{"id":429246,"date":"2026-01-24T01:43:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T01:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/429246\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T01:43:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T01:43:10","slug":"wnbas-portland-fire-reunites-portlandia-stars-fred-armisen-and-carrie-brownstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/429246\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA’s Portland Fire Reunites ‘Portlandia’ Stars Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEED TO KNOW
\nIn a new ad, Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen revive a classic Portlandia sketchThe two say it “feels like old times” in the ad, which offers a look at the debut season of the WNBA’s Portland FirePortland was the setting for the duo’s popular absurdist comedy series, which included skits gently poking fun at the laid-back Pacific Northwest city and aired from 2011 to 2018<\/p>\n

Carrie Brownstein<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Fred Armisen<\/a>\u00a0are teaming up once again in Portland \u2014 this time, to announce the Portland Fire’s debut WNBA season.\n<\/p>\n

In a new ad, the\u00a0Portlandia\u00a0stars can be seen at Portland’s Mother Foucault’s Bookshop, with 59-year-old Armisen saying, “It’s so nice to be back” as the two settle in to a table.\n<\/p>\n

“It feels like old times, huh?” Brownstein, 51, responds.\n<\/p>\n

The duo then began to detail all the “new places” that have opened up in Portland \u2014 the setting for the duo’s absurdist IFC series, which included skits gently poking fun at the laid-back Pacific Northwest city and aired from 2011 to 2018.\n<\/p>\n

Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for\u00a0PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter<\/a>\u00a0to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer\u200b\u200b, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“Have you been to the new vegan restaurant?” asks Brownstein. “The food isn’t vegan, but the servers are.”\n<\/p>\n

The conversation then devolves into a one-upmanship, a callback to Portlandia’s recurring “Did You Hear?” skit, with each attempting to impress the other with what they’ve heard about the latest restaurants, bars and shops in town.\n<\/p>\n

But the two are silenced when they learn the Portland Fire are making their WNBA return, with Armisen noting, “They haven’t been a team since 2002.”\n<\/p>\n

“That’s awesome. Portland Fire reignited. Should we get season tickets?” Brownstein then asks, before the season schedule is listed on the screen.\n<\/p>\n

The Fire were the city’s first\u00a0WNBA\u00a0team, though they played just briefly \u2014 from 2000 until it was folded in 2002.\n<\/p>\n

Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein on Portlandia.<\/p>\n

Netflix<\/p>\n

In September 2024, Portland was officially awarded a franchise \u2014 the WNBA’s 15th team \u2014 and announced in July 2025 that it would be named the Portland Fire, reviving the name of the original team.\n<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Oregonian<\/a>, Kimberly Veale, Portland Fire’s senior vice president of marketing and communications, said the team chose to use Armisen and Brownstein to “set the tone.”\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe set out to do something that felt uniquely Portland, and set the tone for our debut season,\u201d she told the outlet. \u201cPortlandia has such a strong connection to this city, and celebrating what it represents for Portland was the perfect way to unveil our schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEED TO KNOW In a new ad, Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen revive a classic Portlandia sketchThe two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-429246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}