Ellis Weiner

Ellis Weiner’s National Lampoon’s Doon parodies Frank Herbert’s Dune, which had become a part of the collegiate zeitgeist. William F. Touponce compared Dune’s impact to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, which the Harvard Lampoon similarly parodied as Bored of the Rings. Like that earlier parody, Weiner’s work roughly follows the same plot as the original he’s parodying, though with a great deal of wordplay. For example, Duke Lotto, the head of House Agamemnides, must move to Arruckus, or “Doon,” the Dessert Planet composed of sugars and the only source of beer in the galaxy. Doon is also home to the deadly pretzels and the native Freedmenmen. Lotto’s son Pall and his concubine Jazzica travel with him, with Pall joining the Freedmenmen and taking the name Mauve’Bib after the purple napkin all Freedmenmen wear. Meanwhile, Baron Vladimir Hardchargin conspires with Shaddap IV, the Pahdedbrah Emperor for control of Doon.

Puns and pop culture references abound, with Frank Herbert’s CHOAM transformed into NOAMCHOMSKI. Baron Hardchargin obsesses over the designs of architect Jonzun Fillup, a reference to Philip Johnson who designed 550 Madison Avenue in Manhattan. Weiner also includes references to the hokey pokey (pg. 78) while the Emperor’s daughter, Serutan, whose name is “natures” spelled backward, references a laxative of the same name from the 1930s through the 1960s (pg. 179). Like Bored of the Rings, much of the humor in Doon is dated and the running joke about restaurant work and beer grows stale over the course of the novel, though Weiner wisely kept the book short so that the humor doesn’t completely outstay its welcome. Fans of Herbert’s Dune may seek this if they want a complete collection, but, like Bored of the Rings, it was intended for a college demographic decades ago and does not have the lasting power of the work it parodies.… (altro)