This form of subtitle spans back a long way. I don’t know just how far, but I do know that twelve of the fourteen major works by Gilbert & Sullivan had such form, beginning with “Thespis; or, The Gods Grown Old” in 1871.

Many of us have a fondness for comparatively old-fashioned approaches to various things; double titles like that are one such example, using em dashes despite space-separated en dashes being more popular is another (though that one varies by locale), and writing “&c.” for “et cetera” is another (there’s lots of fun history around the ampersand ligature).

Also for example "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelley, which was published in 1818.

But actually it goes back even further, at least to the 17th century, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Night#/media/File:Twel...

> using em dashes despite space-separated en dashes being more popular is another (though that one varies by locale)

Okay so I was told in my English writing class that in US English one uses the longer em dashes without spaces. But I just can't get over how they look, and in German we use en dashes with spaces (AFAIK), so I usually do that when writing English except if it is a paper where my advisor will complain if I do. ;)

Yep, Strangelove simply utilized the existing trope, just like this article.

Probably for the same reason you're referencing the famous quote, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume" -- it's natural to imitate other text in various ways when you're writing.

Rocky and Bullwinkle did the X or Y style thing years before Dr. Strangelove. Everybody loves moose and squirrel?

TBH I just wanted to mention both of these things in the title so I stuffed them both in.^^ (I'm also not a native speaker so I kind of borrow what I see. And Dr. Strangelove was probably where I was this kind of title for the first time.)