* {{Anvilicious}}: Atomic weapons and the policies surrounding their use, especially mutually assured destruction and the missile gap, are absurd and dangerous.
* AwesomeMusic:
** The epic variation on "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" that plays over the bomber scenes.
*** Many younger audiences may be more familiar with the alternative take on this song, "The Ants Go Marching." Oddly, this makes the scene work even more.
** ''We'll...meet again...don't know where...don't know wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen...''
* CrazyAwesome: Ripper himself. Bonkers as he may be, one has to hand it to him how he delivers his bull in such a [[MoodDissonance straight way]]. And then the man keeps a machine gun in his golf bag.
* GeniusBonus: Mandrake's last name; a common folkloric belief is that mandrakes grow only in ground into which has soaked the semen that is sometimes forced from the bodies of men hanged to death. Mandrake's role plays off General Ripper, who is strongly implied to have been driven insane by misconceptions about sex, and who is ultimately, as is mentioned in a throw-away line, the greatest mass murderer since AdolfHitler -- what's more, Mandrake "blooms" as a person, taking authority to try and stop the impending catastrophe, after he unintentionally goads Ripper into shooting himself.
* FunnyAneurysmMoment: When discussing the contents of the survival kit, Major Kong's original line was "shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in [Dallas] with this". President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas 2 months before the film premiered.
* ProtagonistTitleFallacy
* WeirdAlEffect: The Dr. Strangelove character is a spoof of the German MadScientist StockCharacter from '50s films.
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