Ummmm...You Got Pranked

It wasn't quite as band as Sum Ting Wong, but KTRK in Houston got pranked and they never even saw it coming.

The station was covering a story of students held at gunpoint at the University of Houston. 

Reporter Crystal Kobza spoke with student “Abu Sharmouta" who was one of those held up.

There were two problems, first Abu Sharmouta was not involved in the incident and second his name he gave KTRK was fake. “Abu Sharmouta" means "father of prostitutes" in Arabic.

The kid's real name is Sayyed Jamal Hamideh and he's a broadcast journalism major. He said he did the interview as a joke.

"I was told there was a robbery and I convinced my friends to come with me to where the news trucks were. I had just pulled an all-nighter and I wanted to get my friends' minds off of finals," Hamideh said.

"On the way [to the reporter] we were joking about different names and Abu Sharmoota came up," he said laughingly, "and we thought that was a funny name to try." "I guess it worked," he added, seemingly still surprised at the prank's success.

Not sure he will be putting this on his resume tape when he starts looking for a job in TV news. And he might not want to apply at KTRK either. I'm thinking they might be a bit pissed. 

Let's go to the video:

H/T Mike McGuff