My earliest memories of Mad Libs date to junior high, when Marcy Merti and I would explode into giggle fits over inappropriately placed nostrils, double-knit pilgrims, and one particularly frightening rumble with a gang of hind legs.

About two years ago, the Mad Libs tablets once again took up permanent residence in my nightstand. I discovered that the love of my life was also a fan of the fill-in-the-blanks word game. When we're on our game, we shriek like banshees over our absurdist, insomniac creations: a farmer telling his wife that it's time to eradicate the hogs, a weather report that called for gusting pug toots of 78 mph, and a sentence that ends with "you saw him driving around in an Elizabethan collar that you think belongs to Lillian Gish.''

And now, I tip my (noun) to Mad Libs, because the quirky word game turned 50.

To celebrate, publisher Price Stern Sloan has released its newest book, "Best of Mad Libs'' ($6.99), which includes a collection of classic stories, as well as a handful of Mad Libs filled in by celebrities. (Only in the blissfully disturbed Mad Libs universe would these things be true: Steve Carell is a fluorescent bruschetta, Anne Hathaway had a role in "Brokeback Risotto,'' and Alan Arkin was discovered by casting agent Albert Schweitzer.)

You may hear some people say: "Huh. I didn't even know Mad Libs were still around.''

But they are, and just like Madonna, Prince and Ellen DeGeneres (others turning 50 this year), they're still relevant. Bookstores stock the general and classic Mad Libs, as well as licensed titles, whose themes have in recent years included "American Idol, SpongeBob SquarePants'' and "Napoleon Dynamite.'' Several new books are due out this spring and summer, including "Speed Racer, Indiana Jones'' and "Kung Fu Panda.''

It's the rare game that transcends the generations, but Mad Libs are beloved by both children and their parents - who played the game as kids - and by other grown-up wordsmiths who have never lost their love for the hilariously incongruous.

On the Net: www.madlibs.com - Head over to the official Mad Libs site, where you can play virtual Mad Libs games.

THE (REAL) BIRTH OF MAD LIBS

The madness began in 1953, with a slight case of writer's block. At that time, Leonard Stern was a writer for "The Honeymooners.'' One day, he was puzzling over a script, stymied by a description of Ralph Kramden's new boss' nose. His writing partner, the late Roger Price, had stopped by; they were supposed to be working on one of Roger's book ideas.

Stern recalled telling Price he would be right with him.

"No, we won't,'' Price said. "You're in your idiosyncratic-pursuit-of-a-word mode. I could be standing here for hours. Do you want help?''

Stern admitted he did. "I need an adjective that'' - and before he could define the need, Price blurted out: "Clumsy and naked.''

Stern started laughing. "Because now I had a round face and a clumsy nose, or, if you will, a naked nose. And they both worked.''

When Price saw the results on the page, he started laughing, too. They realized they had a great new game on their hands, but no name for it yet. So for about five years, the two single men used it as nothing more than their own party game with an ulterior motive. "We got to meet a lot of attractive ladies,'' Stern said.

In his "A Happy History of Mad Libs,'' the introduction to the new Mad Libs book, Stern explains how they finally came up with the name that would launch them onto bookshelves. One summer day in 1958, Stern and Price were eating at Sardi's in New York.

"At the table next to us, an actor and his agent were having coffee and an argument,'' Stern wrote. "From what we couldn't help but overhear, the actor wanted to 'ad-lib' an interview, and his agent thought it was a 'mad' thing to do. 'Nuff said?''

The men abandoned their eggs Benedict and ran off to find a publisher. But nobody was biting. So, in their naive exuberance, they decided to publish it themselves. When all 14,000 copies of the book were printed, they hadn't even considered that they needed a place to store them. They found a home in the dining room of Price's Central Park West apartment.

By that time, Stern was head writer and comedy director for "The Steve Allen Show.'' Stern and Price convinced Allen - himself a wordsmith - that Mad Libs would be a fun way to introduce guests on the show, with the audience supplying the missing words. The first try came the next Sunday, when Bob Hope was introduced using a Mad Lib. By Wednesday of the following week, the stores were sold out.

The Mad Libs fad ultimately evolved into a treasured entertainment staple, one that now even includes adult-themed titles, such as "Who Moved My Cubicle?'' and "Dysfunctional Family Therapy.'' All told, 1.1 million copies of Mad Libs have been sold since the game's inception, according to a spokeswoman from the Penguin Group. In the early 1960s, the men were joined in the publishing business by their friend, Larry Sloan, and the company became Price Stern Sloan, and it's now an imprint of the Penguin Group.