The first sighting of Mad Libs happened in 1953, and it remains indelibly etched in my mind. I was in my New York City apartment overlooking Central Park working on a Jackie Gleason Honeymooners script. Actually, I was sitting and staring at the typewriter (I still use one), searching for the precisely right adjective to describe the nose of Ralph Kramden’s new boss. After wallowing in clichés for thirty minutes, I was ready to throw in the thesaurus when Roger Price (my best friend, fellow workaholic, and the most original thinker I’d ever met, one of a kind of which there was no kind), showed up at my apartment. We had planned to do a final polish on our book, What Not to Name the Baby, based on Roger’s bizarre theory that names exert more influence on our personalities than either heredity or environment. (Example: “Ashley” always looks like she’s on her way to the dentist, and “Harry” always knows where to get more ice.) I apologized to Roger and told him we’d be cracking on the book in a moment. “No, we won’t,” he said. “You’re in your idiosyncratic-pursuit-of-a-word mode. I could be standing here for hours. Do you want help?” Reluctant as I was to admit I did – I did. I said, “I need an adjective that–” and before I could further define my need, Roger said, “Clumsy and naked.” I laughed out loud. Roger asked, “What’s so funny?” I told him, thanks to his suggestion, Ralph Kramden now had a boss with a clumsy nose – or, if you will, a naked nose. Roger seldom laughed, but he did that time, confirming we were on to something – but what it was, we didn’t know. “Clumsy” and “naked” were appropriately inappropriate adjectives that had led us to an incorrect but intriguing, slightly bizarre juxtaposing of words. Why? A clumsy nose indicated nature had failed or there had been a genetic mix-j; and an alliterative naked nose had the sound of a best-selling mystery novel. I remember thinking, so what? Then, suddenly and simultaneously, Roger and I realized what had happened. My obsession had produced an unpredictable wedding of words that had resulted in laughter – and a GAME! Abandoning Gleason and the book, we spent the rest of the day writing stories with key words left out. We played the game at a party that night. Hilarity reigned. Everyone thought this nameless game should be published. We agreed, but not until we came up with the right name. “Until” was five years later.