# Dr Strangelove and his precious bodily fluids

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [January 13, 2017, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047 "2017-01-13T17:03:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/21 "2017-01-13T21:22:37Z")

</div>

Too many favs to cite.

Buck Turgidson getting excited explaining how a really sharp pilot can get his plane thru the Soviet defenses before realizing …

(George C. Scott was an amazing actor in that era.)

Maj. Kong going over the list of items in the survival kits.

“You’re going to have to answer to the Coca-Cola company.”

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/22 "2017-01-13T22:45:08Z")

</div>

> [@billfish678](#):
>
> A doomsday weapon doesn’t do any good if you don’t TELL anyone about it!
> 
> The premier was going to make an announcement at next months UN council meeting!
> 
> Or something like that.

As you know, the Premier loves surprises.  
I love the two planes making [sweet, gentle love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs7EikHQGlA) during the opening credits.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/23 "2017-01-13T22:59:27Z")

</div>

In the really early days of The Daily Show (when it was still hosted by Craig Kilborn), they had a story on aviator Charles Lindbergh, he of the purported Nazi leanings.

Kilborn introduced a picture of Lindbergh standing next to a plane as, " Mein Fuhrer, I can fly!"

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/24 "2017-01-13T23:12:11Z")

</div>

> [@eschereal](#):
>
> "\*I also like the fact that it was before _Failsafe_, so the serious movie came pre-parodied.

As did _Patton_. I always advise people who haven’t seen either movie\* to watch it first. Otherwise it’ll be hard to take Scott’s Patton seriously.

- Assuming you might someday want to watch _Patton_.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/25 "2017-01-13T23:52:01Z")

</div>

“Be careful, Mr. President. I think he is drunk.”

“I hate to judge a man before the full facts are in but at this point it does appear that General Ripper has exceeded his authority.”

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/26 "2017-01-14T04:17:09Z")

</div>

“Our source was the New York Times.”

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/27 "2017-01-14T04:55:09Z")

</div>

Ah yes, that’s what we need! A wash an brush up, a bit of water on the back of the neck, and the codes, Jack.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/28 "2017-01-14T07:24:28Z")

</div>

“Women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake. But I do deny them my essence.”

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/29 "2017-01-14T08:37:49Z")

</div>

“Shoot it. With the gun. That’s what the bullets are for, you twit!”

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/30 "2017-01-14T08:39:38Z")

</div>

Also, thread title: Band name.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![JHBoom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/13edae/32.png) [@JHBoom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JHBoom)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/31 "2017-01-14T20:26:21Z")

</div>

[quote=“Me\_Billy, post:2, topic:777047”]

I like “You can’t fight in here, this is the war room!”

> [@Steve\_MB](#):
>
> “I hate to judge a man before the full facts are in but at this point it does appear that General Ripper has exceeded his authority.”

^^These.

> [@scabpicker](#):
>
> I love the two planes making [sweet, gentle love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs7EikHQGlA) during the opening credits.

I’m a former KC-10 boom operator, so this is especially relevant for me.  
However, that disconnect (when the tanker’s boom is disconnected from the receiver’s receptacle) was atrocious.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/32 "2017-01-14T20:48:27Z")

</div>

I always wondered if the track _Vera Lynn_ from _The Wall_ was a reference to the end of the movie.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/33 "2017-01-14T21:06:31Z")

</div>

I recently commented on a GQ thread about some items of the survival kit in the B52, I will add it here.

[QUOTE=Mayor Kong]  
"Survival kit contents check. In them you’ll find:

```
- One forty-five caliber automatic
- Two boxes of ammunition
- Four days' concentrated emergency rations
- One drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine,
  vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills
- One miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible
- One hundred dollars in rubles
- One hundred dollars in gold
- Nine packs of chewing gum
- One issue of prophylactics
- Three lipsticks
- Three pair of nylon stockings.

```

Shoot, a fella’ could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff."  
[/QUOTE]

A black comedy indeed. The kit can be explained as a parody referencing many items that many soldiers in WWII found very useful to bribe people in the nations close to the action or the invaded ones. (Many viewers in the 60’s would still be aware of what took place during rationing and the shortages in WWII)

Most importantly for the sexual undertones of the movie (Mistresses, the ratio of females to men in the underground shelters proposed by Dr. Strangelove, the lovely music while planes couple in the opening credits, etc) such a kit assumes a chaotic or rationed economy and a loss of a power base as a result of a war with Russia; so, better chances to bribe people or to expect Russian women to offer themselves thanks to bribes to the Americans if they had become the winners just as it happened to many allied troops in Europe and other parts of the world that suffered a lot of shortages during WWII.

Of course, the irony and humor of the scene is expected to come to the viewers by realizing later that global thermonuclear war was not going to be like WWII, and most if not all those items would be useless when everything is obliterated. At least in WWII many people would survive that then could be convinced or bribed to go along with the conquerors.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BuckChongo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@BuckChongo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BuckChongo)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/34 "2017-01-15T00:57:16Z")

</div>

Kubrick’s composition of the scenes in the War Room have always bothered/intrigued me. The setting is stark and deeply shadowed and a lot of the action is conversation between two or three of the characters. In the background you see all of the technicians and various supernumeraries sitting or standing motionless, some rapt, some bored, some of them in postures that obviously echo Leonardo’s Last Supper. I think this is by far Kubrick’s best movie. Worried it is fast returning to relevance…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/35 "2017-01-15T01:00:25Z")

</div>

[quote=“JHBoom, post:31, topic:777047”]

> [@Me\_Billy](#):
>
> I’m a former KC-10 boom operator, so this is especially relevant for me.  
> However, that disconnect (when the tanker’s boom is disconnected from the receiver’s receptacle) was atrocious.

Hey, the deed was done, and the tanker had places to be and people to see, amirite?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/36 "2017-01-15T01:19:14Z")

</div>

Deterrence is the art of placing in the mind of the enemy the _fear_ to attack. And so because of the automated and… irrevokable decision-making process which rules out _human_ meddling, the Doomsday Machine is terrifying, simple to understand, and completely credible and convincing.

(gee, I wish we had one of them Doomsday Machines, Stanley)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/37 "2017-01-15T01:31:49Z")

</div>

> [@Dr.Strangelove](#):
>
> Deterrence is the art of placing in the mind of the enemy the _fear_ to attack. And so because of the automated and… irrevokable decision-making process which rules out _human_ meddling, the Doomsday Machine is terrifying, simple to understand, and completely credible and convincing.

I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed – but I _do_ say, no more than ten to twenty million killed, _tops_, uh, depending on the breaks.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/38 "2017-01-15T01:42:38Z")

</div>

> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed – but I _do_ say, no more than ten to twenty million killed, _tops_, uh, depending on the breaks.

The line works even better when you notice Turgidson has been carrying around a binder labeled WORLD TARGETS IN MEGADEATHS.

\> Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn’t that necessitate the abandonment of the so called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?

Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious… service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/39 "2017-01-15T03:07:10Z")

</div>

I like when Mandrake, fidgeting with the gum wrapper, nervously mumbles “yes, yes” at Ripper.

[quote=“GIGObuster, post:16, topic:777047”]

The documentary of how the movie was made is a very good one:

[/QUOTE]

One of the funniest things I’ve heard all week - near the end of that, art director Ken Adam said that when Reagan first went into office, he asked where the War Room was. He was informed there was no such thing. Apparently he responded, “but I saw it in that film Dr. Strangelove.”

Wish I had one of those Pocket Radioactivity Calculators.

::as I look proudly over at my SK poster [Strangelove set, cigar in mouth, camera on lap, machine gun in front of him (pointing at us)…and harsh gaze;)]::

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\
**Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047/40 "2017-01-15T11:32:09Z")

</div>

> [@Eddie The Horrible](#):
>
> One of the funniest things I’ve heard all week - near the end of that, art director Ken Adam said that when Reagan first went into office, he asked where the War Room was. He was informed there was no such thing. Apparently he responded, “but I saw it in that film Dr. Strangelove.”

It’s called the “Situation Room”. Which sound like a bit of 80’s PC. Was there any need for a “War Room” during WW II ?

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047.md?page=1)

[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dr-strangelove-and-his-precious-bodily-fluids/777047.md?page=3)
