"Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead" is a catch phrase originated in 1975 during the first season of Saturday Night Live, and became one of the first catch phrases from SNL to enter the general lexicon. A catch phrase is a phrase or expression that is popularized, usually through repeated use, by a real person or fictional character. ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday. ... Saturday Night Live (SNL) is a weekly late night 90-minute American comedy-variety show based in New York City which has been broadcast live by NBC on Saturday nights since October 11, 1975. ...

The Origin

Hitler and Franco

He loved pink things to wear.The death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco during the first season of Saturday Night Live served as the source of the phrase. Franco lingered near death for weeks before dying. On slow news days, United States network television newscasters sometimes noted that Franco was still alive, or not yet dead. The imminent death of Franco was a headline story on the NBC news for a number of weeks prior to his death on November 20. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde (4 December 1892–20 November[1] 1975), commonly abbreviated to Francisco Franco (pron. ... NBC (a former acronym for National Broadcasting Company) is an American television network headquartered in the GE Building in New York Citys Rockefeller Center. ... November 20 is the 324th day of the year (325th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

After Franco's death, Chevy Chase, reader of the news on Saturday Night Live's comedic news segment Weekend Update, announced the dictator's death and read a quotation from 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 standing alongside Adolf Hitler, both of them giving the "Nazi salute", a photo similar to the one shown here. Chevy Chase (born Cornelius Crane Chase on October 8, 1943) is an Emmy Award-winning American comedian, writer, and television and film actor. ... Weekend Update is a Saturday Night Live sketch which comments on and parodies current events. ... Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. ... Hitler redirects here. ...

From that point on, Chase made it clear that SNL would get the last laugh at Franco's expense. "This breaking news just in", Chase would announce-- "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead!"^[2] The top story of the news segment for several weeks running was that Generalissimo Francisco Franco was still dead. Chase would repeat the story at the end of the news segment, aided by Garrett Morris, "head of the New York School for the Hard of Hearing", whose "aid" in repeating the story involved cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting the headline. The line was also a perceived slap at then-NBC Nightly News main anchor John Chancellor, who due to his background as a foreign correspondent, felt the network should weigh its news more heavily toward world events, keeping Franco's deathwatch at the top of the headlines. Chancellor reportedly was miffed at both Chase and SNL over the running gag.^{[citation needed]} Garrett Morris (born February 1, 1937) is an American comedian and actor from New Orleans, Louisiana. ... Chancellor (left), with David Brinkley, in a 1976 ad for the NBC Radio network. ... The running gag is a popular hallmark of comic and serious forms of entertainment. ...

The phrase may owe something to "General Grant Still Dead", one of the examples of undesirable newspaper headlines in Headlines and Deadlines, a handbook for newspaper copy editors by Robert Garst and Theodore M. Bernstein. Another possible precedent is in an issue of National Lampoon from 1973 that featured a contest to guess the date of Mamie Eisenhower's death (she was still alive), with a picture of Mamie Eisenhower waving out a window and the caption "Hi kids, I'm still not dead yet!" Ulysses S. Grant[2] (born Hiram Ulysses Grant, April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was an American general and the 18th President of the United States (1869–1877). ... January 1973 cover of National Lampoon National Lampoon was an American humor magazine that began in 1970 as an offshoot of the Harvard Lampoon. ... Mamie Geneva Doud Eisenhower (November 14, 1896 – November 1, 1979) was the wife of General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and First Lady of the United States from 1953 to 1961. ...

The phrase may also come from The Today Show, which was then live in New York from 7 to 9 a.m., but in Chicago they ran the second hour live at 7 a.m. Chicago time, then ran the first hour from tape at 8 a.m. Chicago time (i.e. swapping the hours). In New York during the first hour the show reported that he was near death, and during that hour learned that he died, so started the second hour off with that news. That meant Chicago viewers saw first that he was dead at 7 a.m., and "near death" at 8 a.m. Realizing the problem, the network scrambled to get a live feed to Chicago making it clear that Franco was, in fact, still very much dead. Today, commonly referred to as The Today Show to avoid ambiguity, is an American morning news and talk show airing weekday mornings on the NBC television network. ...

Legacy

Thirty years later, the phrase is still in use. 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, such as "Hunt for Bin Laden Still On" by Fox News. It has used the tag more than 60 times. More recently, 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?"[1] James Taranto (born 1966) is a Manhattan-based columnist for The Wall Street Journal and editor of its online editorial page, OpinionJournal. ... OpinionJournal. ... February 8 is the 39th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... Jack Cafferty (born 1942) is a CNN commentator and a host of the weekend financial show In The Money. ... The Cable News Network, commonly known as CNN, is a major cable television network founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. ... This article is about the CNN news program. ... Vickie Lynn Marshall (born Vickie Lynn Hogan on November 28, 1967), better known as Anna Nicole Smith, is an American actress and model who first gained popularity as Playboy magazines 1993 Playmate of the Year. ... Wolf Blitzer (born March 22, 1948 in Buffalo, New York) is an American journalist and author. ...

The practice of American television networks continually reporting that ailing world leaders are still alive remains widespread. Famous examples include Yasser Arafat in 2004, Pope John Paul II in 2005 and Fidel Castro in late 2006-early 2007. Not to be confused with Yasir Arafat (cricketer). ... Coat of Arms of Pope John Paul II. The Letter M is for Mary, the mother of Jesus, to whom he held strong devotion Pope John Paul II (Latin: , Italian: Giovanni Paolo II, Polish: Jan PaweÅ‚ II) born   [] (May 18, 1920, Wadowice, Poland – April 2, 2005, Vatican City) reigned as... Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (born on August 13, 1926) is the current President of Cuba but on indefinite medical hiatus. ...

These death watches are a reminder of Gracie Allen's joke that so-and-so "is at death's door, and the doctor's trying to pull him through!" Gracie Allen (July 26, 1895[1] – August 27, 1964) was an American comedian who became internationally famous as the zany partner and comic foil of husband George Burns. ...

References

1. ^ Saturday Night Live, Season 1: Episode 6, Weekend Update with Chevy Chase
2. ^ Saturday Night Live, Season 1: Episode 7, Weekend Update with Chevy Chase