Writer/director Howard R. Cohen was born on August 12, 1942 in Illinois. Trained as a designer at the Chicago Institute of Design, Cohen helped found the alternative humor magazine Aadvark in 1966 before going to work as a party joke editor for Playboy magazine. Howard later went on to become a member of the Chicago comedy group the Conception Corporation along with comics Murphy Dunne, Ira Miller, and Jeff Begun. The Conception Corporation recorded three albums as well as made the experimental video production Void Where Prohibited by Law (1971), which was shown in both Chicago, Illinois and Los Angeles, California in 1971. Moreover, Cohen also wrote and/or directed a handful of low-budget movies that were mostly made under the auspices of Roger Corman. Well known for his knowledge of movie and music trivia, Howard was the author of the 1989 book "Test Your Movie IQ." Cohen died of a heart attack at age 56 on April 3, 1999 in Los Angeles, California.