Part sketch comedy, part talk show, all Hoosier humor. That’s what’s found in a typical episode of IUSTV’s show “Not Too Late,” a student run production that combines current events and college life to create lighthearted commentary on IU culture.
Part of the entertainment division of IUSTV, “Not Too Late” is one of three entertainment shows within the organization. The first episode of “Not Too Late” premiered Feb. 18, 2018, and currently the show is wrapping up its 15th season, with a new installment of the show starting each semester. Though it can vary, each season generally consists of five to six episodes.
IU senior Mikayla Taylor has been involved in “Not Too Late” since their junior year. As a Spanish major, Taylor said it had never been their plan to make “Not Too Late” part of their collegiate career but their friends already working on the show motivated them to join. Taylor said that it was the fun environment and passionate members of IUSTV that not only kept them at “Not Too Late” but piqued their interest in media enough to add a Media School minor to their degree.
“I ended up declaring a minor in media, sex and gender just so I could spend more time in Franklin Hall,” Taylor said. “I genuinely love getting to interact with media in the way I do, and I don't think I would have gotten that opportunity had I never joined.”
The typical timeline for an episode takes place over the course of two to three weeks, with meetings every Tuesday and Thursday. The first week’s Tuesday and Thursday meetings are dedicated to pitching ideas and coming up with different characters that they can include in the episode. The script is finished at the next Tuesday meeting and then filmed during their studio time that final Thursday.
From the start of each new semester, taping days are planned ahead which gives the team a good outline on how the schedule should be laid out. As a junior producer on the show, Taylor has helped coordinate many of these tapings.
“As a junior producer, if I am assigned to produce an episode, I typically print scripts and bring any supplies mentioned in our meetings that we might possibly need,” Taylor said. “I also usually do playback in the control room, so I make sure the episode is actually being recorded.”
While this year “Not Too Late” has gotten around two hours to tape their episodes, in the past they have not been as lucky. Taylor said that having even less time to film presents the added challenge of meeting tight deadlines. This can be especially difficult when they are trying to work with different groups around Bloomington as their tight schedule doesn’t always align with other organizations.
Events like “Chicken Man” and “Pizza Man” are amongst the ideas that took longer to organize, going as far as taking a few months, since there was a lot more collaboration involved. IU sophomore John Carter, who is set to be the host of “Not Too Late” next season, brought up the idea for “Chicken Man” in fall 2024.
Pitched as IUSTV’s way of “changing the culture of IU,” the event gained enough traction for Pizza X to reach out to “Not Too Late” with ideas for a follow up event. After expressing their initial interest and taking some time to workshop the idea with a representative of Pizza X, Carter and the “Not Too Late” team were able to make the “Pizza Man” event a reality. Carter said it was these kinds of events that helped build a larger fan base around “Not Too Late” this past year.
“The first Chicken Man competition event that we did turned out better than we could have imagined at the time,” Carter said. “It was especially fun to do something that was outside of our usual studio and the usual people that we attract. Just to see a lot more people having eyes on the show was really awesome.”
But at its core, so much of the show is made up of the ideas pitched and written by their staff. Among those staff members is IU sophomore Delia Bratton. Currently a writer and producer, Bratton joined “Not Too Late” at the beginning of her freshman year after being introduced to the show at the fall Involvement Fair. Currently a literary adaptations major through IUs individualized major program, the idea of writing for a “Saturday Night Live”-type show was the main draw for Bratton.
In the writers’ meetings collaboration is a key element. Bratton said they will typically work in several small groups to brainstorm ideas before pitching them to everyone. From there they all work together to write the episode so that when it is filmed, edited and released to the public, everyone can see a piece of their work in the finished product. According to Bratton, seeing her hard work performed for people to see is somewhat of a mind-blowing experience.
“It’s so exciting,” Bratton said. “Even if we don't get like thousands and thousands of views on a video, just seeing something I came up with in my own mind be created and put on a big screen or on a major platform like YouTube still makes me feel really proud and really impressed with how much we could do as just a campus group.”
This feeling of being proud of “Not Too Late” and the work created there is one shared amongst staff both past and present. At least that’s the case for IU alumna and former IUSTV Entertainment Executive Producer Lily Schairbaum.
Currently, Schairbaum is a green room assistant on the late-night talk show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” but before working on the ABC show, she was heavily involved in “Not Too Late” as a writer and producer. Looking back, Schairbaum said she credits most of the skills she uses in her job now to “Not Too Late” and encourages anyone interested in working on an entertainment show in the future to take advantage of the opportunities presented at IU.
“Just the fact that you can put on your resume that you technically worked at a late-night show already is so rare, and I feel like that opportunity is not easily accessible,” Schairbaum said. “I think it truly prepared me. It taught me everything I know and I'm so grateful for that experience.”
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to include a source's accurate pronouns.
