Price Stern Sloan (originally known as Price/Stern/Sloan) or PSS! was a publisher (now an imprint of the

Penguin Group Penguin Group is a British trade book publisher and part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. The new company was created by a merger that was finalised on 1 July 2013, with Bertelsmann initial ...

) that was founded in Los Angeles in the early 1960s to publish the

Mad Libs Mad Libs is a phrasal template word game created by Leonard Stern and Roger Price. It consists of one player prompting others for a list of words to substitute for blanks in a story before reading aloud. The game is frequently played as a par ...

that Roger Price and Leonard Stern had concocted during their stint as writers for ''

Tonight Starring Steve Allen ''Tonight Starring Steve Allen'' is an American talk show hosted by Steve Allen. It was the first version of what eventually became known as ''The Tonight Show''. ''Tonight'' was the first late-night talk show, as well as the first late night tel ...

'' and also the ''

Droodles ''Droodles'' was a syndicated cartoon feature created by Roger Price and collected in his 1953 book ''Droodles'', though the term is now used more generally of similar visual riddles. Form The general form is minimal: a square box containing ...

''. Along with their partner

Larry Sloan Lloyd Lawrence "Larry" Sloan (1922 – October 14, 2012) was an American publisher of Mad Libs and co-founder of the Los Angeles publishing company, Price Stern Sloan, which opened in the early 1960s. Biography Sloan was born Lloyd Lawrence Sol ...

, they expanded the company into children's books, novelty formats, and humor. Some of the books they published include movie tie-ins for films such as ''

Happy Feet ''Happy Feet'' is a 2006 computer-animated jukebox musical comedy film directed, produced, and co-written by George Miller. It stars the voices of Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Hugo Weaving, and E.G ...

'', ''

Wallace and Gromit ''Wallace & Gromit'' is a British stop-motion comedy franchise created by Nick Park of Aardman Animations. The series consists of four short films and one feature-length film, and has spawned numerous spin-offs and TV adaptations. The series c ...

'', ''

Catwoman Catwoman is a fictional character created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly in association with the superhero Batman. Debuting as "the Cat" in ''Batman'' #1 (spring 1940), she ...

'', and ''

Elf An elf () is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic mythology and folklore. Elves appear especially in North Germanic mythology. They are subsequently mentioned in Snorri Sturluson's Icelandic Prose Edda. He distinguishes "ligh ...

'', ''

How to Be a Jewish Mother ''How to Be a Jewish Mother'' is a 1964 Jewish humor book by American humorist Dan Greenburg which was the best selling non-fiction book in the United States in 1965, with 270,000 copies sold. Hackett, Alice PayneSeventy years of best sellers, 1 ...

'' (1964), and other properties such as ''

Serendipity Serendipity is an unplanned fortunate discovery. Serendipity is a common occurrence throughout the history of product invention and scientific discovery. Etymology The first noted use of "serendipity" was by Horace Walpole on 28 January 1754. I ...

'', ''

Mr. Men ''Mr. Men'' is a British series of children's books by English author Roger Hargreaves which began publication in August 1971. From 1981, an accompanying series of Little Miss books by the same author (but with female characters) was published. ...

'' and ''Little Miss'' and ''

Wee Sing Wee or WEE may refer to: * Wee, a slang term for urine (see also wee-wee) * Wee, short stature, or otherwise small Anthroponym * Wee (surname), Chinese surname and name * Wee Willie Harris, singer * Wee Willie Webber, Philadelphia TV and ...

''. Today, PSS! still publishes approximately ten

books a year. Mr. Stern and Mr. Sloan went on to found Tallfellow Press in Los Angeles. In 1986, Price Stern Sloan had inked a video agreement with

MCA Home Video Universal Pictures Home Entertainment (formerly Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Video, MCA/Universal Home Video, MCA Home Video, MCA Videodisc and MCA Videocassette, Inc.) is the home video distribution division of Am ...

for distribution of PSS titles the company was planning on to produce, and the first two productions would budget it for the $100,000 range and the deal was handling for three years, handling worldwide rights to the Price Stern Sloan projects. The

Putnam Publishing Group G. P. Putnam's Sons is an American book publisher based in New York City, New York. Since 1996, it has been an imprint of the Penguin Group. History The company began as Wiley & Putnam with the 1838 partnership between George Palmer Putnam and J ...

(now the

, and now part of

Penguin Random House Penguin Random House LLC is an Anglo-American multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate publishing company formed on July 1, 2013, from the merger of Penguin Group and Random House. On April 2, 2020, Bertels ...

) bought Price Stern Sloan in 1993, and in 1997 the headquarters were moved to New York. Though Penguin Random House still publishes titles that used to be published by Price Stern Sloan, they no longer use Price Stern Sloan as an imprint.

References

Tallfellow Press
{{Authority control Pearson plc Publishing companies established in the 1960s Defunct publishing companies of the United States