Once upon a time, Captain Lionel Mandrake sat down with General Jack D. Ripper for a nice chat about the communist plot to poison our water with fluoride. As bullets flew through the office, Col. Ripper asked Capt. Mandrake if he had ever seen a commie drink a glass of water and, relatedly, if he had ever heard of something called water fluoridation. If this sounds familiar, it’s probably because you just watched the video embedded at the top of this post. It might also sound familiar because although you didn’t watch the clip, it is of a scene in Dr. Strangelove, a popular and fictional movie satirizing the hysteria surrounding the Cold War, which included conspiracies such as the one where commies control our minds through water fluoridation.

This has been a fun little review of a three-and-a-half minute clip from an old Kubrik film. But there is a third reason the scenario hashed out above might sound familiar to you. A couple of Tampa Bay Rays players—pitchers Steve Geltz and Chris Archer—essentially had the same exact conversation on Twitter this afternoon.

Speaking in front of the Senate in 1951, Surgeon General Leonard A. Scheele told the country that water fluoridation was official Public Health Services policy and by 1960 its use was widespread across the country. The CDC lists water fluoridation as one of the ten greatest achievements in public health of the 20th century because it was a major factor in the decline in tooth decay. Others on the list include vaccinations and recognizing tobacco as a health hazard. That all sounds pretty good but…

The Redcoats are coming!

h/t @JustinBopp