night with Seth Meyers.
"She's sitting next to me in the makeup chair and gets a phone call, and immediately starts heaving sobbing. And I look over, and everybody goes like, 'What...?' You know, this could go a lot of ways," Hamm said. He knows what he said was a "big swing," but it ended in laughter.
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Poehler did wind up missing Hamm's episode that Saturday — because she was giving birth to Archie, her first of two sons with ex-husband Will Arnett. "Which I specifically warned her about!" Hamm joked to Meyers.
Meyers and Hamm also recalled the writers and cast dressing as Mad Men characters to surprise him during the pitch meeting that Tuesday.
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"My favorite recollection of that, [longtime SNL writer] Paula Pell had somehow taped a cigarette to her finger so she could do a bit where she was smoking while she was pitching — so she didn't have to hold it," Hamm said. "But I just kept looking at it like, 'Oh, my God, what have I gotten into?'"
Watch Hamm's "Don Draper's Guide" sketch — featuring the very pregnant Amy Poehler with her belly out of frame — below.
How many times has Jon Hamm been on SNL?
A staggering 18 times, counting all of his cameos — and that doesn't even include his participation in the SNL50 show.
In terms of hosting, he's done it four times: October 25, 2008; January 30, 2010; and October 30, 2010.
Hamm will host for his fourth time with Musical Guest Lizzo on April 12, 2025. In a promo for the episode, the actor shows his range in a soapy SNL parody, "The Saturday Nights of Our Lives."
