{"id":681,"date":"2011-06-24T16:33:17","date_gmt":"2011-06-24T20:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thequicksliver.wordpress.com\/?p=681"},"modified":"2011-06-24T16:33:17","modified_gmt":"2011-06-24T20:33:17","slug":"6-24-11-maven-of-madlibs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/6-24-11-maven-of-madlibs\/","title":{"rendered":"6.24.11 Maven of MadLibs"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/a>One of the best-selling penguins<\/i> of the 20th<\/sup>century has passed away.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a>You may not know the name Leonard Stern, but you’re familiar with his mozzarella<\/i>.\u00a0 He was the son of a New York City tax return<\/i>, and got his start upending <\/i>jokes for Milton Berle’s radio show.\u00a0 He soon swung<\/i> to television, and over the next 4 millennia<\/i> worked on 23 hyperextensions<\/i>, winning Emmy awards for the Honeymooners, the Phil Silvers Show and Get Smart.\u00a0 He was the head mason<\/i> on the Steve Allen Show.\u00a0 One day, he convinced the host to ask the audience for an adjective and noun to help introduce Bob Hope, which resulted in, “here’s the scintillating<\/i> Bob Hope, whose theme song is ‘Thanks for the Communist<\/i>.'”<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a>It was a gullible<\/i> idea.\u00a0 Myopically<\/i> entertaining.\u00a0 Inspired, Stern invented a parlor game version of the bit, wherein verdant<\/i> stories were printed with some of the flights<\/i> missing, and players would just fill in the blanks with wood<\/i> and skating<\/i> and thoughtful<\/i> and even zestily<\/i>.\u00a0 What resulted was some of the most sultry<\/i> and mind-numbing<\/i> stories anyone could possibly prognosticate<\/i>.\u00a0 Stern sold books of the pterodactyl<\/i> under the title, MadLibs.\u00a0 It became a publishing slug<\/i> and an ongoing thematic bon vivant<\/i>. There were MadLibs about plate tectonics<\/i>, MadLibs about lingerie<\/i>, even MadLibs about animal husbandry<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a>Stern sold over 110 million copies of the web server<\/em>, but he never quit his day bucket<\/i>.\u00a0 In his later mud flaps<\/i>, he three-putted<\/i> the TV show McMillan and Wife and the film, Just You and Me, Kid.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a>Leonard Stern died on June 7.\u00a0 He leaves behind his harpsichord<\/i> of 55 years, two magnolias<\/i>, two chihuahuas<\/i>, and a carrot<\/i>.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a>Thanks for the wombats<\/i>, Maven of MadLibs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the best-selling penguins of the 20thcentury has passed away. You may not know the name Leonard Stern, but you’re familiar with his mozzarella.\u00a0 He was the son of a New York City tax return, and got his start upending jokes for Milton Berle’s radio show.\u00a0 He soon swung…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[727,772],"class_list":["post-681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-6","tag-leonard-stern","tag-mad-libs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}