For example, I–a lifelong Dune fan who feels confident I could win any trivia game about the books and wants to get a “Litany Against Fear” tattoo–did not know until last week that National Lampoon did a satire of the first book in 1985.
The entire plot summary on Wikipedia is just…wow…but clearly I need to track this book down:
Arruckus is also known as “Doon”, and is additionally known as the Dessert Planet. Covered entirely in sugars, it is a harsh unforgiving environment, where not an entree can be found; the natives live entirely on whatever they can import, produce from the sugars, or produce from soy protein (the native food experiments known as the Mahn t’Vani).
Duke Lotto accepts the fief, aware that it may well be a death trap but also conscious of the importance of Arruckus’s only export, the wide-spectrum intoxicant known as beer. Found naturally on Arruckus as a result of natural processes and nowhere else, it is the engine on which commerce runs; the Schlepping Guild, who has a monopoly on space travel in the Imperium, will not run without it. Who controls the beer controls commerce.