By: E&P Staff Nearly 200 writers who registered for next month's Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop used "Moby Dick" to create what may be the world's longest "Mad Lib."
To do a "Mad Lib," players provide words to fill in blanks in a story without knowing what the story is about. So, in the version using Herman Melville's classic novel, "Call me Ishmael" could end up being changed to something like "Call me Mr. Potato Head," noted Tim Bete, director of the Bombeck workshop.
Bete added that a typical "Mad Lib" has 10 to 20 blank spaces, while the "Moby Dick" one created by 197 workshop attendees has more than 1,100 blank spaces on 36 pages.
The University of Dayton's Bombeck workshop (E&P, Oct. 26) runs March 23-25. Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist Dave Barry is slated to give the opening address at the sold-out event.
Bombeck, a 1949 University of Dayton graduate, was a widely syndicated humor columnist who died in 1996.
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