In the first segment of season 2, episode 3, “Mandy the Merciless,” Mandy gets a vision of a future in which she learns the secret of immortality by transforming into a giant worm hybrid. She now rules the world, much like Leto II, by controlling the supply of spice. More specifically, she controls cinnamon (which is what spice melange smells like, according to the “Dune” books). The sight of a little mutant worm girl is already hilarious but the fact that it’s an overt and very deliberate homage to “God Emperor of Dune” — a story no child who watches Cartoon Network could be familiar with — is golden.
And the parody doesn’t stop there. Just like Leto II awakes clones of the character Duncan Idaho through the ages to have someone to talk to, Mandy unfreezes clones of Billy, who keep dying off in ridiculous ways — or get killed by Mandy.
That Cartoon Network would ever allow such a bizarre parody is hilarious. Cartoons are full of homages and parodies of things kids aren’t familiar with, that’s part of the fun. But “God Emperor of Dune” is such a specific choice, with such a long history and a context that is ignored in favor of memorable iconography in all the “Dune” adaptations so far, yet it works as part of a cartoon that is full of monsters and other strange creatures like this one.
Speaking with Syfy Wire, creator Maxwell Atoms once described the episode as “probably my favorite parody we ever did” because of how obscure the reference was. “This was a very post-modern show and I don’t know if I even could do another one like that, let alone have it greenlit today,” he added.
“Dune: Part Two” is now playing in theaters.
Source link
