Jimmy Carter has gotten stale.

It's quite sad, really. He's stale and deteriorating and probably not much longer for this world.

At least, that's the way it looks from a quick glance at him as he sits - behind protective glass, of course - in the offices of Tony Packo's Cafe on the east side one recent afternoon.

Tony Packo, Jr., company president, is proud of the Jimmy Carter bun. As with the hundreds of other buns signed by celebrities who enjoyed the Hungarian hot dog joint's food over the years, this one was a big deal. Confidently autographed before the 1976 election, Mr. Carter added "next president" after his name.

The problem is that this bun is doing what hot dog buns do: It's falling apart and the ink is bleeding. It's one of the few survivors from the days when the restaurant had notables sign actual hot dog buns.

The rest of the famous buns - all those you see lining the walls in special frames at the Packo's restaurants - don't have such problems. They're fake.

Take a closer look. Maybe you'll be able to tell that the wiener wrapper signed by Stevie Nicks is actually plastic filled with foam. Maybe you'll see that the colors are painted on the bun signed by Siegfried & Roy.

Maybe not. If you've been fooled all these years, it means Willy Sohnly - the Bun Man - has done his job.

"I'm not really the Bun Man," he corrects. "I'm son of Bun Man."

True enough. It was his father, James, who first started making the faux buns more than 25 years ago for Toledo's best-known restaurant. Mr. Sohnly has been doing it since his father's death in 2000.

See, it didn't take long for the people at Packo's to figure out that they had a potential crisis on their hands after Burt Reynolds signed the first bun when he visited the restaurant in 1976. He was in town for some performances and gave birth to a tradition that about 1,000 actors, rockers, presidents, astronauts, and others would follow.

But how do you prevent his legacy from literally going stale?

"You know something like that is going to be a problem. You talk about varnishing [the buns] ... " Mr. Packo said, his voice trailing off. "So a couple of years later, buns were falling apart, or they couldn't sign them because the pen would punch through them ... It's hard to write on a bun."

That's where James Sohnly came in. A salesman who once made plastic slot cars on the side, he made a rubber model of a hot dog bun with all the necessary bulges and creases and used a process called vacuum forming to melt a sheet of thin white plastic into the shape of the bun. Then he filled it with foam, the kind model railroaders use to make mountains.

The key to the illusion, though, is the paint job. Each one is a little different. Lighter, darker, redder, browner. The color, like everything else, is homemade.

"It's not a color you buy. They don't make 'hot dog bun' color," said Mr. Sohnly, 54, a maintenance worker at Executive Towers apartment building.

It's no surprise to the West Toledo man that the end result looks realistic.

"They're supposed to look real," he said. "Personally, I think it's a big hoot over nothing."

On one recent morning, it took him an hour to make eight buns, start to finish. All the necessary materials and tools, usually stored in the basement, took up two tables just outside his garage and well-manicured garden.

He does this maybe a couple of times a year, making 40 or 50 at a time for the restaurant. It's no easy task - he has to drive up to Adrian for the foam - and it takes him hours and hours to make all the restaurant needs.

But he does it because, well, they need him.

"You ever been to Tony Packo's? See all those buns on the walls? Don't you think it's neat?" he asks. "That's why I do it."

There were about 50 real signed buns when the elder Mr. Sohnly came to the rescue, and all of the celebs have since placed their John Hancocks on fake replacements, Mr. Packo said.

Mr. Sohnly signed a few himself - as gifts for friends or family, but not yet for the restaurant - and there's a bun autographed by Bill Cosby, a huge Tony Packo's fan, hanging on the wall in his kitchen.

"Where else would you have hot dog buns?" Mr. Sohnly said.

These days, the restaurant keeps a few on hand at all times in the downstairs office, just in case Danny Glover comes knocking on the door around midnight. Again.

Even if you haven't starred in a movie (or four) with Mel Gibson, you still might have a chance at leaving your mark on a Packo's bun.

"Anybody can sign one," said Tony Packo III, director of restaurant operations. "Whether it gets put up on the wall is the acid test."

The original cafe has more than 580 on its walls at the moment, and hundreds of others are split among the restaurant's other locations. The new locations even were designed with the buns in mind.

As long as there's more room on the walls for buns, Mr. Sohnly knows he'll have work to do.

"As easy as it is, I'll probably do it till I die," he said.

Contact Ryan E. Smith at:

ryansmith@theblade.com

or 419-724-6103.

First Published August 26, 2005, 2:26 p.m.