First Tina Fey exited, and now her good friend and writing partner Amy Poehler will leave Saturday Night Live for both personal and professional reasons. Poehler is due to give birth to her first child with fellow comedian, Arrested Development star Will Arnett, in November. At that time, she has stated she will not be coming back to SNL, but instead will focus on her new mom role, and will also star in a new spin off of the NBC hit show “The Office.”

Amy Poehler is spreading her small screen wings and flying away. She says she will take a break from “Saturday Night Live” after the November election to give birth to her first child.

“It’s gonna be really hard — Boyz II Men hard — to say goodbye to yesterday,” Amy says in the new issue of Men’s Vogue. ” ‘SNL’ was dangerous, late-night, last-minute and star-studded, but like any good drug, you need to know when to put it down.”

And it gets worse, or better, depending on your point of view. She’s not coming back to “SNL” after maternity leave. Instead Poehler is preparing to star in her own NBC series from the executive producers of “The Office.” At least we have that to look forward to.

And there’s always Poehler’s animated kids’ show “The Mighty B!” in which she portrays overachieving Honeybee scout Bessie Higgenbottom. We have yet to tune into it, but we may have to now.

[From The LA Times]

By the way – “The Mighty B!” is hilarious.

Fey and Poehler broke down some major gender barriers at “Saturday Night Live,” a show that has been a notorious Old Boys Club since day one. For decades, talented comediennes like Gilda Radner, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jan Hooks were relegated to second-banana status – until the Fey-Poehler writing powerhouse took over. With both of them gone from the show, it looks like the mantle will be passed on to funny lady Kristen Wiig to keep things going. Poehler will definitely be missed- her daffy characters, such as “Amber, the One-Legged Hypoglycemic” and her dead-on impersonations of such celebs as Hilary Clinton, Sharon Osbourne and “Project Runway” winner Christian Siriano are classics.

Amy Poehler and Will Arnett are shown The Fresh Air Fund “Salute to American Heros” at Tavern on the Green in NY on 6/5/08. Credit: Mark Dye / PR Photos