Pope John Paul the Second is Still Dead
Some trivia from imdb about Chevy Chase:
His now-famous "Good evening, I'm Chevy Chase and you're not" opening line on the "Weekend Update" segments of "Saturday Night Live" (1975) was a takeoff of New York news anchor Roger Grimsby's "Here now the news" opening line.
Winner of Harvard Lampoon Lifetime Achievement Award 1996.
Was nearly killed (electrocuted) during the filming of Modern Problems (1981) when, during the sequence in which he is wearing "landing lights" as he dreams that he is an airplane, the current in the lights short-circuited through his arm, back, and neck muscles. The near-death experience caused him to experience a period of deep depression.
Has perfect pitch, a musical ability to remember the exact frequency of a note.
Was the drummer for what he called "a bad jazz band." That band became Steely Dan.
Chevy was actually a childhood nickname -- possibly based on the Maryland suburb -- bestowed by his grandmother. The Chase family was affluent and distinguished, and Chevy was listed in Social Register at early age. His paternal grandfather was painter/teacher Frank Swift Chase; his father, Ned Chase, was a prominent Manhattan book editor and magazine writer. His mother was descended from the Crane plumbing-fixture family.
Was a long-time class clown expelled from private schools like NYC's Dalton but did well at Stockbridge School in Massachusetts. Expelled from Haverford College after bringing a cow into the third floor of a campus building. Transferred to Bard College, where he dated actress Blythe Danner and graduated in 1967.
Has said that he regrets leaving "Saturday Night Live" (1975) after just one year.
Chase is a member of the exclusive Hollywood Gourmet Poker Club with fellow card players Johnny Carson, Martin Short, Steve Martin, Carl Reiner, Barry Diller and Neil Simon.
Hmmm...bringing an animal into a campus building...I've seen that somewhere. One of the few movies that I've seen is "Animal House." I don't know if the scene with the horse was somehow based on Chase's experiences with a cow, but it is interesting to note that Chase almost joined the "Animal House" cast:
Chevy Chase was offered the role of Otter, but he turned it down to do "Foul Play".
But let's return to Francisco Franco and the famous catchphrase which I looted above:
The death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco during the first season of Saturday Night Live in 1975 served as the source of one of the first catch phrases from SNL to enter the general lexicon.
Franco lingered near death for weeks before dying. On slow news days, United States network television news casters sometimes noted that Franco was still alive, or not yet dead....
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....
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.
The phrase may owe something to...an issue of National Lampoon from 1973 that began with a picture of Eisenhower waving, with the caption "Hi kids, I'm still dead!"
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