ABC honchos have relegated the second series of hit cult show Double The Fist to its hardly watched digital channel in a move that has enraged fans of the unique program.
The team behind Double The Fist, which beat Kath and Kim to win the AFI for best Australian comedy in 2004, are said to be livid at the decision to air the show on ABC2 and then repeat it on ABC1 at 11.20 on Friday night.
But it is not the first hurdle the comedians have faced. Even getting ABC executives to commission a second series was a three-year struggle.
“We thought it would be a shoo-in, we thought it would be common sense to put up another series after the first one had done so well,” a source close to the show told LIVENEWS.com.au
“And we were in the black, we paid back our backers and had sold the show all over the world even to Brazil, Spain, New Zealand, England, Canada, and the comedy channel here.
“One day ABC2 will be a great channel, but not until they switch off the analog signal and it’s nowhere near that point.
“If you really wanted to get people to watch it you put something like The Chaser on it.”
The show features four violent superheroes who have a simple mission – to save the world from softness.
The new series focuses on four main characters including narrator and megalomaniac Steve Foxx, his younger brother and lady’s man Rod Foxx, The Womp, an ex-wrestler with a high pain threshold and disbarred security guard Mephisto.
In the first episode the team cause havoc at a poker machine tournament, in the second they vent their spleen on a local council and the third focus their fury on an unnamed Swedish furniture multinational.
The show is not for those weak of stomach. Characters are regularly shown being decapitated, shot, thrown off cliffs and being blown up by grenades.
Its eight episodes lurch from satire to action, from slapstick to thriller, from character-based comedy to spectacular special effects extravaganzas.
It’s like a surreal version of The Young Ones, an athletic version of The Mighty Boosh.
The whole on-screen team write and produce all the content and have spent the last year generating more than 1,500 special effects used in the series.
A number of them are accomplished graphic designers who have previously worked their magic on shows like The Chaser’s War On Everything.
ABC management, who pulled the show four years ago for being crude, are said to be worried that the network’s target demographic of over-55 baby boomers will not like it.
It has even been suggested management are still sore at the show for beating their flagship comedy program Kath and Kim to the AFI gong in 2004.