Yea, that was a typo.
At any rate, I've tried the two viable solutions offered, putting the command into a variable and printing it out as well as checking the status of the backtick call.
Oddly enough, both were correct as in the expected command call was printed out and the return status was successful.
Well, I guess I'll just have to throw them all into one script. If I ever come across the problem I'll be sure to let everyone know.