Generalissimo Francisco Franco Is Still Dead - Legacy

Legacy

The phrase has remained in use in the decades since. 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?" It was also used now and then on NBC News Overnight in the early 1980s, and Keith Olbermann occasionally used it on Countdown.

The Wall Street Journal used the headline: "Generalísimo Francisco Franco Is Still Dead – And His Statues Are Next" (front page; March 2, 2009).

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, Fidel Castro in late 2006 and early 2007, and Hosni Mubarak in 2012.

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.