MORAD HIDDEN CAMERA SHOW Actor Keoni Mattson, second from left, and Morad Shaker, middle right, are flanked by two tourists from Japan.

Shaker is candid on camera
about his love for isles

Though half a world removed from his homeland, Morad Shaker believes he's finally discovered his place on earth. It's not just the balmy weather and sun-kissed beaches that tell the Iranian-born entrepreneur he's made the right move. The myriad of colorful characters he has encountered during his stay has convinced Shaker that Hawaii is the ideal destination for a practical joker like himself.

A former soccer player, restaurateur and importer, Shaker's previous ventures had taken him from Iran to South Korea and Los Angeles, before landing him in the perfect setting for "The Morad Hidden Camera Show," a knee-slapping, island-flavored take on hidden-camera programs like "Candid Camera," "Girls Behaving Badly" and MTV's "Punk'd."

KFVE, the local WB affiliate and home of hidden-camera cult favorite "The Jamie Kennedy Experiment," gave "The Morad Hidden Camera Show" the go-ahead in March, to Shaker's delight. The series, three years in the making, finally debuts Sunday at noon. Thirteen half-hour episodes are scheduled through February.

The idea, he says, had been brewing for some time. More than a decade ago, Shaker helped produce a hidden-camera show in Iran, the first of its kind in the country. It quickly grew popular with citizens desperate for lighthearted entertainment following a ruinous eight-year war with Iraq. "One time, we put money on the ground outside a bank to see how many people would bring it back inside," he explains. "We got very strange results."

Upon migrating to Honolulu four years ago, Shaker spent his days driving a cab, getting to know locals and tourists, learning island ways and forging new ideas for his TV show. "When I came here, I knew nothing culturally about the people," he says. "But every day, I was asking people questions just to learn about Hawaii and to improve my (English)."

He outfitted his car with five state-of-the-art cameras, hoping to lure his passengers into humorous, offbeat situations for his project. Sometimes Shaker would strike comedy gold, such as the time he pretended to be even less conversant in English than the Japanese visitor who got into his taxicab looking for a quick jaunt across Waikiki. Shaker instead gave the bewildered tourist a horribly misdirected cab ride. "You get strange, funny stories like this," he says.

After three toilsome yet gratifying years of trial and error, Shaker says he has amassed an archive of side-splitting footage taken on the streets, in homes and on the beaches of Honolulu. "I'm professional now," Shaker chuckles. "I can hide cameras everywhere I want, and people have no idea."

Though pleased with the results, Shaker says filming "The Morad Hidden Camera Show" wasn't always smooth sailing. "I tell you this, couple times, honest with you, I was near crying," he admits, revealing that several elaborate scenarios were foiled by faulty equipment, unfortunate timing and plain bad luck.

Once, he drove his wired taxicab to the North Shore, only to have his overtaxed car battery give out, and another time was frustrated by the subject of his prank, who had unexpectedly come in through the back door of a restaurant to stumble upon Shaker's crew of actors and camera operators, who had been convening in secret.

He sighs at the recollection. "I get burned. Sometimes we have to do (a scene) over and over again."

He has designs on taking the locally produced show to international markets, saying: "I love Hawaii.

"I don't want to go to L.A. or New York. I want to do this here and promote Hawaii to the rest of the world."