Local morning news shows have a lot of air to fill each day. So when a pair claiming to be an inspirational strongman duo blasted out a press release—citing a nonexistent tour and an America’s Got Talent appearance, and offering no video or documentation—they were immediately booked by seven different shows across the country. 
 
 
 
 Chop and Steele eventually appeared on three shows, in Eau Claire, Wisc., Bismarck, N.D., and Allentown, Penn., before canceling their other appearances due to being “stressed out.” Those three appearances were enough for some awe-inspiring demonstrations of their prowess. Like: 
 
 Chopping tiny sticks they found in the parking lot! 
 
 GIF 
 
 Crushing baskets! 
 
 GIF 
 
 Lifting chocolate milk! 
 
 GIF 
 
 Doing...this! 
 
 
 
 GIF 
 
 It’s those sticks again! 
 
 GIF 
 
 Whatever this is! 
 
 GIF 
 
 This may shock you to learn, but Chop (Joe Pickett) and Steele (Nick Prueher) are not professional strongmen. Pickett and Prueher are hosts of the Found Footage Festival, and are veterans when it comes to messing with local morning shows. 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 You may remember them from their previous pranks, Yo-Yo master K-Strass and Chef Keith. 
 
 Even fake strongmanning is hard—Pickett broke a finger during their tennis racket joust. But he kept pushing through the pain. Truly inspirational. 
 
 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 Pickett and Prueher say none of the newscasters were upset about their appearances—or at least kept their reservations to themselves. But one station did email the day after the broadcast, asking for Chop and Steele’s credentials. ||||| The owner of an Eau Claire television station didn’t find an early morning prank last November too funny. 
 
 Instead of laughing, the people behind Atlanta-based Gray Television, which owns WEAU-TV, filed a federal lawsuit earlier this month in New York against The Found Footage Festival, Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher, all of New York. 
 
 Using fake names and materials, the “defendants fraudulently induced Gray Television station WEAU … to book their appearance for a live interview on its flagship morning program ‘Hello Wisconsin,’ ” according to the complaint. 
 
 Pickett and Prueher, who attended UW-Eau Claire, appeared on “Hello Wisconsin” on Nov. 29 as the “fake strongman duo Chop & Steele and performed ridiculous bits and provided false information to WEAU viewers,” the suit contends. 
 
 Pickett and Prueher learned of the suit from a story published in the New York Post, Prueher said. 
 
 “I guess Gray Television didn’t have a sense of humor about this thing,” Prueher said Friday, as he and Pickett headed backed to the Chippewa Valley from Minneapolis. The duo brought The Found Footage Festival to Eau Claire on Wednesday and to Minneapolis on Thursday. Related Articles 7-year-old immigrant girl dies of dehydration, shock after Border Patrol arrest 
 
 Man charged with fatally shooting former lover’s ex-boyfriend in Duluth 
 
 First-ever video shows wolves fishing in Voyageurs National Park 
 
 Sheriff-elect Fletcher ordered to pay $500 fine for campaign violation 
 
 As St. Paul firefighters prepare for ice rescues, they learn a new way to save people 
 
 The Found Footage Festival showcases footage from videos that were found at garage sales and thrift stores and in warehouses and garbage receptacles across the country, according to its website. 
 
 Pickett and Prueher “take audiences on a guided tour of their latest and greatest VHS finds, providing live commentary and where-are-they-now updates on the people in these videotaped obscurities.” 
 
 “They’re trying to scare us, but we’re going to fight it because we’re well within our rights doing what we did,” Prueher said of the suit. 
 
 Not so, contends Gray Television in the lawsuit, which accuses the defendants of fraud, copyright infringement and conspiracy to commit a wrongful activity. 
 
 In a message, WEAU general manager Terry McHugh said neither he nor Charles Tobin, the Washington, D.C., attorney representing Gray Television, would comment on the suit, per corporate policy. 
 
 According to court records: 
 
 A person identifying himself as “Jerry Chubb” and claiming to be a representative of “Chop & Steele” emailed the “Hello Wisconsin” anchors separately, asking each of them for “help to promote our shows in Northwestern Wisconsin.” 
 
 In the emails, Chubb said Chop & Steele were on their “Give Thanks 4 Strengths” tour and would be in Eau Claire later that month for performances. 
 
 A news release identified Chop & Steele as “Joe ‘Chop’ Shopsin” and “Nicholas ‘Steele’ Stelling” and said they would perform in a series of free live events in Black River Falls, Eau Claire, La Crosse and Winona, Minn., “using their muscles to entertain and educate,” promote unity and “address the subject of bullying and ways to prevent it through humor, courage and self-respect.” 
 
 The news release claimed the pair has appeared on “America’s Got Talent,” “Steve Harvey” and the Hallmark Channel’s “Marie” and as featured entertainers at Disneyland’s 60th anniversary celebration. 
 
 “Believing the information provided in the email and press release, a WEAU anchor enthusiastically responded the same day to ’Jerry Chubb’ stating that ’Hello Wisconsin’ would LOVE to have Chop and Steele on our show the program and asked for more details to prepare for their interview and demonstration.” 
 
 On Tuesday, Nov. 29, Pickett and Prueher arrived at WEAU, identifying themselves as Chop and Steele. During their live appearance on the show, the pair touted their ” ‘mental strength,’ ‘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 pair then demonstrated “activities that really anybody can do to promote strength,” like slamming tennis rackets against each other and hitting a used tire with a bat. 
 
 “During all of their communications with WEAU, Prueher and Pickett used false names. Neither they, nor Found Footage Festival, explained the true purpose of the duo’s visit to WEAU at any time before or after they appeared on ’Hello Wisconsin.’ ” 
 
 On Friday, Prueher put some of the blame on WEAU. 
 
 “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.” Related Articles Hours after Bruce Springsteen’s show closes on Broadway, film will drop on Netflix 
 
 ’48 Hours’ to feature Jodi Huisentruit’s 1995 disappearance in Iowa 
 
 Kathie Lee Gifford to leave NBC’s ‘Today’ show in April 
 
 Independent Television Festival — drawing Netflix, TV writers, tourists — coming to Duluth 
 
 St. Paul teen killed by John Wayne Gacy subject of TV series; sister hopes it will help solve others 
 
 “There was no ill will about any of this,” Prueher said. “The joke is kind of on us. We were the ones being jerks on TV.” 
 
 Gray Television is asking the court to find that Found Footage Festival has infringed on the copyright of the Nov. 29 episode of “Hello Wisconsin,” find a substantial likelihood that Found Footage Festival will continue to infringe on Gray Television’s intellectual property unless enjoined from doing so and issue a permanent injunction prohibiting Found Footage Festival from infringing on Gray Television’s copyright. 
 
 The suit also asks the court to order Found Footage Festival to render a full and complete accounting to Gray Television of its profits, gains, advantages and the value of the business opportunities received from the infringement and to enter a judgment against Found Footage Festival for any profits or gains attributable to the infringement, along with compensatory and punitive damages, costs and attorneys’ fees incurred in pursuing the action and interest. 
 
 Prueher admitted “it’s a little scary anytime someone names you in a lawsuit,” but he also said he finds the legal action a little “amusing.” ||||| An irate television company that fell prey to comedians pretending to be a “strongman duo” is now suing the men, claiming they tricked a Wisconsin morning show into booking them just so they could perform “ridiculous bits” and promote their own brand. 
 
 Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett, founders and hosts of the Found Footage Festival, appeared on a Wisconsin morning show “Hello Wisconsin” as “Strongman duo Chop & Steele,” where they smashed rackets on the floor and hit a tire with a bat, according to the Brooklyn federal suit filed by the Gray Television Group Inc. 
 
 “During the live appearance on Hello Wisconsin, ‘Chop’ and ‘Steele’ touted their ‘mental strength,’ ‘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 papers state. 
 
 The suit quotes the duo saying local morning programs are “easy to exploit,” with Pickett adding, “I don’t think we’re driving a big point home. We’re just trying to entertain ourselves.” 
 
 The Found Footage Festival is a collection of short films and montages collected from estate sales, pawn shops and via various other means that are then compiled onto a DVD and played for a live audience. 
 
 The suit also noted a former bit in which Preuher — masquerading as “Chef Keith Guerke” — appeared on another one of their channels to promote his non-existent cookbook, “Leftovers Right: Making a Winner of Last Night’s Dinner.” 
 
 During that appearance, “Chef Keith offered recipes like mashed-potato ice-cream cones, feigned concern that ‘between Thanksgiving and Christmas [is] one of the highest suicide rates and I think part of that is the stress of what are you going to do with these leftovers,’ and tipped over his demonstration table — food and all — live on air,” the papers say. 
 
 The TV company is suing Pickett and Preuher for re-airing their episodes, which are copyrighted, for fraud, and for conspiracy to commit wrongful activity. 
 
 Neither Pickett nor Preuher returned a message.
– To a pair of pranksters who showed up on a Wisconsin morning-television program, they were just having a bit of harmless fun. To Gray Television, which owns the station they appeared on, Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher are guilty of fraud, copyright infringement, and conspiracy to commit a wrongful act, and it's now suing them for it, the Pioneer Press reports. What no one's disputing: Pickett and Prueher's Nov. 29 appearance on the WEAU program Hello Wisconsin as "Chop & Steele," a phony strongman duo that court records show had convinced the station—via emails from a Mr. "Jerry Chubb" and a press release—to book them while they were in town on their "Give Thanks 4 Strengths" tour so they could educate viewers on how they've been "using their muscles to entertain and educate" on subjects such as bullying and unity. Their "educational" display included karate-chopping twigs they'd found in the parking lot, lifting chocolate milk containers, and sparring with tennis rackets—what Gray calls "ridiculous bits" in its suit. Pickett and Prueher, who went to the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and now run the comedy event Found Footage Festival, found out about the suit via a New York Post story, per Prueher. He seems surprised Gray didn't get a chuckle out of it all, but he adds he and Pickett aren't backing down. "We're well within our rights doing what we did," he tells the Press, adding the station should've done its "due diligence." Deadspin notes WEAU wasn't the only duped station: The pair apparently convinced at least six other shows to book them; they showed up for a handful, then canceled the rest because they were "stressed out." (A prank on New York's subway had people seeing double.)