wrote:
I have just watched Dr. Strangelove (again) and have always wondered if
the Slim Pickens quote "I will get them doors open if it harelips
everybody on Bear Creek!" has any meaning other than the dialog. Any
ideas?

Slim Pickens is saying that everybody in Bear Creek are inbred hicks
who have harelips. It is an old Southern expression that basically
means, "it is going to happen even if it makes no difference." Since
everybody in Bear Creek already has a harelip, Slim Pickens is saying
that he will get those doors open even if it changes nothing. No doubt
there are many variants of this saying, some of them more or less
obscene and/or racist. The original saying is supposed to be "if it
short****s every pygmy in the Congo," and I have no idea what the
asterisks mean (and I don't want to know, either.)

The story is that Slim Pickens picked up the phrase in rodeo. Kubrick
asked him what a cowboy would say other than "I am going to do it if it
kills me," and Pickens recalled what he used to hear some old cowboy
say in rodeo.