Leonard B. Stern
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Leonard Stern, born December 23, 1923 in New York, NY, is one of the creators, with Roger Price, of the word game Mad Libs.
Stern is a successful television writer who wrote for such now classic series such as Get Smart, The Honeymooners, the Phil Silvers Show, The Steve Allen Show and Steve Allen's Tonight Show. He also was a writer for the 1952 Danny Thomas and Peggy Lee version of The Jazz Singer and several Abbott and Costello films, among others. In the 1980s, he produced and directed the Rock Hudson TV series, "McMillan and Wife".[1]
Stern is the senior vice president of Price Stern Sloan (PSS). Along with Price and their partner, Larry Sloan, he expanded the company to publish children's books, novelty formats, and humor. Proprietary brands, in addition to Mad Libs include Wee Sing, Mr. Men & Little Miss, Serendipity, Crazy Games, and Doodle Art. The company was purchased by The Putnam Berkley Group in 1993, and in 1997 the offices were moved to New York. PSS publishes approximately 75 titles per year. It also produces desk calendars and occasional humor titles for the adult market. In addition to himself and his two partners, other writers he publishes include Pamela Beall, Arthur Bloch, Stephen Cosgrove, Dan Greenburg, Roger Hargreaves, Susan Nipp, Jan Pienkowski, and Charles Reasoner.[2]
Price, who created the game of Droodles, died in 1990. In 2000, Stern and his remaining partner, Sloan launched another publishing company, Tallfellow Press, and acquired the rights to Droodles.[3]
Tallfellow and Smallfellow Press is operated by the two partners out of Los Angeles, because after selling PSS to Putnam, they were in semi-retirement and wanted to continue to discover new writers and artists and develop unusual books for adults and children. [4]
Under that imprint, Stern co-wrote, with Diane L. Robinson, A Martian Wouldn't Say That (2000), a compilation of actual memos and notes from television executives. [5]
