Speaking with reporters earlier this year, "America's Next Top Model" host and executive producer Tyra Banks dismissed the idea that her popular UPN show would ever do an installment looking for the next top male model. After noting that while audiences are on a first name basis with a dozen female supermodels, famous male models are tougher to come by.

"Male models are accessories," Banks said bluntly. "If I'm doing a photo shoot with a male model, he's off to the side and in the shadow."

While Banks and her UPN posse haven't taken the beefcake plunge, "Average Joe" creator Stuart Krasnow hopes to erase the "Zoolander" stigma with "Manhunt: The Search for America's Most Gorgeous Male Model," a new Bravo series with an unwieldy but blissfully self-explanatory title.

"I think that there's a tremendous female following of handsome men and I think that in a female-dominated industry maybe men haven't been able to shine as much, but we certainly plan on changing that," Krasnow says.

Although Krasnow tries to downplay obvious thematic similarities to "America's Next Top Model," the shows' structures are nearly identical. "Manhunt" begins with 15 men plucked from bars and college campuses and construction crews on the basis of their obvious aesthetic merits. Each episode features a specialized photo shoot and one photo is presented to the judges who candidly critique each photo and then vote to dismiss one man.

Taking Banks' place is Carmen Electra, no stranger to reality TV from her time on "Singled Out" and the recent MTV offering "Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen + Dave," a series chronicling the events leading up to her marriage to rocker Dave Navarro. Electra admits that her own history with men suggests she's an off-beat choice for the show.

"My judgment on what I think is handsome is probably different from most people," laughs Electra, who also had the briefest of marriages to the not-conventionally-attractive Dennis Rodman. "I'm more into the personality, but people who have actually seen what these guys look like think that they're drop-dead gorgeous and getting to know them, I do as well."

Just because Electra came around to the appeal of Preparation H-enhanced abs and killer cheekbones doesn't mean that her husband was anxious about her fidelity.

"He's so supportive and so understanding that I couldn't make him jealous if I tried," Electra says. "I'm really lucky in that way to have such a supportive husband, but at moments I did catch myself sortta staring at my favorites, but it didn't go any further than that."

Krasnow and the show's creative team are counting on Electra's presence to help "Manhunt" cross over from straight women and Bravo's core gay audience to reach more viewers, but he knows that there may be difficulties.

"I don't know if straight guys are going to sit there and shed a tear because a guy got eliminated because his abs weren't right," he says. "But I think there're a lot of guys who are going to want to watch this show to live through the guys and what they get to pull off."

In addition to documenting the rock star lifestyle that the men get to live, "Manhunt" will offer a different kind of competitive tension from "Top Model." The differences are evident from the first episode where the men are taken out onto an airport tarmac and asked to strip to their undies as a drill sergeant (one of the judges) inspects all of them, isolating their flaws.

"I would be thrown out of the business if I did that to a group of women, but I think men kinda carry a different demeanor with them and their cockiness is something we're going to have a lot of fun playing off of," Krasnow says, using what one can only hope is an intentional pun.

Viewers can check out "Manhunt" and all of its, um, cockiness when the show premieres on Tuesday (Oct. 12) night at 10 p.m. ET.