Saturday Night Live/Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead

The death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco during SNL's first season in 1975 served as the source of one of the first catchphrases from SNL to enter the general populace. [Chevy Chase]?, reader of the news on the program's comedic news segment, announced the fascist dictator's death and read a quote from Richard Nixon praising Franco as a good friend of the United States; as an ironic counterpoint to this, a picture was displayed behind Chase, showing Franco standing alongside Adolf Hitler. In addition the humor referred to the fact that the imminent death of Franco was the headline story on the NBC news for a number of weeks previous.

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!" 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.