'Blow on the pie' cop gains YouTube fame

When the teenage criminal claimed hunger as an alibi, saying he was just on his way to the petrol station to buy a meat pie, the sergeant came up with this quick-witted reply.

"Three o'clock in the morning, that pie has probably been in the warming drawer for about 12 hours.

"It will be thermo-nuclear - always blow on the pie. Safer communities together," Baldwin said, quoting the long-standing New Zealand Police slogan.

The deadpan delivery of the joke, which was sadly missed by the young offender, seems to have captured the imagination of the online world.

More than 175,000 people have viewed the YouTube clip, which screened on the Kiwi cop show Police 10-7 this week, and it has been a sensation on Facebook.

It has given rise to rap songs, music re-mixes and even a South Park-style homage.

The line "always blow on the pie" is now printed on T-shirts on sale across New Zealand and is looking set to become a part of the Kiwi vocabulary.

Americans, now well-versed in Kiwi humour thanks to the musical
TV duo Flight of the Conchords, are among the most enthusiastic of Sergeant Baldwin's new fans.

The policeman, for his part, told TVNZ this week it was meant as a joke to lighten the mood.

"As a policeman if we can make people laugh then great because in reality what we do isn't funny," says Baldwin.

"I was speaking to a chap we had been looking for... I was making up conversation, using a bit of humour. Unfortunately, he didn't get it."

He admitted he was a bit bamboozled by his sudden fame, especially as the footage was shot five years ago.

And he's modest about what it means, saying that this year's gimmick t-shirts bearing his now-famous line will be next year's house painting garb.

Meanwhile he's been getting "plenty of stick" from his cop colleagues, a fact confirmed when AAP rang to speak to him.

"My God, you'd think he was a bloody celebrity or something," the policeman said, laughing. "He sure thinks he is in his own little head."