Charles Barkley on receiving end of hilarious microphone prank by Ernie Johnson and TNT crew during Final Four

There’s always hilarity when Charles Barkley is on TV and Saturday night was no different.

The Round Mound of Rebound was casting his expert eye on the Final Four games of this year’s NCAA tournament, but found himself the victim of a pretty hilarious prank.

The amusing incident occurred during TBS’s Final Four broadcast right after Purdue punched its ticket to the national championship game with a 63-50 victory over NC State.

During the segment, the NBA legend started talking about a Capital One commercial he appears in, showing his face and body as he takes the crew to the Final Four in Phoenix, Arizona.

One version of the commercial ends with Barkley’s airship deflating and his voice squeaking from the helium he inhales.

This is the case of the TNT team, which decided to reproduce this effect by changing Barkley’s microphone live.

Host Ernie Johnson disguised the prank perfectly by asking Charles a relatively normal question.

However, as Barkley raised his microphone to speak, his voice became very high pitched.

Charles burst out laughing and fans on social media were just as amused by the prank.

“The segment that aired on TNT with Charles Barkley’s voice digitized with helium after the commercial was classic,” one fan wrote.

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“CBS/TBS changing Charles Barkley’s voice to make it sound like he was on helium was one of the funniest segments I’ve ever seen,” added another.

“Call me a total advertising brand, but Barkley’s helium voice just killed me,” added a third.

The prank came after Barkley made a pretty embarrassing mistake while discussing the first half of the Purdue vs. NC State game.

College basketball analyst Jay Wright started talking about Boilermarkers star Braden Smith, who missed all six of his shot attempts in the first half.

However, that stat seemed to elude Barkley, who seemed to think he had made a three.

“I think (three points) he hit at the end,” Barkley said before Johnson interrupted and said, “he didn’t hit that.”

“No, I’m talking about a few plays before that,” Barkley said before realizing Smith was indeed scoreless.

“Wow, that’s bad, I apologize,” he admitted.