"Oh, my God, don't shoot the banana!"

Mug shot.

Ok, fake mug shot. Banana Boy's posing for a newspaper photographer. But that's a real police station line-up backdrop behind him, and that's a real ticket for disorderly conduct in his hands.

Photo by Nathan Palace of the Glens Falls Post-Star.

Cops hauled in Banana Boy when they caught him in a knife fight in a parking lot on Main Street in Glens Falls, NY, last week.

Didn't matter that Banana Boy was thwarting a mugging.

Didn't matter that the mugging was fake.

Didn't matter that the knife was fake.

Didn't matter that so is Banana Boy. He's not a real nut who happens to wander around town in a giant banana costume thinking he's fighting crime and winding up in knife fights with local toughs. He's a character from a comedy show on a local TV station.

So it didn't matter that there was a cameraman there videotaping the confrontation between Banana Boy and the mugger.

Sheriff's deputy driving by saw what he saw. Two men ready to rumble.

Deputies in Washington County must have to deal with human-sized fruit gone bad all the time. Gangs of rotten apples, sour grapes, bunches of bananas looking for trouble.

Fruit of the Loom guys came in one weekend on their bikes and terrorized the town, snapping waistbands, giving wedgies.

"What are you rebelling against?" they were asked.

"What have you got?" they replied.

Deputy did what he was trained to do.

During the skit, Banana Boy was attacked by Van Scoy with a prop knife just as Washington County Sheriff's Deputy Shawn Lovelace was driving down the street.

"He's stabbing him," bystanders yelled as Lovelace got out of his patrol car.

Unaware the melee was staged, Lovelace drew his handgun and ordered Banana Boy and his colleagues to the ground. They complied — quickly.

"I saw they were fighting ... and saw one of them had a knife," Lovelace told The Post-Star of Glens Falls.

Police said Banana Boy and the others, all of whom are from nearby South Glens Falls, were charged with disorderly conduct for snarling traffic and not informing police they were going to be filming. Hudson Falls Police Sgt. Todd Lemery said Van Scoy's knife turned out to be a spring-loaded switchblade replica.

"I said, `Oh my God, don't shoot the banana,'" said Steven Wilson, who was watching the skit being filmed when Lovelace came upon the scene with his gun drawn.

AP Photo.

Banana Boy and his bunch were charged with disorderly conduct for tying up traffic and possibly causing a threat to the public safety. They should have let the police know they were filming that day. Banana Boy admits they goofed there, but they didn't think to do it because Banana Boy is well known to the city police.

Sheriff's deputies don't watch the show, I guess.

No word yet on whether Banana Boy's going to file an a-peel.

Confine your groans, and your own puns, to the comments please.