Gilbert Gottfried screams the Litany Against Fear from Dune

The Litany Against Fear is one of the signature parts of Dune, a mantra that characters repeat to themselves to stave off the terror of the many insurmountable forces they face in the pages of Frank Herbert’s epic, whether they be monstrous sandworms, bloodthirsty barons or even the collapse of their own minds.

The Aristocrats, on the hand, is a famous joke that comedians retell over and over, always changing the content to try and be as disgusting and vulgar as possible. And Gilbert Gottfried is a beloved comedian with a voice like a rock caught in a lawnmower. All of these things came together in a wonderful Cameo video Gottfried did where a fan asked him to read the Litany Against Fear and work it into an Aristocrats joke.

I would embed the video if I could, but just take my word that it’s worth watching. Just hearing Gottfried shriek about how fear is the mind-killer is worth the price of admission, and that’s before fear, obliteration and litany walk into a talent agents’ office and start doing unspeakable things to each other.

I also love the way he pronounces “Bene Gesserit.”

Dune approved by Chinese censors

In other Dune news (as if you ever needed any more after that), Variety reports that the movie has passed Chinese censors and is approved to roll out in the world’s biggest film market. This was not a sure thing, since the movie was originally going to release on October 1, which is part of a yearly weeks-long period when China bans foreign content to focus on local propaganda films.

Now that the censors have given the movie the all-clear, hopefully Dune will land in China at the same time it does in the U.S., although again, that’s not a given; Black Widow passed the censors back in March but has yet to get a release date, despite it already being out in the rest of the world.

New Dune posters

You can tell Warner Bros. is trying to get the word out on Dune because it’s releasing a bunch of new posters; Gottfried was only the beginning. The above poster got a lot of positive feedback, and there’s also this nifty group shot:

And also individual posters for the characters:

Dune comes out in theaters and on HBO Max on October 22.

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h/t The A.V. Club