Mad Libs consist of a book that has a short story on each page, but with many of the key words are replaced with blanks using different parts of speech such as a noun, verb, adjective, or adverb, and other terms like a place or a part of the body. Beneath each blank it is specified the lexical category (noun, verb,:"One day, _(name of person)__(past tense verb)_ to New York to see the _(noun)_.
After completing the Mad Lib, it might read:
"One day, George Washingtonflew to New York to see the blueberry."
Several "knock-offs" of Mad Libs have been created, most of them on the Internet. Imitation Mad Libs are sometimes used in educational settings to help teach the parts of speech.
*The Drawn Together episode "Captain Girl" features a villain called the Mad Libber who is based on Batman's foe The Riddler. He leaves clues in the form of Mad Libs, but since the heroes, playing like "typical teenagers", end up filling in every blank with the word "penis", they have a difficult time catching him. *In the Simpsons episode "Barting Over", while the family is cleaning out the garage, Lisa finds a book with the ability to summon Satan. But before she finishes the phrase of the book to summon him, she discards the book for a Mad Libs booklet. *In the Friends episode "The One With the Kips", Joey hides things in Monica's bedroom, including a Mad Libs book. Phoebe takes the game from him. During the ending credits we see the group playing Mad Libs. Phoebe uses only the word "Phoebe" to fill the blanks, which Monica says doesn't "count" as 'good' Mad Libs. In the episode "The One With the Jam", Phoebe dates her sister Ursula's stalker, who at one point shows Phoebe the items he carries with him while he's stalking and explains their uses. At one point he pulls out a Mad Libs book and says, "They're just for fun." *In My Name is Earl we see Randy and Earl's ex-girlfriend Jessie playing Mad Libs. Randy fills the blanks with "butt". *On an episode of Reno 911, Officer Weigel engages traffic offenders in traffic school in a game of Mad Libs.
