FM's Mad Libs

FM Mad Libs is a game for people who don’t like to comp things! It can be played by one, two, three, 40 or none of your closest friends.

Have you ever wanted to write an FM article but just couldn’t find the time?

Here you go. Just fill in the missing words to complete your own classic FM story.

To Play: The READER asks each WRITER to call out a word—an adjective or a noun or an overused journalistic cliché or whatever the space calls for—and uses them to fill in the blank places in the story. The result is an FM Mad Libs game!

When the READER then reads the completed FM Mad Libs story to the other players, they will discover that they have written a story that is hackneyed, contrived, superficial, star-struck or just plain sycophantic—depending on which platitudes each WRITER called out.

Stamp of Approval

Harvard is known for its _________ (adjective) museums, _________ (adjective) professors and its red brick _________ (plural noun). It’s not the first place in the world you would expect to find a world-class collection of second-class postage. But, like it often is, Harvard is full of _________ (synonym for surprises).

“When I walked in to _________ (generic boy’s name) room and saw he had this whole book of stamps, I was like ‘dude, don’t you just _________ (verb suggesting conveyance of written electronic information) people? Who writes letters any more?’” fondly recalls L. Tripp Brockton _________ (number greater than 2) ’06, a _________ (a hair color)-haired fellow from _________ (New York/New Jersey/Connecticut). But Brockton wasn’t looking at just any old book of stamps. No, he was in the presence of greatness in the form of his roommate _________ (same generic boy’s name as before) B. Nichols ’06’s collection of pre-_________ (major land battle) bulk rate postage, the Junior Philatests of America first-runner up in the year _________ (number between 0 and 2003, with preference given to the numbers 2001 or 2002).

“I started off thinking that stamps were just for _________ (verb ending in “ing”) _________ (plural noun),” Nichols enthuses, “but then I saw this old stamp collection when I was surfing _________ (major online auction beginning in “e-”) one day and I had always wanted a hobby, so I bought it and _________ ! (exclamation) I was a stamp collector,” says Nichols as he segued to a thoughtful pause and cast his gaze through the window at the dying rays of a _________ (sunset color) sunset. “Nay, I was a philetilist.”

Like _______ D. ______ (famous actor’s name) and ____ G. ______ (famous actress’s name) ’s unforgettable lovers in James Cameron’s Oscar Award (R) winning epic, _________ “(name of a James Cameron Oscar Award-Winning epic), this romance between a man and his stamps was not meant to be. “You guys really missed the _________ (noun mode of transportation) on this one,” confesses Nichols, “I lost my collection last year when I was moving out of DeWolfe summer housing.” This _________ (totally excessive sympathetic adjective), life-altering loss of hobby hasn’t slowed down this _________ (concentration with poor advising and poor tutorial system) concentrator—he is the captain of his intramural _________ (sport) team, he works in _________ (name of campus library) and still has time to socialize with friends. Indeed, Nichols is really putting his stamp on Harvard.

—_________ (your name here)