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As a prolific television writer and producer, Leonard Stern helped create gag-filled shows, including _The Honeymooners_ and _Get Smart._ But outside Hollywood, his most enduring

contribution to comedy was Mad Libs—the fill-in-the-blank parlor game he accidentally invented in 1953 with humorist Roger Price, while trying to describe a character’s nose. “I asked Roger

for an idea for an adjective, and before I could tell him what it was describing, he threw out ‘clumsy’ and ‘naked,’” Stern said in 2008. Both men burst out laughing, and they quickly wrote

up a batch of zany stories with blanks for missing words. The book series became a publishing sensation, selling over 110 million copies to date. The son of a New York City auctioneer, Stern

got his start in show business at the age of 16, when he began writing jokes for comedian Milton Berle’s radio show, said the _Los Angeles Times._ He soon made the jump to TV, and over the

next four decades worked on 23 shows, picking up Emmys for his contributions to _The Phil Silvers Show_ and _Get Smart._ As head writer on _The Steve Allen Show_ in the late ’50s, he

persuaded the host to ask the “audience for an adjective and noun to describe comedian Bob Hope,” said _The Washington Post._ The memorable result: “And here’s the scintillating Bob Hope,

whose theme song is ‘Thanks for the Communist.’” “Sales for the fun word books exploded” after that show, said _PopEater.com._ But “even with _Mad Libs_ a success, Stern continued writing

and producing,” creating the 1971 Rock Hudson show _McMillan & Wife_ and directing the 1979 film _Just You and Me, Kid,_ starring George Burns and Brooke Shields. SUBSCRIBE TO THE WEEK

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