Leslie Gray Streeter

I Can't Believe It's Not Fabio!

From the "If it didn't exist, we'd have had to create it so we could laugh about it" Department: It seems that veteran romance novel hunk and fake butter spokeshimbo Fabio is passing torch of "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!" pitchmanship over to a new hottie, whose duties will include standing shirtless, staring intently and smolderingly at various actresses playing fake butter devotees, and, most importantly, expressing his disbelief that the creamy-tasting substance he's enjoying on his baked potato is, indeed, not of a butter nature.

You would think the field of qualified applicants would be as wide and varied as there are Chippendale's and dudes named Lance. But somehow, the "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" folks have narrowed it down to four, all soap stars: "General Hospital's" Greg Vaughn (Lucky Spencer), "The Young and the Restless"'s Kristoff St. John (Neil Winters), "Guiding Light"'s Ricky Paull Goldin (Gus Aitoro) and "Days of Our Lives"'s Shawn Brady (Jason Cook). Soap stars are probably good for this gig, because they often spend much of their time shirtless, and because they're regularly called on to portray their sense of disbelief at things a lot more shocking than fake butter, like "I Can't Believe My Dead Brother Whose Fiance I've Been Hitting On Has Actually Been Held Captive By A Crazy Gulf War Widow" or "I Can't Believe The Town Sleazy Mogul Is Actually My Dad!"

(And those are real storylines, by the way. I'm talented, but I couldn't make that stuff up.)

I'm sure any of the above are up to exemplary standards set by Fabio, who I happen to have a lot of respect for, because he doesn't take himself seriously. If you want to weigh in on this important matter, go to www.tasteyoulove.com. I won't tell you how to vote, but here's a pointer - Greg Vaughn's Lucky spends a lot of time getting shot and injected with viruses and stuff, and is often sweaty and shirtless. And looks gooood. That's all I'm saying.