Italian Grana Padano producers suing B&B over cheesy joke

It doesn't get any more bizarre than this: Italian cheese producers are suing The Bold and the Beautiful for a cooking-related joke that aired last year.

Cheesy jokes are a dime a dozen on soap operas, but one joke in particular that ran on CBS Daytime's The Bold and the Beautiful last year has Italian Grana Padano producers seriously cheesed off.

According to the Italian publication the Local, lawyers for the Grana Padano Consortium have filed a damages complaint against the international series for a scene they claim gives the Italian-made cheese a bad name. The scene they refer to ran last year and featured Charlie Webber (Dick Christie) berating himself for buying Grana Padano instead of its more famous cousin, Parmigiano Reggiano.

"Given the show's enduring popularity and huge fan base, Grana Padano producers were unhappy with the gag, which they feel has damaged their brand," the article states, followed by this quote from the Grana Padano Consortium's big cheese -- er... rather, director -- Stefano Berni: "The problem is that Grana Padano, much like The Bold and the Beautiful, is a global product and the negative message could easily have reached hundreds of millions of people."

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We get the feeling the lawsuit is not going to make the powers that be over at B&B smile -- especially not with the common smile-making cue "Say cheese!" And will the cheese industry be able to prove damages, since all of the evidence has been... shredded? (We're here all week, kids.)

What do you think about the cheesy lawsuit launched at B&B? Did your thoughts about Grana Padano cheese change after watching Charlie's cooking scenes? We want to hear from you -- so drop your comments in the Comments section below, tweet about it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, or chat about it on our Message Boards.

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