Amy Poehler has been played hundreds of different characters since joining “Saturday Night Live” in 2001 and now she’s content to settle for just one.

“I was excited about the idea of turning the volume down a little bit and sit with a character,” said Poehler in shifting her sensibilities from latenight to primetime in the new untitled Greg Daniels sitcom set to launch on April 9.

Daniels, creator of “The Office,” and co-creator/exec producer Michael Schur, says the show will be similar to the Steve Carell starrer in that it will offer the make fun of the mundane. Skein centers around Poehler’s character, Leslie Knope, a midlevel bureaucrat in the Parks and Recreation department of Pawnee, Ind.

“It’s based on Santa Monica city council meetings,” he explained. “That kid of world. We intend to populate it with fun personalities and the conflicts that occur. It’s about  decisionmaking on a local level.”

In coming up with ideas, Daniels said he was looking to stay in the comfort zone of “The Office,” and not populate a world of flash and substance.

“We would sit and think of shows and say, ‘No that’s too glamorous.’ We wanted something more boring.”

Even though this mockumentary is up and running, that doesn’t mean a spinoff to “The Office” is out of the question. He won’t be able to participate on a day-to-day basis, but he’s still interested in the concept.

“I am talking to people at ‘The Office’ for another idea and to Stephen Merchant (creative partner of Ricky Gervais),” Daniels explained. “I think it would be cool to produce it without me giving my blood.”

As for Poehler, this will certainly keep her busy as well, and she doesn’t anticipate returning to the sketch comedy show that made her a star. And she was certainly appreciative of the musical sendoff the folks at “SNL” gave her at the end of that night’s Weekend Update.

“I watched it from my hospital bed with my son,” she recalled. He was born at 6 p.m. and I watched it at 11:30. I was uncontrollably sobbing. You really become a family and to have been there during an amazing season and for my friends to do such a tribute was very emotional and beautiful.”

-- Stuart Levine

A spinoff of "The Office"? That's the big news outta NBC today as the Peacock makes good on its promise to reinvent the upfront process with its way-early announcement of its sked for the next 65 years, er, weeks.

A "Son of 'Office'" project has been rumored about for some time, and I have to admit I'm very skeptical...but of course will reserve judgment and give Greg Daniels and Co. the benefit of the doubt until we hear more about it.

12:30 p.m. update: Per NBC, the new show will be "another comic journey, complete with new faces and new locations," which suggests that none of the current "Office" workers will be extracted from the Scranton branch, at least not for the purposes of the spinoff. New skein will launch after Peacock's Super Bowl telecast in February, right behind a fresh seg of "Office." Of this development, Daniels said in a canned statement: "Who would have ever thought that Americans would be subjected to a mock-documentary after the Super Bowl? What has happened to this country?"

Other good news from today's announcement is that the glorious "Friday Night Lights" will live to play another season. Whoo-hoo. Variety's Joe Adalian has all the details on NBC's plans right here.

For anyone who wants to test-drive the experience of being a television writer, Matt Selman has an easy solution.

Get a group of your most sarcastic friends together in a room, preferably windowless, and try to make each other laugh by outdoing one another with a steady stream of the most offensive, sophomoric and vulgar set of jokes and set-ups that you can possibly imagine -- things that could never air on TV, not even pay cable. Add in lots of takeout food and soft drinks and repeat for a few weeks on end. If your heart soars and body tingles every time you make the room snicker, you just might be cut out to be a television writer.

At least that's the quick-and-easy career counseling that Selman (pictured right), an Emmy-winning scribe for "The Simpsons" and co-writer of "The Simpsons Movie," offered Tuesday night during the "Sublime Primetime" dish sesh with a clutch of Emmy-nommed scribes, hosted by the WGA West and Variety at the Writers Guild Theater in BevHills.

"Don't wait for the industry to give you money," Selman instructed. "Take any opportunity to (try writing). The joy of writing is just as fun to do ... if you're on the worst show on television or the best show...Find a group of friends and make each other laugh. Riff off each other. Go on super-offensive runs about degrading subjects."