Hahaaaaa, Dangly parts.

NOTE: This is not the finished post. I just wanted to jot down a few things that are rolling around in my head before they fall out.
The actual airplane that dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the B-29 Superfortress. That particular plane was named "Enola Gay". If wikipedia can be trusted, the US maintains about 5,500 nuclear bombs. However, between 1945 and 1990, 70,000 nuclear weapons (in varying destructive sizes) were made. As of 1996, $5.8 trillion had been spent on the warheads themselves, and an additional $365 billion was spent on disposal. That adjusts to about $7.85 trillion and $494 billion today.

A 10-kiloton nuclear bomb (like the one dropped on Nagasaki) can and will vaporize everything within a 1/2-mile radius of the bomb center and completely destroyed everything within a 1-mile radius. There was rumor of a 50-megaton nuclear bomb developed by the Soviet Union. (The validity of this is unknown) If this bomb were dropped on Chicago, its destructive power would be felt in Minnesota and Michigan. My (extremely squiffy) source claims that the aforementioned nuke, named The Tsar Bomb, was originally to be made at 100 megatons. That's a whole mess of TNT, folks. The nuclear weapons that the bombers were supposed to deploy were each 50 megatons. Contemplate.

Factual crap aside, let's move on to the penis jokes. "Man walking through turnstyle sideways going to Bankok." Ah. That's out of my system. But in all seriousness, Dr. Strangelove was just one penis joke after another. From the president who completely lacks a pair to the cowboy pilot riding an enormous phallus to his death, and several shots in-between, we have nearly non-stop crotch references. Upward angles that appear to be shot from the lap, a man sitting in the lap of another long after his fall there, missiles, midair refueling, and a series of people in charge that can best be described as ineffectual and impotent. And a mostly-naked secretary. I mean, really. (Was anyone else expecting Mel Brooks to pop out from behind a curtain with a cigar and a jacket with "GOV" on the back? Because I sure was.) [Semi-related sidenote: a classmate just came across a picture of a too-friendly lifeguard in a coloring book. He has a whistle. The whistle itself is dangling at ball-level. The strap for the whistle looks vaguely penis-like. Just so you know.]

Now I'd like to discuss the absurdity of the movie. So I will. While I'm sure sentiments were different back then, what with the actual possibility of nuclear warfare, it's surprising to me that *anyone* would take this seriously. The names are all descriptive of the actual characters - Major King Kong is the inwardly sensitive all-American cowboy. General Turgidson is cheating on his missus and has rather the (dare I say it?) cocky demeanor. General Jack D. Ripper - I mean, come on. Does it get any more obvious? How could anybody think that these characters are anything but a walking euphemism? Yet, as the article implies, some people actually took it seriously, thinking that there was a real call for a doomsday device, underground bomb shelters, the works. And to this day, we toy with ideas involving nuclear devastation and the aftermath thereof. Remember the 1999-2000 fiasco? Y2K! The world will end! All of the computers will fail and nuclear weapons will be deployed and everyone will die! These ideas make people do crazy, crazy things like stockpiling bottled water and spaghettios, getting rid of cell phones and computers, and figuring out how to reuse tampons. It was during this debacle that I first saw bits and pieces of Dr. Strangelove, though my father refused to let me watch all of it for fear that I might go into a blind panic and insist that we stock up on spam and canned oranges. So while I never saw Strangelove's speeches, the ending, or the shooting scene, I knew a few things coming into the movie. Mostly that it was silly.

But let's contemplate this for a moment. Mutually Assured Destruction. While I had never known the actual term for it, I certainly knew how it would happen. There's even a silly flash cartoon about it. The US has literal stockpiles of nuclear weapons...somewhere. China, France, Russia, India, Israel, Pakistan, and the UK also have nuclear weapons. All it takes is one psychopath with access to the proper codes, one clumsy ass janitor, or a major mechanical malfunction, and we have a serious problem. (See also: War Games) In this case, we have a psychopath who somehow manages to use a Presidential override and block the president from being able to stop his nuclear attack on the fluoride-using commie bastards from stealing his precious bodily fluids. ...Yeahhhh...About that... Regardless of his psychosis, he starts a chain reaction of death that, in Dr. Strangelove's opinion, would force the people underground.

In theory, this might work. I suppose I could understand people thinking that it's possible to live underground and not risk irradiation. But food would be scarce, surely. Not so! We can build greenhouses! (Uhm...where's the sun coming from, pal? That's kind of important for the greenhouse idea to work.) Animals could be bred. (And what would you do with their waste? How would you feed *them* as well?) 10 women to every man to sustain the species. (Great plan. So you can pop out a whole mess o' babies and strain your resources.) You've certainly got that one all worked out, mein Freundin. But what about water? Didn't think of that one, did you? Can the American people honestly think that underground greenhouses and mass breeding would work? Ok, fine, we're gullible. Let's go ahead and buy that one just for funsies. But water is really important, and as most of the water is on the surface of the earth, it's going to be irradiated. But wait! Interplay figured that one out and gave us a great game to go with it: Fallout.

Aside from the absurdity of the plan that will sustain humanity, there's the whole bombing situation to begin with. The concept that any man in his right mind would even attempt to ride a nuclear warhead is just plain silly. And seriously, being dropped from a plane, at any altitude, is going to cause significant wind resistance. A person would not likely be able to straddle a giant bomb for any length of time, nevermind whoop and holler whilst brandishing a cowboy hat. And the pilot is just that- a pilot. He flies the bird, he doesn't work on the mechanics of the poop-chute. Perhaps the guy flipping the switches might now how to hot-wire the doors into opening, but even that's a stretch.

Ok, so I know most of this stuff because my brother was a pilot. Most Americans during the cold war probably didn't know half of this crap. Hell, most Americans *now* probably don't know half of this crap. But doesn't some of it seem...fanciful? What military commander would give vital (probably confidential) information to a secretary? What secretary would shout across the room to her boss? What pilot would leave his damn seat mid-flight without a copilot taking over? WHAT PLANE WOULD TAKE TO THE AIR WITHOUT A COPILOT?!?! (There may have been one. I don't really remember; I do remember Kong getting up more than once and not seeing someone take over the controls or hearing him tell someone to take the controls.)

I guess my point is that this movie is clearly not made to be taken seriously, yet it seems that some Americans did just that. To me, that's just like watching History of the World Part I and thinking that some of those shenanigans had actually happened way back in the day. Rabblerabblerabble.