Futurama Has Been Riffing On Dune Since Its First Run On Television
"Futurama" is finally back... again! The beloved animated sci-fi series following the misadventures of the ragtag crew of an intergalactic delivery company debuted in the spring of 1999 on Fox, where it ran for four seasons. It was then canceled by Fox, revived by Comedy Central, canceled by Comedy Central, and now, 10 years after its last episode ran, "Futurama" has been brought back for an eleventh season on Hulu.
Matt Groening's left-brained follow-up to "The Simpsons" has always, like that classic sitcom parody, played directly in the sandbox of hyper-current pop and political culture. The series has devoted entire episodes to satirizing (as a means of analyzing) everything from "Star Trek," to the controversial presidential election of 2000, to James Cameron's "Avatar," California's marriage equality referendum Proposition 8, and even "The Simpsons" itself.
Naturally, as the series has an abiding sci-fi/retro-futuristic bent, many of those references have been to works of fantasy, science fiction, and speculative fiction. It shouldn't come as a surprise that "Futurama" has already made numerous references to Frank Herbert's "Dune," given it's one of the most influential works of science fiction of the 20th century.
Even before this current season, "Futurama" made in-episode references to "Dune" in the form of an outfit allusion here or a giant sandworm there. But with "Dune" back on culture's main boilerplate in the form of Denis Villeneuve's well-received 2021 adaptation and highly anticipated sequel to come in November, Groening, co-creator David X. Cohen, and the rest of the "Futurama" creative team devoted an entire new episode to sending up life on the sand planet.
Futurama's history with Dune
One of the series' first references to "Dune" goes all the way back to its original run on FOX. In the season 2 episode "The Lesser of Two Evils," Fry, Leela, Bender, and an evil Bender dupe named Flexo travel to the planet Tova 9 to deliver precious cargo (an atom of the fictional element Jumbonium) to the Miss Universe pageant. This is an actual Miss Universe competition, featuring contestants like a cloud of gas ("Miss Methane Planet, Halatina Smogmeyer") and a fridge-sized pink robot ("Miss Earth's Moon, The Crushinator"). The first pageant girl seen in the lineup is a tall, blue, squid-like alien bearing the sash "Miss Arrakis." Unfortunately, the representative of the planet on which "Dune" takes place loses to Miss Vega 4, a paramecium named Gladys Lennox.
In a season 7 episode titled "31st Century Fox," the crew needs new uniforms after being attacked by Mothra while out on a delivery in Tokyo. They visit a Zoidberg-like tailor in town who fits them with the stillsuits that Kyle MacLachlan and Timothee Chalamet made famous in their respective films. These suits even come complete with nose plugs and mouth filters. Before departing with uniforms that look exactly like the kind they had, the crew try on a bevy of sci-fi-referential outfits, including "Star Trek" (Fry), "Barbarella" (Leela), "2001: A Space Odyssey" (Amy), and incredibly, Professor Farnsworth shows off one of Sean Connery's skimpy outfits from "Zardoz."
Finally (and there's likely more I missed), in the direct-to-video movie "Into the Wild Green Yonder," Fry, Leela, Bender and co. ride into New Mars Vegas' "Sand Central Station" on a giant, "Dune"-inspired sandworm. But all this is no match for the unending litany of references from the latest episode.
Finally, an entire episode set on Arrakis ... kind of
In season 11 episode 4, "Parasites Regained," Leela's "dog" Nibbler is besieged by microscopic worms that appear to be sapping his brain power. Naturally, the only way for Nibbler to regain his brilliance is for the crew to shrink down to sand mite size, catapult into his litterbox, and fight them face-to-face. When shrunk down, the surface of Nibbler's litterbox becomes a bizarro-world Arrakis replete with dozens of "Dune" references.
When the crew deplanes onto the scorching sands, Zoidberg kicks up some glittering dust reminiscent of the coveted spice in "Dune." After inhaling it, his eyes glow orange rather than blue. A kingdom of dung beetles living in the sandbox revere this spice, and they make sure to correct the crew that it's not actually pronounced "dung," but "DUNE ... guh." The queen of this race allows herself the sole privilege of stepping inside a whirling glass case of spice, which harkens to an unsettling scene in David Lynch's 1984 adaptation, in which a grasshopper-like figure is engulfed in spice while delivering a message about the prophecy of House Atreides.
Speaking of prophets, the Dune-guh beetles await visitation from one, and when Nibbler descends in a hovership to stop the fighting between the humans, beetles, and sandworms, they think they've found him. It turns out it's microparasites on Nibber's worms that are making him stupider, so everyone unites to stomp them to death, and order is restored.
If you want a full half hour of television packed with "Dune" references ahead of the sequel, and I'm talking giant worms, roach-like ornithopters, and even a God Emperor of Dung, check out the new season of "Futurama." New episodes air each Monday at 12 a.m. ET and 9 p.m. PT on Hulu.