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Parks and Recreation

Following the success of The Office, NBC ordered a new series from producers Greg Daniels and Michael Schur. Schur and Poehler were friends from their time together at SNL where Schur worked as a writer. In July 2008, Variety magazine reported that Poehler was in final negotiations to star in a series from Daniels and Schur, set to air on Thursdays before The Office, starting January 2009 on NBC. Signing Poehler, who was pregnant with her first child, meant the new series would have to forgo a promised post-Super Bowl debut and cut its first season short, but Daniels and Schur chose to push back the series for Poehler. On July 21, 2008, NBC announced Poehler's new series, Parks and Recreation, saying the project would not be a direct spin-off of The Office, as previously speculated.

Poehler joined an ensemble cast including Aziz Ansari, Rashida Jones, Chris Pratt, Aubrey Plaza, Paul Schneider, Nick Offerman, and at the end of season two, Adam Scott, and Rob Lowe. Poehler plays Deputy Director of the Parks Department, Leslie Knope, in the fictional city of Pawnee, Indiana. After the first season received mixed reception, the show's second season received more positive reviews. One key change between seasons one and two was to distinguish the character of Leslie from Michael Scott, the central of The Office. Parks decidedly down-played Leslie's wackiness from season 1 and instead emphasized her intelligence, work ethic, and earnest nature. The third, fourth and fifth seasons were also well received by critics, and Poehler received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for her role. Poehler was featured in The Advocate for her role in the show.

Poehler wrote four episodes of the series, the first being "Telethon" in season two. Her second was the episode entitled "The Fight", which aired on May 12, 2011. She both wrote and directed the season four episode "The Debate", for which she received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series and the Writers Guild of America Award for Television: Episodic Comedy. She co-wrote the final episode of the series, "One Last Ride" with co-creator Michael Schur, which aired on February 24, 2015.

Poehler was again nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy in 2011. She sent the episode "Flu Season" as her submission, but lost to Melissa McCarthy of Mike and Molly. She was nominated an additional two times in 2012, for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy (having submitted the episode "Win, Lose, or Draw"), as well as Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for "The Debate". She lost the former to Julia Louis-Dreyfus of Veep, and the latter to Louis C.K. of Louie. She was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy in 2013. In 2014, she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Series – Comedy at the 71st Golden Globe Awards, which she co-hosted with Tina Fey.

In 2011, the show won a Peabody Award for "developing a hilarious venue to explore the good side of American democracy in an age when that side is so rarely on display".