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'Parks' stars looking on the bright side of show's ending

“I'm always excited about what's next.”

So says Amy Poehler, and it's time for her to focus on that as “Parks and Recreation” reaches the end of its road. NBC's local-government comedy series wraps up its seven-season run with an hour-long finale Tuesday, Feb. 24, but Poehler's intrigue about moving on doesn't mean she won't long for her longtime alter ego: Leslie Knope, who progressed from being a city employee of fictional Pawnee, Indiana, to a regional director of the U.S. National Park Service.

“One of the things I'm going to miss the most is like hearing what's going to happen to Leslie next year,” allows “Saturday Night Live” veteran and recent Golden Globe Awards co-host Poehler. “You know, we would have a summer discussion about it, and Mike (series executive producer and co-creator Mike Schur) would be like, ‘I think she's going to run for office.' You knew this was going to happen, and I'm going to really miss that.”

Schur reflects, “We launched in 2009, and we hung on by the skin of our teeth for a good, long while there. And I think all that really matters, ultimately, is whether any show can find a group of people that the show speaks to who watch it all the time and who really care about it and who are vocal about caring about it. We were lucky enough to have that situation.”

Over the course of “Parks and Recreation's” run, Chris Pratt — alias the show's Andy Dwyer — has become a major movie star, thanks particularly to last year's “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Reportedly now under serious consideration to be the big screen's new Indiana Jones, Pratt maintains his leaving the sitcom before it ended “would never happen.”

“I've been (in) this business for 15 years,” the husband of CBS' “Mom” star Anna Faris says, “and I'm realizing the things that really matter about what you're doing, for me at least, (are) just the relationships you have while you're doing it. ... I hope that possibly, I could have the good fortune of finding another group of people like this, but I don't expect I ever will.”

Rashida Jones, Adam Scott and Rob Lowe are among others who have been significant players on “Parks and Recreation.” For those who've been there virtually from start to finish, though — also including Nick Offerman (iconic in his own right as Parks and Recreation department boss Ron Swanson), Aziz Ansari, Jim O'Heir, Aubrey Plaza and Retta — the end is especially bittersweet.

Poehler leaves the show being appreciative that it has “a lot of really young fans. I can't tell you how many people have 15-, 16 year-old kids who watch it with them. I think that's really great to have a show you both find funny. It must be nice to find one thing that you agree on that's funny. So there's, like, a family element to the watching of the show that's been really nice.”

Leslie (Amy Poehler), Ben (Adam Scott) and the gang say goodbye as NBC's "Parks and Recreation" ends its run on Feb. 24.

“Parks and Recreation”

Series finale airs at 9 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 24, on NBC

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