Double the Fist

Make sure you've got a friend with a camera if you're gonna do anything that could get you killed.

—Steve Foxx

Double the Fist is an AFI Award winning Australian TV Series. The show was a self proclaimed mixture of Jackass and The Goodies, combining outrageous stunts with unusual, scripted plots.

More specifically, the show followed the adventures of The Fist Team, a group lead by Steve Foxx on a mission to save the world from the growing epidemic of Weakness. Each episode would see the Fist Team tackle a different problem relating to Weakness, whether it be comfort, education, or being a small child. The team consisted of:

• Steve Fox: the short tempered, super strong leader who yells a lot.
• Rod Foxx: Steve's younger, sportier brother.
• Womp: A chubby, child-like ex-wrestler who idolizes Steve.
• Mephisto: A Crazy Awesome ex security guard who owns the entire page.
• Panda: The team's assistant and Steve's relative (guess what species is, go on, guess).

They spread the word of Fistworthiness, a way of life that crushes Weakness and basically make everyone into a Badass Normal. Whenever a character got a Crowning Moment of Awesome (there were many) they would get awarded Full Fist, failure to do so would award No Fist. Episodes would usually end with someone winning a prize of some sort, usually another Full Fist. Series Two introduces Man of Fist, which is awarded to the most outstanding show of Fist Worthiness per episode.

The series was infamously low budget, but managed to get an audience with plentiful special effects and being absolutely bizarre. For example, one episode had a marathon that included such feats as climbing an electric fence, running through traffic, and successfully jumping over a Rift in Time.

After it's initial eight episodes, the series took a break for four years before being revived due to support from fans. The second series had significantly increased special effects and a much bigger budget. The ongoing story was also written considerably well.

Tropes used in Double the Fist include:

• Accentuate the Negative: Weakness can't really be all that bad, can it?
• Action Girl: Tina T in Series One, taken Up to Eleven with Tara in Series Two.
• Actor Allusion: The Umbilical Brothers both appear in Series Two. Dave fittingly appears as a mime, while Shane appears as a pair of twins who guard a door. Neither appear on screen together.
• Ambiguously Gay: Womp, though things are somewhat cleared up in the Series Finale. Also Mephisto, as shown in a Mephisto Knows Segment.
• And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Mephisto Knows. Well, it's his opinion anyway. He explains to us why Athletes, Vegetarians and Traffic Signs are weak.
• Awesome Yet Impractical: Fistworthiness itself, as it turns out. We eventually learn that Steve has derived it from another way of life that uses The Fist for peace and harmony. The Fist Team tries to fight them, but get their asses handed to them. Steve only wins when he does things their way, but reverts back almost immediately.
• Ax Crazy.
• Bad Boss: Steve zigzags through this through Series One, but in Series Two, The Fist Team are his punching bags.
• Bad Future: Technically subverted in that within the rules of the show, this dystopian and destructive society is actually a good thing.
• Badass Normal: Pretty much the entire cast, though the second season final suddenly reveals Steve pretty much has The Force. However, A song sung by Rod's actor in the final episode refers to The Fist Team as a team of Superhumans.
• Bald of Awesome: Mephisto. Averted with Rod, who gets most of his mullet (and head) blown off in a fight, and is no longer able to even talk properly.
• Berserk Button: Do not call Steve weak. If you do, you will be dead twenty minutes ago. As a matter of fact, do not call any of them weak.
  • Do not do anything to irritate Mephisto. And I mean ANYTHING!
• Big Bad: Mephisto takes this role twice. In Series One he is taken over by an Aztec Demigod and disappears for an episode. He shows up again commanding an army of Pandas, trying to chop down the woodland. In Series Two, he joins the Medieval Recreationists as their leader to get revenge for Steve not paying him
• Big Eater: The Womp, though he is fairly chunky.
• Black Comedy Rape: After losing his mojo, Rod attempts to make Tara sleep with him by turning it into an order. She refuses and causes a malfunction, making her go along with it. However, she makes it as painful for him as possibly.
• Butt Monkey: Womp takes a fair bit of damage, and Rod's unsavory behaviour rarely goes unpunished. Kanangra.
• Casanova Wannabe: Rod, though apparently he eventually garners some fangirls.
• Catch Phrase: For Steve we have the Title Drop "Double the Fist!" as well as, "You make me sick!" and "Never watch this show again!" Womp is given, "Aw Yeah, pretty good," and "Sure thing, Steve."
• The Cavalry: In The Final Battle, the ghosts of Panda and Mime bring Steve the shows legions of fans to fight Mephisto along side him.
• Chainsaw Good.
• Clip Show: Parodied in Special Editions, where all the clips are completely original. The intention may have been that these were from the next series, but Steve explicitly stated they'd be showing clips.
• The Chick: What did Tina actually contribute other than being a different gender?
• Cloning Blues: In Fistathalon, Womp repeatedly falls down a portal in time and makes numerous copies of himself. They all are dead by the end of the episode. The next episode reveals a survivor, Blue Womp, who is a an absolute Jerkass.
• Cloudcuckooland: The world around the Fist is mostly normal, but anywhere where they get away with half the stuff they do, the Local Council is made up of zombies and pilot a giant robot, video games cause people to become ninjas, time portals are treated as regular wells, and gravity is controlled by the world constantly rotating around World Mountain, just ain't normal.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Yet again, Mephisto.
• Comedic Sociopathy
• Conspicuous CG: According to Steve, you'll find it in EVERY single scene of the show.
• Cool Car: The Fistmobile.
• Cool Chair: When Steve invents Fist Furniture, one particular product is a line of chairs and couches with jets attached to them.
• Cool Shades: Indeed cool. Cool enough to give you levitation powers.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Well, more like Corrupt City Council Leader. Not only is he a baby eating, shapeshifting snake man, but the rest of the Council are apparently zombies. He also pilots a giant robot. All this is put to use just to evict the Fist Team from their new headquarters. And it doesn't work.
• Death Is Cheap: Dying is a mild inconvenience for these guys. Averted with Panda in Series Two, and possibly Womp.
• Demonic Possession: Mephisto is possessed by an Aztec Demigod in Fear Factory, and subsequently vanishes for an episode before returning as a villain in Bush Bash...commanding an army of pandas.
• Downer Ending: Technically. The series ends with The Fist Team going back in time and changing the future to be more Fistworthy. This creates a dystopian future where Steve is an vicious emperor constantly spouting Anti-Weakness Propaganda. Womp finds out and is set on a mission to stop it. He fails. However, for the rest of the cast, this is a good thing.
• Eat the Dog: In the last episode, Rod is seen playing with a dog with a bit too much enthusiasm. We cut back later to find that he is eating it.
• Even Evil Has Standards: "Eating babies is Un-Australian!"
• Everything's Even Worse with Sharks: Especially when they can fly!
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Or more like, Fist cannot comprehend Weakness.
• Evil Twin: Blue Womp to regular Orange Womp, though he's more of an idiot Jerkass than evil. Also, Steve Goxx, though this is an interesting case in that he doesn't appear on the show, but has his own page in the character section of the website. It can be assumed that it was just a guy who happened to look like him one of the makers saw.
• Explosive Leash: Steve equips his slaves with this in Series Two. A scene in which they are all activated was cut.
  • Though we still see some heads blow up.
• Expository Theme Tune: Averted in that the main theme has no lyrics, but the final episode ends with Bryan Moses (Rod) singing a rap about the seasons storyline to the tune.
• Face Heel Turn: Pretty much everyone in Series Two. Mephisto does so again and becomes the Series Big Bad.
• Fan Disservice: In a behind the scenes featurette, upon hearing that their paychecks have finally come in, Bryan strips off and runs around excited, completely unblurred. Nobody was expecting this.
• Fetish Fuel: The episode Time-Saw, Rod is given a new outfit that can be easily be described as a condom suit.
• Flying Car: The Fist Mobile in the final episode.
• Good Is Not Nice: The Fist Team claim to be a force for good, but throughout the series they kidnap people, hold slaves, kill people, mug people and eventually conquer the world.
• Hannibal Lecture: Steve gets one by the German Terrorist in Episode 7, and kills him viciously. Mephisto does this to him after becoming the Big Bad in Series Two.
• Heel Face Turn: Ballistic Man joins Mephisto after he shows him a picture of a Dolphin. Mephisto is accepted back into the Fist Team after Steve deems him loyal.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Everyone, in season 1. In season 2, they're more Villain Protagonists. Exept Womp.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Captain Cook is not generally regarded as a villain (YMMV), but he instantly becomes pretty cool once you give him some laser cannons and other futuristic tech.
• Humongous Mecha: Depot in Series Two. He looks so darn marketable!
• Ho Yay: Steve and Womp. Pretty much stated in Series Two when Womp kisses him on the lips. It ends up saving Steve's life. Womp gets a shotgun to the head for it.
• I Am a Humanitarian: In Series Two, Mephisto finds two Community Wellfair Officers invading the Fist Team HQ's laundry. We cut back a while later and he is chewing on their flesh.
• Impossibly Cool Weapon: The time saw, AKA 'The Ultimate Weapon' is a chainsaw that can cut through the fabric of time and space. Too bad Steve destroyed it with a lightsaber (another Impossibly Cool Weapon by coincidence).
• Infant Immortality: Averted in High School Challenge where a student is punished for guessing Steve's weight wrong by having her head pulverised by a lawnmower. A lizard man devours a baby in Series Two. The above mentioned rescued baby turns out to be an explosive, so that may not count. But remember, Death is Cheap. Tara also becomes a little girl after dying (Rod hit the Sidekick button) and happily skips off into the battle field, just to get killed instantly.
• Insane Troll Logic: Mephisto is not like you.
• Jerkass: Everyone except the girls on the fist team have their moments.
• Killed Off for Real: Numerous One-Shot characters, Blue Womp, Tara, Panda, The Mime, and technically Orange Womp, as a third series is unlikely, and the last thing he did on the show was get shotgunned in the head.
• Large Ham: Nobody here is a professional actor, but Steve and Mephisto stand out.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: The actors/creators are all pretty decent people, despite what their work might lead you to think.
• Mooks: Pandas, Medieval Recreationists, Ninjas, and Ballet Dancers have all played this part from time to time.
• Mysterious Past: Mephisto used to be a security guard, but is now apparently on the run for tax evasion. Something had to make him snap, as we meet a former colleague of his in one episode, who seems to remember him being a nice guy. Mephisto kills him and uses his face as a mask.
• Name'sTheSame: Mephisto is not responsible for ruining Spider-Man's marriage.
• No Fourth Wall: The show is presented as a Show Within a Show, so Steve will frequently address us and report on the Fist Team's progress. Series Two has this at the start, but the change in format pretty takes away from the Show Within a Show aspect and it is featured less and less.
• Non-Human Sidekick: Panda, who is also apparently in Steve's family. And technically Tara.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Specifically, snarling naked beasts who use their capes to glide. Originally Mephisto was intended to be a vampire. You can still find references to it throughout the series, such as his Batsuit. Had this had happened, their vampires would have also had their own cult, and aids.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Apparently the local council is made up of the living dead. If they aren't, it's safe to say nobody cares.
• Pet the Dog: The early series hadn't established Steve as the enormous Jerkass we know him as now, and these occurred a few times.
  • The Fist Team save a forest from loggers. A forest could easily be considered week for representing nature, but Steve genuinely cares about the forest. One could say he's just trying to prove how weak the protesters are, but this is dashed away when the Fist Team (or specifically, Mephisto) happily plants a small tree at the end of the episode.
  • A few times, Steve seemed to genuinely care when someone got killed or hurt, such as Womp in Vertical Challenge.
  • In Episode 7, Steve drives by Rod and reminds him to drink plenty of liquids.
• Power Fist: What do you think?
  • Steve is covered in smouldering metal in the final episode, and manages to use it to his own advantage and gain fists of steel. Craig Anderson (Steve) is interested in having Steve's hands like that permanently if they make another Series.
• Sequel Hook: At the end of Episode 7, Steve uses a spaceship to destroy a meteor headed for Earth, apparently killing him. Later on, we see his trademark Cool Shades have survived. The first episode of Series Two had Steve grabbing said glasses and rocketing his way back to Earth.
• Rain Dance: Womp once performed a rain dance that summoned... hamburgers.
• Rule of Cool: The show has this instead of blood.
• Running Gag: Kanangra. Dolphins. Lakemba Auto Barn. The ABC being jerks.
• Shout-Out: The rap song at the end of the final episode is a reference to Sci-Fi movies with Will Smith, where he would often produce a single based on the movie.
• Sixth Ranger: Tina T replaces Mephisto when he is possessed. In Series Two, we get Tara, a kickass android chick who can transform into a plethora of devices (most prominently, a Vending Machine). She was actually on par with Steve in terms of combat.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Played with. Steve is constantly referring to the show as a television phenomenon and boasting about their huge ratings. Within the context of the show, where they are huge celebrities, this is averted. In real life, they didn't do so well.
• Space Pirate: Captain James Cook
• Something Completely Different: Often used to fill time. In Series One we mostly get recurring segments, but occasionally throughout both we get moments such as Womp performing a rain dance that summons hamburgers, Rod running and needing a pipstop to replace his leg, and Mephisto fooling around with the Time-Saw.
• Training the Peaceful Villagers: The Fist Team trains the Aboriginal Australians to combat Captain Cook. In the very next episode, Mephisto sharpens the blunt blades of the Medieval Recreationists and gives the Imperial Stormtroppers actual firearms, though that is more of 'Training the Incompetent Nerds.'
• Villain Protagonist: The Fist Team in Series Two, aside from Womp.
• What Could Have Been: Rod originally found the glasses, so one can only imagine what he would have ended up as had Steve not stolen them.
  • Mephisto was supposed to be a mustache twirling vampire with his own cult, and aides.
  • If Series Two had been closer to Series One, our chances of a Series Three would have been much higher.
• You Have Failed Me...: Steve's reaction to Womp saving his life in The Final Battle. It Makes Sense in Context.

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Tropers, what a truly fistworthy example of a page. You get...the FULL FIST.