This just in...

Michael Jackson is still dead.
(apologies to Chevy Chase and Generalissimo Francisco Franco)

:rofl:

Unfortunately, the young kids on DU won't get it!

Not that I should probably know about it either... but being a big comedy nerd...

Now, recapping today's news for the hearing impaired:

OUR TOP STORY TODAY, MICHAEL JACKSON IS STILL DEAD!

it is sex and violence, not sax and violins...

Oh, that's different... NEVER MIND!

For everyone else, sex and violence.

Lenny Bruce famously declared that satire was a mix of "tragedy plus time." Thus, an observational joke about Jacqueline Kennedy's reaction to John's murder was received quite differently in the weeks immediately after Dallas than it would be years later. In Lenny's case, he was arrested for it. Oh, his booking couched the reasons behind charges of obscenity and accusations of appeals to prurient interest (as though there's something wrong with that!), but Lenny and the cops knew -- he was arrested in Catholic Chicago because he laid bare the reality of Mrs Kennedy's act, and for exposing the duplicity of "Religion, Inc."

I mention this as a roundabout way of illustrating the possibility of why certain people may not appreciate the content of your attempt at satire. There are occasions when time heals wounds, and other instances where it provides the cushion necessary for humor to be played out. In this case, however, it's simply misplaced.

The humor of Chevy Chase's faux newscasts, repeated as they were throughout the evening of the show on which Gen. Franco's death was lampooned, was dependent on the shared knowledge of the audience that the Generalissimo had taken an exceptionally long time to die. He fell ill in '74, recovered, fell ill again some months later, then lingered at death's door for most of a year. It was suspected he was kept just barely alive by his doctors for political purposes, that he might die on the anniversary of the execution of Falange founder Primo de Rivera. So Chevy's Chase's reaffirmations of his continuing death were a comical play on his long, drawn out final days -- hence, the element of satire.

As Michael Jackson died suddenly and quite unexpectedly, the use of this joke in regards to his demise is pointless, and if anything, quite silly. Perhaps with a little more work you could find another comic bit to regale us with that might better capture the moment.

...that the joke died a slow, lingering death like Franco. There must be some kind of poetic justice in that.

It is in it's original context?
The Joke in it's present context is that the news media keeps covering a story over and over again., thus MJ is still dead...because they have noting else on it and do not want to cover anything else.
Sorry you don't get it, but there are no rules in comedy.

The media is hyping this to the heavens, for their own purposes of course (read: money).

Journeymen,

I am happy to see that in your last paragraph you finally understood my post. My post was quite silly. And in fact, it was intended to be quite silly. And keep in mind that part of its silliness focuses on the fact that people who swoon over the cult of celebrity are themselves quite silly. Note that those who dislike my humor are welcome to disagree with me in their heads or in this forum or privately via email.

Generally, I am not one to stoop to personal attacks, but your somewhat longwinded post reads like the writings of a frustrated graduate student who has never completed his or her dissertation, but nonetheless feels the need to show off their knowledge to the world.

I am very familiar with the dictator Franco's life and demise (in fact I am in Catalunya as I write this -- an area all too familiar with his reign). I also know that Chevy Chase's routine embodied a wonderful mix of clever and silly -- and I am proud to continue his legacy (a much happier legacy than either Francisco Franco or Michael Jackson can lay claim to). I will happily choose silliness over polemics.

"Your money or your life ... Welllllll........."

Responsible for the longest audience laugh ever recorded, three and half minutes if memory serves. We can always use some silly.

Lighten up, Frances!