A few weeks back, NBC renewed "Parks and Recreation" before any of its other Thursday comedies, citing specific issues with production and actors' schedules. Now we know what the specific issue was: Amy Poehler is pregnant again, and she and Will Arnett are expecting their second baby in late summer. Production for season three will be accelerated so they can shoot as much as they can before Poehler goes on maternity leave. (The series launch was itself complicated because of the birth of Poehler's first baby, which happened in between her "SNL" departure and when she could start playing Leslie Knope.)
Now, given when Poehler's due, she'll definitely be showing for many of the episodes they film over the next few months, which leads to one of those age-old sitcom dilemmas: how best to hide the baby?
Some shows resort to big purses, or keeping characters seated behind desks at all times. There was an episode of "Cheers" where Shelley Long was stuck in the bar's ventilation ducts for the whole half-hour. "How I Met Your Mother" had to deal with two pregnant actresses last year and decided to embrace the ridiculousness of the gimmick, hiding Alyson Hannigan behind things like a rack of basketballs. "Frasier" did perhaps my least favorite take on this: when Jane Leeves got pregnant, they did a storyline where Daphne just got really, really fat.
Does anybody have a favorite hide-the-belly gimmick from an old show? And/or a suggestion for a means inside the world of Pawnee to keep Leslie's tummy obscured?
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