The History of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s Best Friendship

This Sunday's Golden Globes will be a celebration of TV, movies, globes, free hooch, and foreign journalists — but more important, it will be a celebration of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's twenty years of being "Tina and Amy," best friends who coincidentally became two of TV's most beloved comic actresses. And even though we've only really known them for about half that time, it feels like forever, as often happens with paldom. Their best friendship is our best friendship. It reminds us that people are kind and funny and able to photobomb each other. So, let us walk you through the history of mankind's greatest friendship since Jesus and whichever apostle he liked best. 

1993: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler meet in an improv class at Chicago's ImprovOlympic.

Amy Poehler: "I remember Tina Fey wrote a play about Catherine the Great fucking a horse and I thought, 'That lady is hot stuff, I wanna know her.'"

Tina Fey: "Yes, yes. I used to take playwriting classes, and I wrote a one-act play — I can't remember the name of it, but it was really about the way women are perceived as leaders. In the play, Catherine the Great would say things like, 'You know, John F. Kennedy had extramarital affairs and no one says anything. But I bang one horse and now I'm a horse banger for all eternity? That's it? That's what I am?' I think Hillary Clinton's got to be able to relate to that."

Co-founder of ImprovOlympic Charna Halpern: “They were just instantly brilliant ... They were not the typical women who get steamrolled by men. [They] were no shrinking violets. They were bold and ballsy and fearless.”

Amy: "Actually, we met in class at the ImprovOlympic Theater. You taught me my first real beauty lesson."

Tina: "I was 22 or 23, and I had only recently learned that you can pluck your eyebrows or have a lady put hot wax on them and remove portions of them and shape them. So this was a big thing that happened to me, and I passed that information on to you."

Amy: "Back then, I used to get my hair dyed at a place called Big Hair. It cost $15. They just used straight bleach, so my hair was the color of white lined paper, and my eyebrows looked like they were done with a thick black marker."

Together they help start the improv team Inside Vladimir.

Executive vice-president of Second City Kelly Leonard: "They were inseparable walking around, and kept trying to get put in casts together.”

They perform together in the Second City Touring Company, along with Ali Farahnakian, Rachel Hamilton, Bill Chott, Pat McCartney, and others.

1996: Amy moves to New York with her sketch group, the Upright Citizens Brigade, freeing up a spot for Tina in one of the Second City main companies.

Tina (from Bossypants): "However, I must say, as a point of pride, that I didn't get the job because I was a woman. I got the job because Amy Poehler moved to New York with the Upright Citizens Brigade and I was the next best thing."

1997: Tina moves to New York to write on Saturday Night Live. She commonly performs with Amy in ASSSSCAT, the Upright Citizens Brigade's weekly improv show.

1999: Tina appears briefly in an episode of the second season of the Upright Citizens Brigade TV show.

September 2001: Amy joins Saturday Night Live.

Tina (from Bossypants): "I was so happy. Weirdly, I remember thinking, 'My friend is here! My friend is here!' Even though things had been going great for me at the show, with Amy there, I felt less alone."

March 2002: Tina and Amy appear in the film Martin & Orloff, along with just about every other Chicago improv/UCB alum of their generation.

April 2004: Amy appears in Mean Girls, a film starring and written by Tina.

September 2004: Tina and Amy become the first female co-anchors of "Weekend Update." It is super great. 

September 2005: Tina appears with Amy in the one-hour ASSSSCAT special on Bravo. 

April 2008: Tina and Amy appear on the cover of Vanity Fair and are prominently featured in the story about women in comedy.

Lorne Michaels : “Amy and Tina have transcended [the classic pretty girl/ugly friend roles]. Neither is pinned down to that archetype — either one could play either role.”

April 2008: Baby Mama is released, starring Amy and Tina. 

Maybe even better than the movie was the lovable press tour they did together.

In Marie Claire, Amy: "Being a tough, capable broad has never been easy — look at us. Although we did have a lot of fun on Baby Mama. Boy, did we play a lot of pranks on each other."

Tina: "We love pranks. I mean, we're kind of like Cloons and Damon that way, doing a lot of, like, $250,000 pranks. I did a really funny prank where I got my assistant to paint all the cars in your neighborhood white so you would wake up and think it was snowing. That was a good one."

Amy: "I had an assistant fill your trailer with rats on Christmas Eve, and we laughed. Oh, the pranks."

Tina: "So much pranking." 

May 2008: Oprah!

September 2008: Tina guests on SNL to introduce her Sarah Palin impression. As she later wrote about the experience in Bossypants: "The whole experience was surprisingly serene...Maybe it was because I was safe at the side of my sweet friend Amy."

A pregnant Amy: "I don't care if it's a girl or a boy, I want it to marry Alice Richmond, Tina's daughter. We'd make a lovely mother and mother-in-law of the bride."

Soon after, they kill at the Emmys.

Tina on Amy: "Not only is she not afraid to look silly, she's not afraid to let you throw her in the air like a basketball and catch her."  

April 2009: Parks and Recreation premieres, joining 30 Rock on NBC's Thursday nights. Amy and Tina come to define the lineup over the next four years.

April 2011: Tina Fey's book, Bossypants, debuts, featuring a chapter dedicated to Amy Poehler entitled: "I Don't Care If You Like It (One in a series of love letters to Amy Poehler."

Amy on Tina: “Please, no. I am not amazed [Tina wrote a book while balancing the rest of her life]. Look, if she sets her mind to it, it gets done. Tina is not the kind of artist who makes people wait around and misses her deadlines. She’s a finisher. (And I mean that in the sexual sense.)"

Tina: "Admire. I admire Amy Poehler." 

Amy on Tina: “She’s the same way back then as she is now, which is really, really funny and incredibly hard-working and a very supportive and loyal friend. But she was a lot less rich. That was the only difference: she was like 100 percent less rich.”

August 2011: Tina's second daughter, Penelope, is born. It's no coincidence that Amy has two sons and Tina two daughters. They will all eventually marry and spawn the future's funniest people.

April 2012: Amy plays Tina in a cutaway during the live episode of 30 Rock.

October 2012: It's announced that Amy and Tina will host the 2013 Golden Globes. It is the best news.

October 2012: Amy and Tina's friendship is so widely known and beloved that it's auctioned off for charity for an evening. They raise $72,000 and weep "while watching Katy Perry perform." 

January 2013: Amy and Tina host the Golden Globes. Our love for them and their love for each other hits a new peak. 

The sign of their ultimate friendship? They even wear the same shoes.