“Mein Führer, I Can Walk!” (Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)

We need to go back to another Stanley Kubrick masterpiece to witness a moment of pure improvisational genius. In this anti-war comedy classic, Peter Sellers portrayed the Nazi scientist Dr. Strangelove, who was disabled. During filming, Sellers accidentally got up from his wheelchair; but instead of dropping the scene, he tried to get away with it by shouting, “Mein Führer, I can walk!”

The result? A bizarre moment that didn’t exactly fit in with the movie’s plot, but that provided the already weird character of Dr. Strangelove with yet another layer of mysticism and bizarreness. His shoutout to the Reich made up on the spot, tied the entire scene together.