Kiwi cop a YouTube hit

A deadpan joke about the safety of eating overheated meat pies has catapulted a Kiwi police officer into internet super-stardom.

YouTube and Facebook can't seem to get enough of police dog handler Guy Baldwin, who was captured on camera dishing out unusual advice to a late-night car jacker caught in the act.

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, using the long-standing New Zealand Police slogan.

The deadpan delivery of the joke, which was 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.

- AAP