Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
Yes. It is. Well, it's a sentence that on the
surface seems completely redundant. I mean, of
course he is. Exactly. It's one of those phrases
that if you just heard it without any context,
you think, well, thanks for the update, Captain
Obvious. Right. But we are diving into this today
because, as our sources show, those six words
are so much more than just a statement of biological
fact. They really are. It is arguably one of
the most enduring catchphrases to ever come out
of Eric in television. But beyond that, it's
a really fascinating piece of meta commentary
on the news business itself. I love that we're
doing this. We're doing a deep dive into a joke.
A very successful joke. Right. But not just a
joke. A joke that ended up in the Oxford Dictionary
of catchphrases. Yeah, that's a pretty big deal
for a late night sketch. So for you listening,
we're looking at the origins, the mechanics of
why this worked and how it managed to survive
for decades. It pops up in everything from serious
financial journalism to social media Twitter
storms. And I think the mission here is really
to understand the why. You know, why did a dark
gag about a Spanish dictator's illness in 1975
evolve into this shorthand for media obsession?
Because it tells us a lot about how we consume
information, even today. Absolutely. So let's
set the scene. We have to go back to 1975. Late
1975, to be precise. Right. The setting is the
media landscape of the United States. But the
subject is in Spain. General Francisco Franco,
the fascist dictator who had ruled Spain for
decades, was in failing health. And when you
say failing health, this wasn't just, you know,
he's got a bad cold kind of situation. No, no.
It was a prolonged, drawn -out decline. He was
in his 80s battling Parkinson's, heart failure.
Pretty much total system collapse. Wow. But because
he was a dictator, the regime was completely
terrified of the power vacuum his death would
create. So doctors were keeping him alive by
any means necessary. And meanwhile, the American
media, specifically NBC News and the other big
organizations, had essentially set up a death
watch. Exactly. You have to imagine the energy
in these newsrooms back then. Just waiting. Right.
They have correspondents camped out in Madrid.
They have the obituaries written. The archival
footage is totally prepped. Everyone's just waiting
for the headline. Four weeks. The sources note
that the presumed imminent death of Franco was
a top headline story for weeks on end. But the
problem was he kept not dying. He kept not dying.
The waiting game. And you have to remember, news
anchors have time to fill. This is the era of
the nightly news broadcast. You can't just have
dead air. You really can't. So on slow news days,
you have these incredibly awkward updates where
newscasters would essentially have to report
update. Franco was still alive. Which is painfully
boring television. Oh, completely. Breaking news,
nothing happened. It's the definition of a non
-story. And that boredom, that endless repetition,
created the perfect environment for satire. Enter
NBC's Saturday Night. Which we all know today
is Saturday Night Live or SNL. Right. But back
then, it was brand new. This was season one.
And they had a segment called Weekend Update,
hosted by Chevy Chase. And we have to give Chase
credit here. He wasn't playing a clown. Right,
he played it straight. He was playing the role
with the suit, the tie, the serious cadence of
a real anchorman. Which makes the satire hit
so much harder. So eventually, the inevitable
happened. November 20, 1975. Franco actually
dies. So Chevy Chase finally gets to make the
real announcement on Weekend Update. And the
way he handled it wasn't exactly solemn. Not
at all. He read a statement from former President
Richard Nixon. Okay, just as a quick aside for
you listening. Whenever we get into the political
content from our sources, whether it's Nixon
or left wing and right wing Spanish politics
later on, we are remaining totally impartial.
We're not taking any sides here. Exactly. We
are strictly reporting what the source material
highlights. Just laying out the facts of the
joke. Right. So the setup is crucial here. Chase
reads the Nixon statement, which says, General
Franco was a loyal friend and ally of the United
States. He earned worldwide respect for Spain
through firmness and fairness. Firmness and fairness.
A glowing eulogy. And then came the visual punchline.
As Chase is reading this incredibly respectful
statement about a loyal friend, the graphic displayed
behind him isn't a dignified portrait. It's a
photograph of Franco standing alongside Adolf
Hitler giving the Nazi salute. Talk about an
ironic counterpoint. You're hearing fairness
and seeing, whoa, Hitler. Exactly. It completely
undercut the diplomatic politeness of the statement.
It really did. But here's the thing. If the joke
had ended there, just on the night of his death,
we probably wouldn't be talking about it today.
Right, because usually when the new subject dies,
the story is over. You bury the lead, literally.
But Chevy Chase and the SNL writers decided to
do something different. They realized that the
media's obsession with the death was actually
funnier than the death itself. Yeah. So they
decided to keep reporting the story. The twist.
In the weeks following the funeral, Chase treated
the fact that Franco was dead as if it were still
a breaking top of the hour story. And this is
where the catchphrase comes in. He'd start the
segment with that breaking news urgency. This
breaking news just in. Generalissimo Francisco
Franco is still dead. It's so simple, but it's
so funny because it mimics the cadence of actual
news perfectly. It really does. It's that breathless,
we have to tell you this right now tone applied
to something that literally hasn't changed at
all. And he kept it fresh, too. He didn't just
say the same phrase every single time. He would
vary the wording to make it sound like there
was some sort of new development in the state
of his death. I found one of the variations in
the source materials that just cracked me up.
He said, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still
valiantly holding on in his fight to remain dead.
Valiantly holding on. It frames death as this
active struggle he's somehow winning. It's completely
absurd. And we can't talk about this without
mentioning the other layer of the gag, the hard
of hearing bit. Oh, absolutely. This was a recurring
segment involving Garrett Morris. Garrett Morris,
legendary cast member. He played the head of
the New York School for the Hard of Hearing.
And the joke was pure physical comedy mixed with
this repetitive headline. Paint the picture for
us. How did it work? So Chevy Chase would read
the news item. General Bellissimo Francisco Franco
is still dead. And then Garrett Morris would
appear on screen, usually in a smaller circle
or next to him. He would cup his hands around
his mouth and just scream the exact same sentence
at the top of his lungs. Just shouting, our top
story tonight. Exactly. And this gag. combining
Chase's deadpan delivery with Morse's shouting,
ran until early 1977. 1977. That's nearly two
years after the man died. Which is an eternity
in TV time. But it cemented the phrase in the
audience's mind. It wasn't just a one -off sketch
anymore. It was a ritual. It's interesting because
while SNL made it famous, the sources mentioned
that this phenomenon, the media refusing to let
a death story go, wasn't entirely new. No, and
this is where we get into the John Garfield still
-dead syndrome. The John Garfield still -dead
syndrome? That sounds like a medical condition.
It's a media condition. John Garfield was a famous
actor who died of a heart attack in 1952. Okay,
1952, so well before SNL. Right, and apparently
the newspaper coverage following his death and
funeral was so extensive, so relentless, that
people started noticing it. Just churning out
stories. Exactly. The papers were churning out
stories long after there was absolutely anything
new to say. Just milking the funeral for content.
Yes. Selling papers. And this was defined as
the practice of just generating stories about
a deceased celebrity for as long as possible.
So in the 50s, it was newspapers trying to sell
the morning edition. In the 70s, it was TV news
trying to keep viewers hooked before the commercial
break. It's the exact same impulse, just a different
medium. SNL just gave us the perfect vocabulary
to make fun of it. So let's fast forward a bit.
The 70s end, Chevy Chase leaves the show, but
the phrase, generally, Simo Francisco Franco
is still dead, doesn't die. It enters the lexicon.
It stops being just a quote from a comedy show
and starts becoming a tool for journalists. Which
is highly ironic, considering it was designed
to mock them. Well, the best satire usually gets
adopted by the people it's satirizing. Serious
journalists started using the phrase as shorthand.
Give us an example. How does a serious writer
use this? Well, take James Toronto. He wrote
the Best of the Web Today column. He would use...
Generalissimo, Francisco Franco is still dead,
as a tag for headlines that were stating the
obvious. Like, sun expected to rise in east tomorrow.
Exactly. Or headlines that imply something is
ongoing when it's actually just settled. It's
a way of flagging redundancy in the news cycle.
I see. It's a way of rolling your eyes at a headline
without actually rolling your eyes. Precisely.
And you saw it pop up on television news, too.
NBC News overnight used it occasionally in the
early 80s. Keith Olbermann used it on Countdown.
But there is one specific moment in 2007 that
I think perfectly captures how this phrase evolved.
2007. Who are we talking about? Anna Nicole Smith.
Oh, right. Talk about a media frenzy. February
8, 2007. The day she died. The coverage was wall
to wall. CNN, specifically the Situation Room
with Wolf Blitzer, was covering it nonstop. I
remember that. You couldn't turn on a TV without
seeing it. It was helicopter shots of ambulances
and panel discussions about, well, nothing really.
And in the middle of this, Jack Cafferty, who
is a commentator known for being a bit curmudgeonly,
a bit old school, turned to Wolf Blitzer and
asked a question that cut right through all the
noise. What did he ask? He asked, Is Anna Nicole
Smith still dead, Wolf? Wow. Direct hit. It was
biting. He was using the old Chevy Chase joke
to criticize his own network saturation coverage
in real time. Right to his face. Yeah. He was
pointing out that there was no new news, just
the same tragic fact being repeated over and
over to fill airtime. That really shows the power
of the phrase. It acts as a reality check. It
does. It's a way to snap the audience and the
producers out of the trance. It's asking, why
are we still talking about this if nothing has
changed? But it's not just used for celebrity
deaths and media criticism, right? I saw in the
notes that the Wall Street Journal, arguably
one of the most serious papers in the country,
has used it for political headlines. Yes, and
fairly recently, too. They used it on the front
page in 2009 and again in 2015. The Wall Street
Journal using an SNL catchphrase on the front
page. That feels like a crossover episode. It
fits their style, actually. Yeah. In March 2009,
the headline was Generalissimo Francisco Franco
is still dead and his statues are next. Ah, so
using the literal death to talk about the legacy.
Right. But the really clever one was in August
2015. They ran a headline that said Generalissimo
Francisco Franco is still dead, but for some
not dead enough. Not dead enough. That sounds
ominous. What was the context there? And again,
just reminding you listening, we're just analyzing
the source text here, not taking political sides.
Of course. The context was a massive shift in
Madrid's city council. The conservatives had
lost power after 24 years, and the new left -wing
critics were calling to enforce a 2007 anti -Franco
law. This is about the historical memory, right?
Exactly. For decades, Spain had this unwritten
pact of forgetting regarding the Civil War. But
in 2015, the new council wanted to rename streets,
take down plaques, and remove statues that still
honored the dictatorship. So in that context,
the headline was brilliant. Franco the man is
still dead, but Franco the symbol, the street
names, the statues was still alive enough to
be a political issue. It takes the joke about
his biological death and flips it to talk about
his political afterlife. It shows the versatility
of the phrase. It can mean, this news is boring.
Or it can mean, the past isn't done with us yet.
Speaking of the past popping up, social media
has also had its fun with this. Oh, the internet
never forgets. In 2013, there was a brief resurgence
of the phrase on Twitter and Facebook, but it
was actually due to a misunderstanding. A misunderstanding.
Yeah. A Spanish filmmaker named Jesus Franco
died. He was a cult horror director, totally
unrelated to the dictator. Oh, I see where this
is going. People saw the name Franco and the
word dead trending in the obituaries, and suddenly
the old joke was revived everywhere. Generalissimo
Francisco Franco is still dead. Just a new jerk
reaction. It's a mix of confusion and people
just seizing the opportunity to use the classic
line. It's like a reflex. You see the name, you
say the line. It proves that the phrase has a
life of its own, completely separate from the
actual historical figure. I'd bet a lot of people
tweeting that... Didn't know much about the Spanish
Civil War, but they definitely knew the punchline.
And we can't talk about the modern era without
mentioning the SNL 40th anniversary special.
This was in 2015. A huge event. And they did
a massive in -memoriam segment paying tribute
to all the cast and crew who had passed away
over the decades. Which is usually a pretty somber
moment. It was. But then Bill Murray came out
to close the segment and he had one last update.
What did he say? He said that he had some breaking
news that just came in from Spain. And he delivered
the line one more time. Bring it at full circle.
It was the perfect callback. It honored the history
of the show while acknowledging that this specific
joke is just part of the show's DNA. So let's
unpack this. Why does this specific joke stick?
I mean, there are thousands of SNL sketches.
Why is this the one in the Oxford Dictionary?
I think it's because it identified a fundamental
truth about the news business that has only gotten
more true over time. The idea that the news needs
to keep moving, even when reality has starved.
Exactly. The 24 -hour news cycle was just in
its infancy in the 70s. CNN didn't even exist
yet. But Chevy Chase and his writers saw where
things were heading. They saw the writing on
the wall. They saw that news was becoming a product
that had to be manufactured constantly, regardless
of whether there was actually anything new to
report. It's the illusion of update. That's a
great way to put it. The illusion of an update,
saying Franco is still dead, gives the viewer
the feeling of being informed, the dopamine hit
of knowing, without actually informing them of
anything. And that resonates today because, well,
look at our phones. We live in an era of constant
push notifications, developing story. Breaking
news. How often do you click on a notification
only to find that the article says exactly the
same thing it said two hours ago? All the time.
We are continuing to monitor the situation. Officials
have no new comment. That is the modern equivalent
of he is still valiantly holding on in his fight
to remain dead. It's content for the sake of
content. It's funny. We started this deep dive
thinking about a dictator in 1975, but we're
ending up talking about our own attention spans.
And that's the power of good satire. It holds
up a mirror. The joke wasn't really about Franco.
He was just the prop. The joke was about the
machine that was watching him die. And that machine
is louder and faster than ever. It certainly
is. The delivery mechanisms have changed from
newspapers to TV to Twitter to TikTok. But the
John Garfield syndrome is stronger than ever.
So as we wrap up this deep dive, we always like
to leave you with something to chew on. We've
talked about how this phrase exposes the absurdity
of the breaking news culture. So here is our
question for you to think about next time you're
doom scrolling or watching the ticker tape at
the bottom of the screen. In a world where every
single event is framed as a crisis and every
update is breaking, what is the story right now
that is arguably still dead? Yeah. What is the
topic that the media is keeping on life support,
feeding you updates that aren't updates just
to keep you watching? What is your Generalissimo
Francisco Franco today? It's worth thinking about
before you click that next link. Thanks for diving
in with us. We'll see you on the next one.