I’m thrilled to kick off Hunk Week with a tribute to the king of hunks, Fabio. You might think I’ve covered all things Fabio by this point, his brief musical career, his VHS of horny SNL sketches, even his TV show about bikini-clad terrorism fighters. Could there truly be another Fabio property worth dissecting on 1900HOTDOG? Famously yes, it’s his 1993 fitness video Fabio Fitness, by Fabio. Fabio’s number one creative contribution to this property was making sure his name appeared thirteen times on the box.
The VHS opens with a standard disclaimer stating you should talk to a doctor before beginning any exercise routine, which only makes me think about how funny Death By Fabio would be. It’s the Hunkiest way to die, for sure. We need that disclaimer because this intro with so many Fabio nipple shots is enough to take out even a medium-healthy midwestern Grandma.
Mediterraneum, a correctly spelled fragrance brand that Fabio also did some catalog modeling for sponsors the video. I like to think it’s because they put a little Fabio sweat in every bottle and got to collect so much from this video shoot. According to the tagline, Mediterraneum was Created for the Pleasure of Women, and according to autocorrect, it’s meant to be spelled “meat cum.”
Fabio Fitness By Fabio is playing really fast and loose with the By Fabio on the cover. This fitness routine is clearly by Brenda, the woman credited in tiny print who is explaining the workout to Fabio the entire time as if he’s never heard it before. Fabio clearly hated the idea of spending more than sixty-five minutes making his sixty-minute workout video. He’s playing the role of the newcomer to the world of working out who needs everything explained to him. After watching this video, I’m not sure if Fabio actually works out, but I am sure he owns a home gym decorated with several giant pictures of wet Fabio.
Wet Fabio is a completely different person from dry Fabio. He’s like a Gremlin. It’s hard to look away from Wet Fabio in the background of the warm-up section. He’s so menacing. I feel like if I don’t finish warming up by the time Fabio finishes crawling toward me, I will surely regret it.
Fabio’s friend Brenda, a new member of the extended Fabioverse, tries to explain the point of this fitness video to everyone as they get ready to warm up. She says that it’s “basic weight training. Nothing complicated. No choreography that’s going to confuse you.” I believe that Fabio finds Choreography confusing, but I’m also pretty sure the point of this fitness video is to jerk off. I dare you to not agree starting… NOW.
I remember covering Linnea Quigley’s horror movie workout in the past and being shocked when her boobs made an occasional guest appearance popping right out of her shirt. Fabio’s boobs are on full display here. The camera lingers on shirtless Fabio exercising on a misty city rooftop. We cut to this shot and these Fabio boobs any time Brenda has said too many boring words about exercise.
At one point, Fabio says, “So many women come up to me and say, ‘Fabio, what do you do for triceps?'” Which I find hard to believe. There’s a specific body part of Fabio’s that gets a lot of inquiries from fans, and I don’t think it’s triceps. Plus, women aren’t generally interested in getting jacked like Fabio. They’re not looking at Fabio on romance book covers and dreaming of getting the same luscious lats as our glistening king. They are thinking, “Finally a hunk I can talk to about bra shopping.” Oh no, I said too many words that weren’t about smoldering, shirtless free weig–
During the warm up, a few things become clear. One, Fabio is such a bad actor he can’t even competently play the role of Fabio. You know how, as a normal person, sometimes you space out, and your face goes totally blank. This is not something you’re supposed to do when you’re filming an exercise video. You’re supposed to be active and engaged the entire time, not off having your little Fabio thoughts.
Two, the only way to keep Fabio engaged in filming his own workout video is to pepper him with little compliments. Luckily, Branda realizes this right away, and whenever Fabio starts to drift, she’ll randomly yell, “You’ve got great-looking abs, by the way!” and our boy is back. I don’t blame Fabio for having attention difficulties. He’s so Hunky, It’s honestly a miracle he can speak at all. He normally licks everything he has to say against the back of someone’s teeth.
Sometimes Brenda tries to engage in banter that is not a direct complement to Fabio. Fabio hates this. He’s there to flip his hair and flex his muscles, trying to get him to improv confuses and angers the sexy Frankenstein. Either compliment him or leave poor Fabio alone, Brenda! He’s unfamiliar with any conversation that isn’t simply receiving compliments. Look at him!
The trouble is, Brenda is also not very good at giving compliments. I don’t know why she was chosen for this video. She and Fabio have zero chemistry, and she can’t do the one thing he needs to keep his brain activated. “You look like you work out,” Branda randomly screeches at one point. That’s just stating a fact about Fabio. It doesn’t seem like he knows how to work out, but it certainly looks like he does. He looks like he could pop my head like a melon with any part of your body; it’s just factual. The compliment displeases Fabio, and we must cut away to a montage of torso close-ups for several seconds to let him recover.
This is a low-budget workout video that knows it doesn’t have the right to be low-budget. They should have multiple sets, but instead, they have one Fabio home gym, so they try to shuffle around the one set to make it seem like there’s more going on in the background than there actually is. For instance, did you think Fabio’s home gym only had one enormous picture of Fabio on the wall? That would be crazy. There are at least two.
I think surrounding the large photo of Fabio on a motorcycle with a bunch of torn posters is supposed to give it a gritty urban look, but all I can see is Frankenstien’s Hunkiest monster tearing up all the photos that aren’t of him. Did Fabio attack these posters? I can’t prove anything, but I know the answer.
Branda and Fabio have come up with another reason for this workout tape to exist as they move into the meat of the workout, which is very standard weight-lifting moves, by the way. It’s so your body will look good in a fabulous dress. Every move is great for your shoulders, so you can wear a fabulous strapless dress, great for your back so that you can wear a fabulous backless dress. None of the moves are good for becoming big and strong enough to defeat Fabio in a hunk battle, which is what I’m far more interested in. He’s pretty menacing, but I think I can take him with the proper training. And if I’m wrong what’s the worst that could happen? My body is pulled under the crushing waves of a beautiful beef ocean?
The third and final workout set is the rooftop where we see Fabio doing his little spank bank breaks in the middle of the workout routines. There are notably zero pictures of Fabio behind Fabio for the first time in the workout video. That’s fine because we have plenty of Fabio to look at as the rooftop wind whips his luxurious, lustrous hair around.
Fabio seems to gain an understanding throughout the video that he should contribute in some way, but without really understanding how to do that, so he decides to start yelling random numbers of more reps. Brenda hates this. She’s designed a specific number of reps for maximum beefiness, and a large Italian man is fucking with that for no reason. Fabio will randomly yell, “Six more!”
Brenda laughs maniacally and says, “Six more, how about two more,” a manageable amount of exercise for regular humans who aren’t meat marionettes. Fabio is displeased by Branda’s correction. “You have large calves!” Brenda adds, barely saving herself from the wrath of Fabio.
I hope Fabio has gotten you warmed up for Hunk Week. He’s the number one Hunk with an entire paragraph on his Wikipedia page titled “Goose Incident.” He smells like Mediterraneum, and if his name doesn’t appear at least nine more times in this article, he will attack. Fabio, Fabio, Fabio, Fabio, Fabio. I can’t do it anymore. I’m too tired. There’s no cardio in this workout; we can escape him. RUN!
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Ozzie Olin, a hunk among hunks, sculpted by the gods and impossible to look away from.