MU Tonight goes Live

Last November, MUTV students pitched an idea to their associates that was much different than the typical weekly news spiel. They wanted to do something The University of Missouri had never done before; launch a student-led nighttime TV show on campus. Producer Gabe Dubois sent out a campaign email just a few weeks later to all departments of the newsroom regarding the show. One of the recipients of the email was Haley Broughton, who had worked in the MUTV entertainment department years prior.

 

“We got this email last fall telling us how they wanted to start a really cool new talk show,” Broughton said. “They said it was going to be unlike anything we’ve done before.”

 

Broughton and dozens of other MUTV students met just a week before Christmas break to talk logististics. Everyone was encouraged to brainstorm over the break and to return to the next meeting ready to pitch sketch ideas. Come 2016, their late-night idea would become a reality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Motive to create the show came from a similar piece students at The University of South Carolina produced in 2015. MUTV members saw that clip and immediately ideas began to spark of their own. Following the break, the crew met every Monday to work on the show, starting from the ground up. The style the writing team wanted to imitate was a hint of Jimmy Fallon with a college student edge.

 

“We wanted to make it funny while making as many people feel included as possible,” Broughton said. “I wanted to write the news in a comedic way so that people were able to connect with it during the show.”

 

Joining the team later on was improv student Cameron Leopold. At the time of Leopold's arrival, the team had broken off into different sections to work on specific elements of the show. Leopold joined the writing team with approximately 15 other students. The MU Tonight crew continued to meet together every Monday, with individual section meetings throughout the week. Every Friday leading up to the show, the writing team met in the MUTV conference room to discuss story ideas, write scripts, and finalize sketches.

 

“It was difficult getting started on writing the script with so many voices and writing styles,” Leopold said. “It was hard for everyone to get on the same page at first. But after a couple meetings, the group got into the same groove when pitching script ideas.”

 

Although the writing team was the main source of script production, anyone on the MU Tonight team could submit ideas. Leopold said that allowing anyone to contribute to the script made the show more versatile and not the result of a one man’s work. Monday meetings allotted time for team members outside of the writing crew to pitch any ideas they came up with throughout the week. The following Friday, the designated writers would discuss and tweak the pitched ideas. MU Tonoght host Lily FitzGibbon sat in on all the writing crew’s meetings to help with ideas and the manage flow of the script.

 

“When you’re writing a show for one person, it’s hard to capture their voice,” Broughton said. “It was really important to have Lily there so we could write to her style.”

 

Plans for another show are already under way for the fall. Leopold said that many of the scripts that were not used in the first show will be saved and recycled for next semester. He said that many of the scripts the crew wrote were not used simply due to lack of time. MU Tonight hopes to do a total of six shows next year, three each semester.

 

“It’s awesome because after the first show we learned how to work all The Shack equipment,” Broughton said. “Now we’ve gotten over all the technical hurdles and now we’re ready to make this bigger and better.”