Nokamura
n.— «“A Nokamura”: When a large number of jokes are all predicated on a single, earlier joke. This can entail great risk. Based on a Cheers episode. A day-player was named “Nokamura.” A vast chunk of the second act’s jokes were based on people mispronouncing, repeating, etc. the name “Nokamura.” But the problem was, on tape night—the first mention of “Nokamura” didn’t get a laugh. This meant the rest of the jokes wouldn’t work. The rest of the show was shanked.…(Note: We have recent e-mails suggesting the origin of this term was actually The Bob Newhart Show. We are investigating)» —“Writing: Jargon Preservation” by John Rogers Kung Fu Monkey Apr. 15, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What kind of book do people ask for most often in prison? Romance novels? No. The Bible? No. The most requested books by far are … dictionaries! A number of volunteer organizations gather and distribute used dictionaries to help inmates with...
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...