Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead
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"Generalissimo[a] Francisco Franco is still dead" is a catchphrase that originated in 1975 during the first season of NBC's Saturday Night (now called Saturday Night Live, or SNL) and which mocked the weeks-long media reports of the impending death of Francisco Franco. It was one of the first catchphrases from the series to enter the general lexicon.
Origin[]
The death (on November 20, 1975) of strongman (in Spanish Caudillo) and dictator General Francisco Franco Bahamonde during the first season of NBC's Saturday Night originated the phrase. Franco's allegedly imminent death had been a headline story on NBC News for weeks. On slow news days, United States network television newscasters sometimes noted that Franco was still alive.
Following his demise, Chevy Chase, host of NBC's Saturday Night's comedic news segment Weekend Update, announced Franco's death and read a statement from former president Richard Nixon: "General Franco was a loyal friend and ally of the United States. He earned worldwide respect for Spain through firmness and fairness."[1] As an ironic counterpoint to this, a picture was displayed behind Chase, showing Franco giving the Roman salute alongside Adolf Hitler.[2]
In subsequent weeks, Chase developed the joke into a parody of the earlier news coverage of Franco's illness, treating his death as the top story. "This breaking news just in", Chase would announce – "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead!"[3] Occasionally, Chase would change the wording slightly in attempts to keep the joke fresh, e.g. "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still valiantly holding on in his fight to remain dead."[4] The joke was sometimes combined with another running gag in which Garrett Morris, "head of the New York School for the Hard of Hearing" would cup his hands around his mouth and shout the news as Chase read it. The gag ran until early 1977, with occasional callbacks in later seasons.
Legacy[]
The phrase has remained in use since Franco's death. James Taranto's Best of the Web Today column at OpinionJournal.com uses the phrase as a tag for newspaper headlines that indicate something is still happening when it should be obvious. On February 8, 2007, during Jack Cafferty's segment on CNN's The Situation Room on the day of the death of Anna Nicole Smith, he asked of CNN correspondent Wolf Blitzer "Is Anna Nicole Smith still dead, Wolf?"[5] It was also used now and then on NBC News Overnight in the early 1980s, and Keith Olbermann occasionally used it on Countdown. In 2013, it experienced a brief resurgence in a different context, when it began appearing on social media a few days after the death of Spanish filmmaker Jesús Franco.
The Wall Street Journal used the headline "Generalísimo Francisco Franco Is Still Dead – And His Statues Are Next"[6] on its front page March 2, 2009. The newspaper used it once again on its front page in the headline "Generalísimo Francisco Franco Is Still Dead – But for some not dead enough" on August 21, 2015 when it reported about critics calling to enforce a 2007 anti-Franco law in Madrid and to rename streets and plazas, after the last election had ended the 24-year reign of conservatives in the city council.[7]
Although SNL's use is perhaps the most widely known, it is predated by the "'John Garfield Still Dead' syndrome," which originated as a result of extensive coverage in the wake of the actor John Garfield's death and funeral in 1952.[8]
After a brief in memoriam during SNL's 40th Anniversary Special on February 15, 2015, Bill Murray ended the segment with the famous phrase which "just came in from Spain."
The phrase is listed in The Oxford Dictionary of Catchphrases.[9]
References[]
Notes
- ^ The correct spelling in Spanish is in fact 'Generalísimo'. However, during Franco's final years, the title Generalissimo, with the Italian spelling, was also routinely applied to Chiang Kai-shek.
Citations
- ^ "Saturday Night Live, Season 1: Episode 6, Weekend Update with Chevy Chase". SNLtranscripts.jt.org. Retrieved November 3, 2010.
- ^ "Is Generalíssimo Francisco Franco Still Dead?". IsGeneralissimoFranciscoFrancoStillDead.com. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
- ^ "Saturday Night Live, Season 1: Episode 7, Weekend Update with Chevy Chase". SNLtranscripts.jt.org. Retrieved November 3, 2010.
- ^ Saturday Night Live, originally broadcast February 28, 1976, as preserved in DVD format, SNL: The First Season, 1975–76.
- ^ "Transcripts The Situation Room". CNN.
- ^ Catan, Thomas (March 2, 2009). "The Wall Street Journal – March 2, 2009". wsj.com. Retrieved November 3, 2010.
- ^ Roman, David (August 21, 2015). "Generalissimo Franco Is Still Dead, but for Some Not Dead Enough". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved August 30, 2015.
- ^
Collins, Gail (July 8, 2009). "Michael, a Foreign Affair". New York Times. Retrieved July 9, 2009.
The practice of churning out stories about a deceased celebrity for as long as possible is an old tradition. It used to be known as the "John Garfield Still Dead" syndrome, after the extensive post-funeral coverage of a movie star who had a fatal heart attack in 1952 in the bed of a woman other than his wife.
- ^ Farkas, Anna. The Oxford Dictionary of Catchphrases, pages 93-94.
- Cultural depictions of Francisco Franco
- Saturday Night Live catchphrases
- Saturday Night Live sketches
- 1975 neologisms
- English phrases
- Saturday Night Live in the 1970s