Poor Ceausescu

Photo by: NBC/NBCU Photo Bank

I've been doing research on the Cold War in preparation for my sequel to "Another Girl, Another Planet", and in the process I was reminded that Romania was the only country in the Eastern Bloc where the ruler was violently overthrown. After refusing to bow to the inevitable, Nikolai Ceausescu and his wife were arrested and unceremoniously shot on Christmas Day 1989.

In the course of my research I stumbled across the record of a "Saturday Night Live" skit that ran on Jan. 13, 1990. I remember seeing this when it was first broadcast 26 years ago.

Here is a still that shows Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Ed O'Neill, Nora Dunn, and Jon Lovitz as mourners during the skit called 'Ceausescu's Wake'.

The people all sound mournful as they bemoan Ceausescu's demise, saying "Poor Ceausescu!". After a while, one of them asks:

"Is he really dead?"

Someone else says, "Let's be sure."

At which point everyone pulls out a gun and starts shooting into the coffin.

As a wise man once said, being an evil dictator has great benefits and perks, but the retirement plan sucks.