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The Hero 'Strongman' Duo Who Hoaxed Their Way Onto TV Are Being Sued

The Hero 'Strongman' Duo Who Hoaxed Their Way Onto TV Are Being Sued

They're going to have to hope for a banterous judge

James Dawson

James Dawson

A pair of pranksters who blagged their way onto a US television station pretending to be strongmen are being sued for their hoax.

Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher managed to get themselves booked on WEAU's Hello Wisconsin on 29 November, by pretending they were a pair of bodybuilders named Chop and Steele.

They claimed that they were capable of lifting various household and garden items, such as jugs of milk, cement blocks and tires.

The booking came after they sent the station a press release claiming to be 'Joe 'Chop' Shopsin' and 'Nicholas 'Steele' Stelling'.

Have a look at how chaos descended here...

Credit: Hello, Wisconsin

The told the station that their ethos was to 'use their muscles to entertain and educate' and said they had previously worked at Disneyland, and appeared on America's Got Talent and the Steve Harvey show.

The TV network were less impressed when 'Chop' discussed the violent outbursts he was prone to while abusing steroids and his wealthy upbringing, while 'Steele' discussed his 'body-image issues' and his impoverished upbringing.'

The duo caused chaos - at one point they slapped tennis rackets at each other and crushed straw baskets with their feet.

Atlanta-based Gray Television, which owns WEAU-TV, filed a federal lawsuit this month in New York against The Found Footage Festival, Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher, reported The Mercury News.

Credit: Hello, Wisconsin

The comedy duo have a YouTube channel where they prank people and showcase old videotapes found at garage sales and thrift stores.

"I guess Gray Television didn't have a sense of humor about this thing," Prueher told the outlet. "They're trying to scare us, but we're going to fight it because we're well within our rights doing what we did."

Gray Television is claiming fraud and copyright infringement, asking the court to find that the pair infringed on the copyright of the episode of Hello, Wisconsin in which they appeared.

Credit: Hello, Wisconsin

Prueher admitted the suit was 'a little scary' but also 'amusing' and said that the station should have properly checked their background before allowing them on air.

"If they had done ... their due diligence, that I feel like is the responsibility of a news organization, they would have known this was a goof, but you know, they didn't," he said. "That's how it worked.

"There was no ill will about any of this. The joke is kind of on us. We were the ones being jerks on TV."

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