Slim Pickens, an established character actor and veteran of many Western films, was chosen to replace Sellers as Major Kong after Sellers injured his leg and couldn’t do takes inside the plane cockpit. Terry Southern’s biographer, Lee Hill, said the part was originally written with John Wayne in mind, and that Wayne was offered the role after Sellers was injured but he immediately turned it down. Dan Blocker of the Bonanza western TV series was approached to play the part, but according to Southern, Blocker’s agent rejected the script as being “too pinko.” Kubrick then recruited Pickens.

Kubrick tricked Scott into playing the role of Gen. Turgidson far more ridiculously than Scott was comfortable doing. Kubrick talked Scott into doing “over the top” practice takes, which Kubrick told Scott would never be used, as a way to warm up for the “real” takes. Kubrick used these takes in the final film, causing Scott to swear never to work with Kubrick again.

During the filming, Kubrick and Scott had different opinions regarding certain scenes, but Kubrick got Scott to conform largely by repeatedly beating Scott at chess, which they played frequently on the set. Scott, a skilled player himself, later said that while he and Kubrick may not have always seen eye to eye, he respected Kubrick immensely for his skill at chess.

As for Roger Ramjet, Chookie, we used to skive off from Maths lectures to watch it at Uni. I think it got ignored because it was for children.

w/r/t more recent efforts, “In the Loop” is pretty hard to beat.

Armagny, any total war between major industrial powers would go nuclear.

Even if it didn’t, the combination of modern guidance systems and modern aircraft would make “area bombing” far more lethal than it ever was in WWII. And it was plenty lethal then.

A lot of assumptions here. If you’ve got precision guided munitions, you don’t need to do area bombing: you can selectively take out factories/communications/whathaveyou. So no need for high civilian casualties, unless of course that is your actual intention, in which case you may as well just go nuclear in the first place. But I doubt a conventional air war these days would be anything like Dresden or Tokyo, or even Hanoi.

As for satirical war films, may I humbly submit Oh! What a Lovely War for your consideration. (Though it can’t match Strangelove.) Something more modern — Three Kings, maybe? Though maybe it wasn’t really antiwar as such, it’s a while since I saw it.

Yeah but the shows mentioned were far more mainstream. I’d say that the real problem is that those shows just used the war as their situation. They hardly paid it any heed. That’s seen as taboo nowadays. Even Blackadder treated the war with some gravity.

If you want real satire then view the Beyond the Fringe’s “The Aftermyth of War” (circa 1962)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5YW4qKOAVM

A magnificent movie, it’s high-strung blackness entirely suitable for the times.

I’m not surprised by your report, though I WAS surprised circa 1979 when invited to a young RAAF officers’ mess, to hear John Lennon’s “Imagine” played several times. These days nuffink surprises me.

(I hope also never to see a surprise mushroom cloud nearby.)

The essential element of comedy in that schtick was that the image of soldiery adopted by the Lying Rodent was completely anachronistic and inappropriate to the nature of modern war.

Both JWH and our military indoctrinators are the entirely appropriate butt of that comedy.

But in WW3 we’re all enlisted, there is no civilian/military divide. So Tom Lehrer (and all the other post-Bomb comedians) are working with events we could all – heaven forfend – have to deal with.

Mr Twain took a few steps back, and cast a cool eye on the PRE-celebrations, with the lads marching off to war, cheered on by their townsfolk….

34 years on, I am maintaining the rage for you, Gough.

Even if it didn’t, the combination of modern guidance systems and modern aircraft would make “area bombing” far more lethal than it ever was in WWII. And it was plenty lethal then.

He still works at the plant where he designed his famous AK-47 way back in 1947.

A happy man, he opined in an interview that simple things are the best and the best things are simple.

The BBC estimates that one gun in six in the world today is a Kalashnikov or a rip-off of his design.

Kalashnikov invented every war that we are likely to sing about for the foreseeable future.