Timaru's 'mice pies' on Letterman

Dominion Post

HUNGRY? Timaru has shot to fame on the Letterman show after a local bakery's misprint saw them advertising 'famous mice pies'.

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It's amazing how much difference one little letter can make.

Ask the staff at May's Bakery in Timaru who this week learnt that David Letterman, a United States television host, had picked up on an innocuous, but funny mistake in the bakery's adverts, simply brought about by a missing 'n'.

People reading the ad, which ran in a Herald supplement in mid January, could be forgiven for thinking there had been a drastic change in ingredients.

It read: "May's Bakery. Home of the famous Mice pie."

In print for all to see, the clipping found its way to the CBS programme Late Show with David Letterman, on March 2, in the small town news segment.

Letterman's reaction summed it up: "Things are different in New Zealand."

General manager Sue Lyons said it was perhaps the most attention a May's advert ever had and that she wouldn't mind sending Letterman a few pies for him to try.

She said staff and customers at the bakery couldn't help but have a laugh at the faux pas after it appeared in print and they even played on it. "We had the bakers make some novelty mice out of meringue."

While staff at the store have an inkling about who may have sent the advert to the show, they aren't complaining. Their pies just became even more famous.

- © Fairfax NZ News