Talk:Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead

Fascist

I wonder about the neutral policies in this encyclopedia. Franco was not a fascist, as it is proven by his Fuero de los españoles and fuero del trabajo. On the other hand, nobody was ever more fascist than Lenin and Stalin, who made a State who eliminated all the individual liberties of man. If we confront this with the definition of fascism by Benito Mussolini, we should discard this article at all.

Franco, by common use of the word, was a fascist. In the article on Facism or the article on Franco, it might be productive to discuss what fascism is and whether or not Franco was a fascist by those definitions. But this is an article about a North American event, to which is truely irrelevant whether Franco ever existed, much less his real politics. --Prosfilaes 22:47, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

His political ideology was fascist. He even tried to fashion the Spanish state after the Fascist states in the beginning. His policies (including economical, etc) however, forced by isolation in the beginning, are not what one would call "fascist".

He was a fascist in the sense that he was a member - indeed, the leader - of a Fascist party. Townmouse 8 July 2005 00:30 (UTC)

The title of this article is misspelled

"Generalissimo" is the Italian spelling. In Spanish it would be "Generalísimo". That's one S, not two, and an accent on the first I.

But the article refers to an American catchphrase. Like it or not, most English-speakers don't know the distinction, and use the Italian form; correcting it seems overly nit-picky Holgate 10:42, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

It should at least be consistent. The content of the article has it with the Spanish spelling, and the title has it with the Italian. We should make it consistently Spanish or consistently Italian. My preference would be Spanish. —Caesura^(t) 10:44, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

The word Generalissimo exists in English, not Generalísimo. And this encyclopedia is in English.--Menah the Great 19:21, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Then you ought to call him by his English name, Francis Frank.

Yeah, and Giuseppe Verdi is Joe Green. Straw man. The question here is whether "generalísimo" was used, his proper title, or "generalissimo", the term for the highest-ranking general. Both are correct as far as meaning goes, and the discussion is only happening because the words sound the same to English ears. If Chevy Chase had said that Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was still dead, nobody would have argued that we should use Bundeskanzler because it's his proper title in German—and vice versa. It shouldn't be hard to figure out whether all the networks and/or the writers of the show used generalísimo or generalissimo. According to what SWATJester posted below, it's the latter, so that would seem to settle it. 82.92.119.11 12:45, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

We don't even need to state that the words "sound the same to English ears". Generalísimo would not be pronounced with a sound recognizable in English as a "G" or "J" sound. Djcartwright 00:52, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone remember what Chase said? Was it "jeneraleesemo" or "heneraleesemo"? If the former, then I suppose we should use the Italian spelling, but in that case the accented i needs to go, as it is not used in this word in Italian. --Trovatore (talk) 01:52, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

The first time referring to Franco, Chevy stumbled over the title and pronounced it "jen'ralaleesimo". In the previous breathe, he mispronounced legislation. :) In later uses, he pronounced it the same, but without the extra syllable. The Italian spelling isn't relevant; neither Chase nor Franco used that language. Chase used an anglicized version of a Spanish title. Whether it should include an accent is largely a matter of opinion; when English words are borrowed from other languages the inclusion of accents is irregular (see café). -Jason A. Quest (talk) 02:39, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, right now we've got a Spanish accented-eye coupled with an Italian double-ess. I grant that it's unclear just what's right, but surely that is wrong. I propose to move it to Generalissimo with no accent. --Trovatore (talk) 03:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

according to the SNL 25th anniv. book

It's Generalissimo.⇒ SWATJester ^Ready Aim _Fire! 16:01, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Orphaned paragraph

It's no longer apparent whose death The Today Show announced. 165.236.149.194 added the paragraph at the end of the article, with the summary "adding probable cause of SNL line", so I'm guessing it refers to The Today Show's announcement of Franco's death. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 05:45, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know which predated which

When I was in Spain I found out that there was a popular Spanish novel in which the protagonist brings Franco back from the dead. I don't know if this novel was a response to "GFFISD", or if it was part of the original joke. Anybody? ChristinaDunigan 15:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't sound like it has anything to do with this joke. Andrew Levine 18:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

The title of the novel is "Y al tercer año resucitó", by Fernando Vizcaíno Casas. The novel was a bestseller in Spain in the late 1970´s. The author -strangely enough- was totally loyal to Franco (a "Nostálgico del antiguo regimen"). The novel is a merciless satire of the new "Democratic" Spanish politics of the time. I think that it was totally unrelated with the SNL joke this page is about.Randroide (talk) 23:29, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

2024

The earliest occurrence of the "still dead" phrase that I know of was in a Nero Wolfe novel by Rex Stout, probably in the 1940s. Archie Goodwin, the narrator, says that the murder victim was "still dead" a few days after the murder and the police had made no progress on the case. If I find the book I will cite it in the article, but right now I don't know where to look. Wastrel Way (talk) 15:29, 20 August 2024 (UTC)Eric

Responding to a 17-year-old talk message! That's commitment! StewdioMACK (talk) 15:32, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I suppose. But I picked up a Nero Wolfe book, "The Red Box" and there it was at the beginning of Chapter 9. "The Red Box" was published in 1937. This joke is pretty old. Edit: I added it to the article, but I'm not intending to start a contest to find the earliest "still dead" joke. Wastrel Way (talk) 01:40, 21 August 2024 (UTC)Eric

The bit about the Nero Wolfe novel really should be removed for being unsourced and original research. It differs from the John Garfield mention which was notable enough to be sourced to the New York Times. Unless an earlier instance of the joke is actually discussed in a reliable source, it really doesn't belong in the article CAVincent (talk) 03:14, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Doug Limerick

According to Doug Limerick of ABC News Radio: Chevy Chase was satirizing him (Limerick). A couple weeks before Franco's actual death, Limerick was handed a news item saying Franco was dead, and Limerick delivered it. The mistake was caught, and for the rest of the day, ABC news was leading the news with "Francisco Franco is still alive".

And I am almost positive that there was a second false report of Franco's death — Randall Bart 01:29, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Not military history

As this article is about American pop culture rather than Franco, it is not military history. I have removed the WPMILHIST template. PKKloeppel (talk) 15:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved as requested Mike Cline (talk) 11:35, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

---

Generalíssimo Francisco Franco is still dead → Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead –

The accented í seems to come from the Spanish word, but the Spanish word is not being used (note that there is only a single s in the Spanish word generalísimo). Chase seems to have used the Anglicized term from Italian.

Note that a simple move fails because the redirect has a history and so must be deleted. --Trovatore (talk) 10:20, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I support this. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 12:56, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support. Strongly support. This looks like the current title is a spelling mistake, ie. it should be done as an uncontroversial/technical move, not a matter for long discussion. Moonraker12 (talk) 13:43, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

It turns out the current title is due to it was moved here deliberately, without any notice or contemporary discussion with this edit. This was despite a discussion here from some years ago that clearly had no consensus to move to the current title. In which case the page should be put back to the original title, without question. Moonraker12 (talk) 21:54, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, if anything else is needed, Generalissimo is an honorific used in English for a number of people, incuding Franco; and the phrase is American, not Spanish or Italian. And as pointed out here "Generalissimo" was the spelling used in the SNL yearbook, which should be the definitive source here. Moonraker12 (talk) 21:57, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support dumping diacritic, since it leads to a form which doesn't appear to belong to any particular language. AnonMoos (talk) 19:03, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The first sentence should be reworded

In the first sentence, it isn't clear what originated during the first season, the catchphrase or the media reports. — Preceding unsigned comment added by OkieCoder (talk • contribs) 18:27, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Original research tag

I don't see why the statement that the deaths of numerous world leaders was preceded by large amounts of media coverage. Anyone with access to Google can verify as much of the coverage is still available online. The list needs to be updated to include Nelson Mandala. US media ran a "Mandala is still alive" story just this morning. 68.146.70.124 (talk) 01:52, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

External reference?

It does not quite belong in the article because it is a primary source. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axByUFSa7N8 - a 9-minute video containing a compilation of the SNL skits MichelleInSanMarcos (talk) 19:09, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

By the way, the original "Saturday Night Live" book (1977, ISBN 0-380-01801-2) has a photograph of Franco on the cover! AnonMoos (talk) 14:40, 22 November 2016 (UTC)