Penguin Young Readers and Looney Labs Announce Mad Libs: The Game
New York, NY – Penguin Young Readers is pleased to announce it has entered into an agreement with Looney Labs to create Mad Libs: The Game, a card game based on the classic fill-in-the-blank Mad Libs. Created by comedy writers Leonard Stern and Roger Price in 1958, Mad Libs has since become the world’s most popular word game, with over 125 million Mad Libs in print and more than 7 million downloads of the mobile app.
In Mad Libs: The Game, players use the word-filled game cards in their hand combined with the sentence card in play to make the most appropriately inappropriate sentences possible. The funniest sentence by popular vote wins the round, and the first player to win three rounds wins the game.
“Mad Libs began as a cocktail party NOUN, and Looney Labs has created a/an ADJECTIVE game that continues to make Mad Libs the NOUN of the party!” said Francesco Sedita, President & Publisher of Price Stern Sloan, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group.
“Mad Libs is one of our favorite party activities,” stated Kristin Looney, CEO of Looney Labs, “so it just seemed like a natural fit for Looney Labs to make a card-based, party game out of it. Full of all the silly potential-word-energy of the original Mad Libs, Mad Libs: The Game will keep players laughing and VERBing for years to come!”
When Leonard Stern and Roger Price first created Mad Libs, it was an inventive and unpredictable game they played with their friends at parties. In 1958, the legendary talk show host Steve Allen used Mad Libs to hilariously introduce his guests. Three days later, stores across the country had completely sold out of Mad Libs, and a star was born.
About Penguin Young Readers
Penguin Young Readers is one of the leading children’s book publishers in the United States. The company owns a wide range of imprints and trademarks including Dial Books, Dutton, Grosset & Dunlap, Philomel, Puffin, Speak, Firebird, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Viking, Razorbill, and Frederick Warne. These imprints are home to such award-winning, New York Times-bestselling authors as Laurie Halse Anderson, Jay Asher, Judy Blume, Jan Brett, Eric Carle, Ally Condie, Roald Dahl, Tomie dePaola, Sarah Dessen, Anna Dewdney, John Flanagan, Gayle Forman John Green, Oliver Jeffers, Mike Lupica, Richelle Mead, B.J. Novak, Richard Peck, Judy Schachner, Jacqueline Woodson and dozens of other popular authors. Penguin Young Readers Group is also the proud publisher of perennial brand franchises such as The Little Engine That Could, the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series, Peter Rabbit, Spot, the Classic Winnie the Pooh, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Strega Nona, Madeline, Mad Libs, Alex Rider, the Rangers Apprentice, Skippyjon Jones, Flower Fairies, and Pippi Longstocking, among many others. Penguin Young Readers Group is a division of Penguin Group LLC, a Penguin Random House company.
About Looney Labs
Looney Labs was founded in 1996 by Kristin & Andrew Looney, a husband and wife team that gave up successful careers as aerospace engineers (they met while working at NASA) to pursue their hobby business full time. They could tell early on the true hit potential their card game Fluxx had, so they took the jump and quit their day jobs so they could dedicate all their energy to making and promoting Andy’s games. With the creation of new and exciting versions of Fluxx, the popularity of the game has spread worldwide and spawned numerous international publications. The Looneys believe one of the most important things they create is the fun people have while playing their games. Andy Looney continues to create Looney Labs games, from those with lighter play, like Fluxx and Just Desserts, to more strategic games like Chrononauts and the Looney Pyramid game system.
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