For yahoos they certainly were. There was Peter Sellers in three roles; that of the impotent US President, trying hopelessly to palcate the Russians when he can’t even control his own generals. “No fighting in the war room,” he bellows at one point. And as a British officer trying to remain sensible amid the madness created when Sterling Hayden’s mad General Jack Ripper launches the attack because the Commies are contaminating out precious bodily fluids, apparently imagining that ejaculation is a enemy plot. And as the wheel-chair bound Dr Strangelove, who has trouble controlling is mechanical arm when it persists in making the Nazi salute. Add to that George C. Scott as the SAC expert, drooling of the delights of the B-52 on a nuclear bombing run and Keenan Wynne as an army officer sure that saving the world is not worth violating the rights of the Coca-cola company.
   And best of all, Slim Pickens as the pilot of the errant B-52. “It’s nuclear war, boys. Toe to toe with the Ruskies!” In the final scene he rides the bomb toward the target like a rodeo bronco, yahooing all the way. Vera Lynn songs accompany the nuclear destruction of humanity. All in all, one of the very greatest and most important films of all time. And very funny, despite the horror of the plot.