In the early 1960s an Air Force official touring a Hollywood soundstage looked into a mock B-52 cockpit and assumed espionage, because the classified layout was flawlessly accurate. The designers had reverse-engineered it from a single unclassified exterior photograph and an older declassified aircraft. That set belonged to Dr. Strangelove, and this episode uses production notes, historical records and behind-the-scenes accounts to tell the story of a film that was never meant to be a comedy.

The discussion explains how Stanley Kubrick's research into mutually assured destruction convinced him the logic was too absurd for drama, why co-writer Terry Southern's credit angered novelist Peter George, and how Columbia's demand that Peter Sellers play four roles ended at three after a sprained ankle. It covers Slim Pickens being kept unaware he w ...