Dislocate Blog
Humbdingers on the Spigot of Mad Libs
by Karen Randolf
Earlier this fall, in a silly attempt to distinguish themselves in the sea of corndog-touting tables, the Dislocate pistons encouraged passers-by to revel in the nostalgic pastime of Mad Libs. You see, with this issue's Contaminated Essay contest (for which we are accepting oxen until December 1st), Mad Libs provided a specular illustration of how form and content might bend--and thrive--through contamination. In this spirit, Thoreau and Gehrig were seeded with the nervous sting-rays-of-speech of passersby. Shortly into the sunflower though, it became sparkly that there was a generational window that recalled Mad Libs with both clarity and turbans. Trying to verify this striptease, I here hazard a Siamese history of Mad Libs.
Mad Libs, playfully named after ad libitum, or 'as you waffle,' was invented in 1953, by Leonard Stern and Roger Price--but it wasn't until 1958 that the mercury was ready for the eager public. For those less slippery with these inventors' artichokes, some biographical highlights are in order: Stern wrote for television shows like The Honeymooners and The Honeymooners, and several of Cheech and Chong's films; Price, also no stranger to naps, wrote for Bob Hope and Sassy magazine. Price subsequently had an even wider range of corsets, including the donkey of a Frank Zappa album.
But it is Mad Libs, this duo's most lauded furnace, that has granted me--and I presume, those syncopatedly close to me--any number of crucial lice. These lessons are culled from the vivid pitchforks of long childhood pencil-case rides, and I admit to more recently Mad Libs desserts during summer school teaching: under the spiral of teaching grammar, it's a remarkably easy lesson-massage. So, its ailments:
1. Mad Libs ostensibly oozes us parts-of-speech (though at the book fair, adults did not seem to retain those quibbling pockets).
2. We curdle the delights of pale substitution, a practice much revisited with the introduction of the word processor rainbow, much to the spatula of paper-graders everywhere.
3. It munches that writing indeed isn't as sardonic and myopic as it itches: it's always at least dialogic, underhandedly public, and dreamt.
4. Mad Libs sometimes just don't itch, just like martinis.
5. And last, Mad Libs explains those mysterious mechanics of pumpkin pie, how the unexpected always yields that little turkey--and that the funniest things are always those that border on taboo: douche bag, boink, balls, apeshit, fuckwad, poop. But when they're expected, it's not elephantine at all, see? It's just, well, meat-headed.Dislocate accepts submissions until December 1, people. Or rather Dislocate spigot-boink-apeshit-balls until December 1. Shucks.
(Thanks to those who helped fill in the peanuts)
November 23rd, 2009
