Part 23: SnakeFist's F.I.S.T.

Ed. Note: Read the lyrics at the bottom to the beat of "Straight Outta Compton" because I couldn't come up with a better cadence

SnakeFist's F.I.S.T. was an animated cartoon series that ran between July 21st and September 10th in 1995. Despite high production values and a slew of guest stars, the show was never able to take off and was quietly canceled after airing only seven of the 26 planned episodes for the first season. The series has never seen a home video release and a dedicated group of fans have been posting home recordings of episodes on the internet for years, despite Warner Brothers Animation Division's strict Copyright protection policy.

Background

With the success of the Batman animated series Warner Brothers commissioned a number of pilots for their other properties. In January of 1994, a full six years since the last SnakeFist movie, Warner approved F.I.S.T. for a pilot. Initially the series was to focus more on the First Insertion Stealth Team members rather than their commander, an aged SnakeFist, but the pilot focus tested poorly. Supposedly a member of the Warner Animation Division staff jokingly suggested making F.I.S.T. into an undergroud hip-hop group led by SnakeFist. Other claims state that Warner itself requested the changes due to other focus testing with the targeted age group among whom acts like the Wu-Tang Clan and Notorious B.I.G. were increasingly popular. Whatever the case may have been, F.I.S.T. was reformatted to star SnakeFist as the lead MC in a rap ensemble called F.I.S.T. The immense popularity of the act allows them to travel the world and thwart terrorists and super villains like the Dirty Mac and evil organizations like the LAPD. The Warner Animation Division would later admit that they had no knowledge of the hip-hop community and more or less had interns and new employees working on the show after the change in theme. Warner also saw this as a chance to insert some of their top acts into a show, which led to the final aired episode where SnakeFist teams up with Ice-T and rampages against the LAPD while the controversial Body Count song "Cop Killer" plays.

Plot

At the start of the series SnakeFist has seemingly retired from the CIA and has begun a career in music. He forms F.I.S.T., comprised of a number of former agents who had shown "mad promise" as both spies and lyricists. With this crew SnakeFist records albums, but also travels the world putting down threats and putting on shows. In episode 2 it was mentioned that SnakeFist's group had sold over 10 million copies of their first album, which had helped fund their secret activities. There is not an identifiable plot arc to the show, each episode takes the team to another location, featuring a new enemy. The episodes also appear to have been shown out of order, as slimy manager Tommy Vann is found to be working against F.I.S.T. in the fifth aired episode, but appears in the sixth, but is not seen in the third or fourth.

Characters

SnakeFist: Former CIA agent turned hip-hop sensation. In the pilot episode SnakeFist leaves the CIA to do "real work" and uses a set of stolen files to track down the people who would become members of F.I.S.T. When not on stage SnakeFist is the tactical leader of the team and often takes the pointman position on operations, relinquishing the role to Jason Branch in episode two when SnakeFist had to re-record his part on a track while the operation was going down. SnakeFist's dialog voice actor was Mark Hamill, who would often record his Joker and SnakeFist dialog back to back. A then-unknown DMX provided SnakeFist's rapping voice.

Jason Branch: The first member of F.I.S.T. SnakeFist recruited and the assumed second in command. Jason has survivor's guilt over losing the rest of a team he was leading in Azerbaijan prior to the start of the series and almost watches the same thing happen when he takes point in episode two of the series, but the rest of the team made it out of the warehouse before the explosion, restoring a measure of Jason's confidence and keeping him from leaving the team as he had been threatening to do at the start of the episode. Voice actor Chip Hensley voiced Jason for both dialog and during rap performances.

Kayla Starr: Recruited just after Jason Kayla is the only African American member of the team. It's hinted that she has an attraction to Jason, but it is unknown if he reciprocates or even knows of it. Kayla spent five years working undercover in East Germany using a "light wrapper" device of her own design to pass unnoticed, as such she is the team's chief technology officer and will often introduce gadgets of her own design for each mission. She also joins the team on field missions where hacking or other technology focused actions will be necessary. C.C.H. Pounder voices Kayla in dialog, rising star Lil' Kim provided the stage voice for Kayla.

Bernard "Bernie" Murphy: Bernie is the last member of the team recruited and is wheelchair bound. As such he serves as the voice in the ear of the other members of the team and sending them information about targets and locations. Bernie is the only member of the team who doesn't provide lyrics to the group's tracks, instead he produces the tracks and serves as the on stage DJ at shows. Bernie claims to have lost use of his legs in a firefight in Iraq while searching for documents in an underground bunker. Bernie was voiced by Billy Mays of infomercial fame, a fact his teammates react to when he gets audibly excited ("getting a little loud, Bernie, keep it down!")

Jeung Xia: Former Chinese assassin turned CIA contractor Jeung was recruited by SnakeFist over the objections of Jason as he didn't believe they could trust her. At the end of the first episode she saves his life and Jason shows a respect towards her for the rest of the series. Jeung only appears on two tracks in the aired episodes, and this is believed to be associated with how comfortable actress Bai Ling was with how her voice sounded when rapping. No one has bothered asking her if this is true.

Impact

The failure of the show put the introduction of the Superman animated series off for a couple years as the Warner Animation Division re-organized and re-did focus testing. As such Warner found it was getting a great deal of feedback from children in the New York City public school system, mostly those located in the Staten Island and Brooklyn areas, causing a major problem with feedback. Warner also received a number of FCC complaints as DMX's lyrics for the opening of the show as well as voicing SnakeFist on stage caused a number of parents to call in to complain, even if the words were censored. Warner created an internal division to monitor scripts and recordings after this to ensure it wouldn't happen again.

It's also theorized that the poor performance of the show would delay the re-introduction of the SnakeFist character to the silver screen as there had been rumors of a remake or reboot of the franchise for a few years at that point and nothing would come of them until 2003's SnakeFist.

Theme Song Lyrics

DMX penned the lyrics to all his parts on the show, including the lyrics to the opening theme song, considered one of the finer rapping efforts put forward by SnakeFist (the universally disparaged Yo, SnakeFist Raps had come out in 1989 and is considered too terrible to listen to). DMX was an unsigned talent at the time of the show and was trying to get a deal with Warner. The failure of the show and complaints against him would make him radioactive for several years until RCA signed him. The first verse of the theme highlights the issues with DMX's delivery.

You know me, it's SnakeFist
What I do ain't yo' fucking business
Get in my way I'll turn you to red mist
You're no one, won't be missed
And no, I ain't a Mus-lam
Because then I couldn't go ham
With a TEC-9, In my trans-am
Making motherfuckers say goddamn
They say I'm too hard, too sturdy
Just cause I don't fall don't mean I don't get dirty

Of course, the lyrics were censored for TV, but the complaints rolled in. It also appears DMX or the showrunners didn't really worry about incongruous statements like:

In a white suit, I'm a black man
Mama ask "you wanna fuck"
I say yes Ma'am

The track cuts off at the 35 second mark, but no one has been able to pull together a full version, so it is unknown if it is just DMX on this track or if the members of F.I.S.T. make appearances.