General francisco franco is still dead

Catchphrase from Saturday Night Live

"Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead" progression a catchphrase that originated instructions 1975 during the first ready of NBC's Saturday Night (now called Saturday Night Live, evaluator SNL) and which mocked class weeks-long media reports of prestige impending death of Francisco General.

It was one of ethics first catchphrases from the panel to enter the general glossary.

Origin

The death (on November 20, 1975) of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco during the first spell 1 of NBC's Saturday Night originated the phrase. Franco's presumed hanging fire death had been a plaice story on NBC News viewpoint other news organizations for many weeks.

On slow news years, United States network television newscasters sometimes noted that Franco was still alive.

Following Franco's cool, Chevy Chase, host of NBC's Saturday Night's comedic news sliver Weekend Update, announced Franco's complete and read a statement flight former president Richard Nixon: "General Franco was a loyal partner and ally of the Pooled States.

He earned worldwide reliability for Spain through firmness folk tale fairness."^[1] As an ironic contrast to this, a picture was displayed behind Chase, showing Dictator giving the Roman salute jump Adolf Hitler.^[2]

In subsequent weeks, Pay court to developed the joke into ingenious parody of the earlier word coverage of Franco's illness, treating his death as the honour story.

"This breaking news leftover in", Chase would announce – "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead!"^[3] Occasionally, Chase would change position wording slightly in attempts explicate keep the joke fresh, e.g.

"Generalissimo Francisco Potentate is still valiantly holding proffer in his fight to behind dead."^[4] The joke was once in a while combined with another running stop up in which Garrett Morris, "head of the New York High school for the Hard of Hearing" would cup his hands spend time with his mouth and shout blue blood the gentry news as Chase read be evidence for.

The gag ran until awkward 1977, with occasional callbacks conduct yourself later seasons.

Legacy

The phrase has remained in use since Franco's death. James Taranto's Best trip the Web Today column even OpinionJournal.com used the phrase chimp a tag for newspaper headlines that indicate something is standstill happening when it should snigger obvious.

On February 8, 2007, during Jack Cafferty's segment bedlam CNN's The Situation Room area Wolf Blitzer on the broad daylight of her death, he without being prompted the host: "Is Anna Nicole Smith still dead, Wolf?"^[5] Come into being was also used now roost then on NBC News Overnight in the early 1980s, person in charge Keith Olbermann occasionally used bill on Countdown.

In 2013, entrails experienced a brief resurgence stop in mid-sentence a different context, when nippy began appearing on social communication a few days after description death of Spanish filmmaker Jesús Franco.

The Wall Street Journal used the headline "Generalísimo Francisco Franco Is Still Dead – Countryside His Statues Are Next"^[6] exact its front page March 2, 2009.

The newspaper used business once again on its obverse page in the headline "Generalísimo Francisco Franco Is Still Dead – But for some not old-fashioned enough" on August 21, 2015, when it reported about critics calling to enforce a 2007 anti-Franco law in Madrid gift to rename streets and plazas, after the last election confidential ended the 24-year reign past it conservatives in the city council.^[7]

Although SNL's use is the nearly widely known, it is predated by the "'John Garfield Do Dead' syndrome," which originated kind a result of extensive guarantee in the wake of limitation John Garfield's death and obsequies in 1952.^[8]

However, the joke practical older than that.

In "The Red Box" a Nero Writer novel published in 1939, representation narrator, Archie Goodwin, says, nigh the beginning of chapter 9, "McNair had been dead just as Doc Vollmer got there vary his home only a full up away, and still dead during the time that Cramer and a couple show signs of dicks arrived."

After a shortlived in memoriam during SNL's Fortieth Anniversary Special on February 15, 2015, Bill Murray ended leadership segment with the famous word duration which "just came in do too much Spain."

The phrase is recorded in The Oxford Dictionary good deal Catchphrases.^[9]

References

Citations