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When you walk into the office of Stephen Colbert, your eyes dance around the room at what makes this poignant comedian so important to the landscape of late night television. A framed picture of Steve Martin’s floating head sits a top a row of political cartoons. There are awards adorning shelves, campaign buttons dating back to the Eisenhower era, and a few nods to Tolkien.

A sign taped to a window looking out over Broadway read, “STAY STRONG.” Behind the desk sat a man dressed in what he described as “dad” clothes, a far cry from the polished high-brow host. Across from him sat six high school seniors from Prosper High School, a little star struck, but eager to learn the secret to comedy to take back to their broadcast program.

The Mid-Morning After 10 But Still Just Before Lunch Show premiered Sept. 15, 2016. The show would be a first of its kind for the scholastic news program at Prosper.

As a way to expand the landscape of television for students and teach journalism through comedy, the students pushed for the creation of something unique. Rather than add comedy sketches to the live daily broadcast, as many schools do, the students pushed for a separate show dedicated to the style.

“All of us on the show have been doing broadcast news since we started high school,” senior producer Cutter Nielsen said. “We all wanted to make comedy sketches or music videos, but it didn’t fit within our format. This show gave us the opportunity to do something we all loved: making our friends laugh.”

The show struck a chord with the student body and received praise from the faculty.

“We are lucky to work in a school culture that allows us to produce something fun and that understands the importance of laughter in the educational setting,” broadcast adviser Brian Kennedy said.

The Mid-Morning team featured high profile guests in the Dallas area for their first few episodes, including NBC anchor Marc Fein. The turning point was securing an interview with YouTube sensation and Broadway headliner, Todrick Hall.

“I like that it’s something different,” senior co-host Ryan Shirley said. “It’s not something that any other high school in the country is making.”

Even with Hall, the show struggled to gain subscribers and views on YouTube. A promising connection with NBC fizzled when executives passed on connecting with Jimmy Fallon after deciding the show shared similarities with David Letterman.

“I’ll admit I was frustrated,” Kennedy said. “Months of planning, weeks of rehearsals, hours in the studio and on location to get it just right didn’t get the attention we were hoping for. That’s the nature of television. It was a hit locally among the students and faculty. That’s our demographic, but we were holding out for something more.”

Determined to make the show trend, Kennedy reached out to late night producers in hopes of validation. He composed an email that started with the statement, “Imagine doing what you are doing today when you were 17 years old.”

Within hours, the show was contacted by Chris Licht, the senior vice president of special programming at CBS and show runner for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The student team was invited to New York to shadow Stephen Colbert and the production team of The Late Show for a day.

“We watched it and thought it was funny,” Licht said. “When a teacher takes pride in something like that, it hit a chord with me. It seemed like a fun thing to do. They very much struck me and Stephen as group that was serious about comedy.”

The Mid-Morning team traveled to New York Dec 12, and for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at The Late Show. They started the day sitting in on the writers’ meeting led by the Colbert.

“I think the writer’s meeting was really big for me,” Nielsen said. “When I was watching the 20-plus writers in there, there was no shooting down of people’s ideas. They would take an idea that maybe wasn’t the greatest, but then they would bounce it back and forth and eventually it would turn into something pretty awesome.”

The team followed the meeting with a Q&A with Licht and had a personal conversation about censorship, why they received the invitation, and engaging different political viewpoints around the country. Afterward, they moved into production meetings and watched the digital content created.

“It was interesting to see,” senior technical director Landyn Cason said. “how long it would take to set up and tear down, how many bodies it takes, what the actual skit is and can they actually do it.”

The team had a sit-down conversation with Colbert in his office, where he discussed some of the challenges of moving to the network and answered questions about the nature of comedy.

“He told us that there is such thing as ‘good trouble,’” senior show host Brady Powers said, “which is pushing the proverbial limits of funny. You attract attention. You attract viewers because you want to do something that nobody else has done.”

As Colbert jumped into makeup, the Mid-Morning team went to the historic Ed Sullivan Theater, the stage where The Beatles first played in America to meet Jon Batiste, The Late Show bandleader. They watched dress rehearsals for the show then rounded out the visit with prime seats for the taping of the show.

“All of the brain power that’s put into it, all of these hilarious minds in one place is ridiculous,” Powers said. “I’m overwhelmed at all of the knowledge we gained and a lot of knowledge that we will be using in our upcoming episodes. Seeing how a joke started and following it throughout the day as it evolved into something golden is something I will keep with me forever.”