Donut Mess With A Cop / Live-Action TV

• The A-Team: When Murdock and Face are captured, they bluff their kidnappers into choosing a Donut Café as a meeting point. Once inside, the two simply get up and walk out of the Café, calmly asking the Gangsters what they're gonna do, shoot them in front of all the Cops
• The Australian comedy series The Late Show has this as a Running Gag in Bargearse (a Gag Dub of 70's cop show Bluey (1976)). The episode "Where's My Bloody Donuts?" has the overweight Detective Sgt. Bargearse investigating the theft of ten dozen jam donuts from his lunchbox.
  Da Chief: According to this report you've eaten over 64,000 donuts in the first five episodes alone!
• The detective in Blackpool is a Big Eater. Doughnuts feature at one point (he doesn't want icing).
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine:
  • The fire department regularly taunts the cops about this.
    [while Jake and Charles are investigating a fire]
    Fire Marshall Boone: What are you doing here? What, did somebody call in a missing donut?
  • And then later two more firemen pretend to help Detective Peralta with a case... only to present him with a donut stuck in a file. Which Scully then requests from him.
    Scully: Jake, would you like me to file that for you?
    Jake: Just ask for the donut.
    Scully: Can I have the donut, Jake?
  • In another episode, Jake actually finds a box of powdered doughnuts in his apartment and offers them to Amy... but then Amy promptly throws them out of her car.
    Amy: This is a new car. I won't have you Jake it up with doughnut powder.
  • Too bad Amy didn't count on Jake's "pocket doughnut" though.
• Referenced in Buffy the Vampire Slayer by the title character when, on Career Day, various people suggest she could join the police force. She's not enthusiastic.
• While Ryan of Castle was having a juice fast, Javier was eating a doughnut in front of him. Ryan snapped at him for being cliché and fought him for the doughnut.
• Played with on Cold Case as Det. Vera is pissed that someone ate his TastyCakes, which are a Hostess-esque brand of snack cakes that are mainly sold on the East Coast and are especially popular in Philadelphia.
• COPS: The subject of a joke and lampshade hanging in one episode when a pair of cruisers investigates a call to a closed (and burglarized) doughnut shop in the middle of the night. The cop that the camera was riding with can't help chuckling and pointing this out to his coworker.
• In the very first scene of the pilot for CSI, Detective Jim Brass quipped that he wanted to get out of the crime scene quick so he could "catch the first rack at Krispy Kreme".
• Dexter - the title character offers donuts to his coworkers, many of whom are cops. They don't last very long. The donuts, that is. This is all part of his "I'm just a harmless nice guy" façade.
• In the Eureka episode "Welcome Back, Carter", at the beginning of Carter's 10-Minute Retirement, he meets Jo in Café Diem and jokes "A coffee and donut, you're already eating like a sheriff." She informs him it's a sixteen-grain protein bagel.
• Family Matters:
  • In one episode, overweight cop Carl Winslow gets caught cheating on his taxes when an audit turns up (among other things) that he used his purchases of doughnuts as deductibles.
    Carl: I'm a cop. It's a business lunch!
  • On another episode, Carl gives directions to avoid a traffic jam caused by a fire, saying a landmark is easy to spot because it's near "a great donut shop" he frequents.
  • His mother, Estelle Winslow, once said that "donut" was Carl's first word.
• In The Flash Pilot Movie, Barry had to steal two cops' entire in-car supply of doughnuts because of his Big Eater requirement for his speed powers.
• Subverted in Forever Knight. In one episode we discover that Don Schanke's nickname in the police academy was "Donut Don", even though he's usually seen craving souvlaki. Turns out the actual reason was his lousy grouping during pistol practice.
• Friends:
  • When Gary (a cop) asks Phoebe out, he says, "Don't worry, I'm not just gonna take you out for donuts." Chandler laughs, and everybody else stares, befuddled. Chandler explains that it was a bizarre form of self-defense: "He has a gun!"
  • Chandler made his own donut joke when Phoebe first found Gary's badge. It got an awkward silence, and he quickly admitted he could do better and asked for a do-over.
• In one episode of Good Eats, Alton is trying to smuggle muffins to his incarcerated brother B. A. (who wanted a cake with a file in it, but that's irrelevant) when a cop catches him. Alton distracts him by throwing a muffin, then remarks, "Huh. I thought it only worked with donuts." Interestingly, it doesn't work with English muffins.
• In Heroes, Eden uses her persuasion powers to make Matt sit in his patrol car all night eating donuts, because "That's what you guys do, right?". When his colleague sees him, he complains that Matt is "a walking cliché".
• Hill Street Blues. Bobby Hill goes to meet an attractive reporter to try to talk to her about her somewhat unfair reporting of their day's shift, which basically showed them every time they had something silly happen or were waiting for something. The two of them end up having sex, so now, her unfair reporting only focuses on Hill's partner Renko showing every time he stopped to buy donuts, and left any disparaging video of Hill not used. Then the next time she follows them around, she gets film of Renko foiling an armed robbery, so she apologizes for her previous reporting on the air, and says as long as he does stuff like that, he's entitled to all the donuts he wants.
• Rejected by Detective Misty Knight in Iron Fist (2017), who says the last thing you need when you're a cop is to come down from a sugar high at the wrong time. She's shown eating potato chips instead and griping to Colleen Wing that she got teriyaki-flavoured instead of habenero.
• In one episode of Kenan & Kel, Kel got a job at a donut shop. Kenan's father pestered Kel for a free donut until Kel decided to give him one only to activate an alarm and accuse Kenan's parent of donut theft. Kenan's parents were arrested by cops who were there as customers.
• In Law & Order, a pair of detectives were interviewing a donut store owner about seeing a suspect. The owner didn't see anything, but he does lampshade the situation. Then, they showed an officer who just happened to be eating a donut saying that he saw something.
• On an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, a group of terrorists left a box of donuts full of high explosives for the cops to find. It didn't work.
• In 13th season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit the man Benson is seeing asks to meet her at a donut shop. She teases him that he really knows how to woo a cop.
  • The "Bad Cop, No Donut" (see Real Life) sign has been sign on Stabler's locker.
• From Lost:
  Sawyer: A doctor^note Jack playing golf. What's next, cop eatin' a donut?
• In the Luke Cage (2016) episode "Just to Get a Rep", Misty Knight's corrupt partner Rafael Scarfe has fallen under investigation from Internal Affairs. He meets with his equally crooked shift lieutenant to discuss the removal of Cottonmouth's seized guns from evidence:
  Lt. Perez: I've got Sgt. McClane from Property on it.
  Rafael Scarfe: McClane? That fat, donut-eating bastard's gonna get us burnt.
  Lt. Perez: We'll be fine. He's on payroll. If we go down, he goes down.
• On The Mentalist, it's traditional for Lisbon's team to have either donuts or pizza following the successful closure of a case.
• Bulk and Skull join the Angel Grove Junior Police Force in season 3 of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, and their new credit clip in the opening titles shows them looking all serious in their uniforms... before delightedly brandishing donuts, to which they then devote their attention.
• One episode of Monster Garage involved turning a police car into a rolling donut shop. A police official said that the conversion was a good idea as it would allow officers on patrol to stop for a snack without leaving their vehicles, "but it's still wrong."
• In the Murdoch Mysteries episode "Hangman", George and another constable have tea and donuts while on a stakeout. They even have a Seinfeldian Conversation about the origins of the donut.
• On an episode of My Name Is Earl, a beleaguered cop explains that his food gets spat on a lot, and it's hard to hide a loogie on a donut.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000:
  • Experiment 409, "Indestructible Man", ends with a pair of police officers instructing the SOL crew to never again make a police/doughnut joke. Joel, Servo and Crow actually signed a contract swearing that they would never make a cop/doughnut joke again. According to the Amazing Colossal Guide, they've remained true to that since. Apparently, the writers at Best Brains also vowed to never make those jokes again.
  • Although in season 10, Servo has a dirty cop refusing to stop at a Krispy Kreme so as not to "advance the stereotype."
  • In Experiment 618, "High School Big Shot", during the short ("Out of This World", the one where good and evil vie for a breadman's soul), Mike makes a cop/doughnut joke. Possibly a bit of Fridge Brilliance, as Mike didn't sign the original contract.
• Referenced on NCIS, when McGee and Tony get into a bit of a old school/new school police approach competition. Tony declares himself a winner, and begins asking for a jelly donut.
• Once Upon a Time does this, Graham, the Huntsman/Town Sheriff, brings in a box of donuts to Emma, the deputy. Emma gives Graham a flat stare, and he responds "Some stereotypes are true."
• Porter Ridge: When Terry and Danny Bob fix a cop's car, they take it for a test drive to pick up coffee and donuts. Averted with the actual cop though, who doesn't eat donuts.
• In The Pretender, Jarod discovers donuts while pretending to be a policeman. A delivery guy correctly guesses that Jarod is a cop (at the moment) when he sees the many, many boxes of donuts in his house.
• Used in a teaser for Psych where Gus questions where Shawn managed to find a donut at a crime scene. As Shawn gives less and less probable answers, the camera moves to show a box of donuts that was carried by the covered victim.
  Shawn: Ooh. (licks red stuff on hand) That wasn't a jelly donut.
  • The season seven finale has Obstructive Bureaucrat Jerkass Harris Trout bring in donuts for the team as they explain to him their mishap with their latest case,, only for Trout to throw the untouched donuts into the trash mid- story. Even Reasonable Authority Figure Chief Vick reacts in horror.
    • Though to be fair, Trout had just gone on for ages about wasteful spending, only to waste the donuts. One wonders if she wasn't objecting to the waste.
• From the Saturday Night Live sketch "Two A-Holes at a Crime Scene":
  Female a-hole: [to cop] Can I have one of your donuts?
  Male a-hole: Yeah, I'll take one with sprinkles.
  Cop: I don't have any donuts.
  Male a-hole: [to female a-hole] He ate 'em all, babe.
• At the start of Moriarty's crime spree in episode 6 of Sherlock, DI Lestrade is relaxing in his office with coffee and a doughnut. He doesn't get to finish it.
  DS Donovan: Sir, there's been a break-in!
  Lestrade: Not our division!
• Mocked on Sledge Hammer!:
  Sledge: I would like to address that particular stereotype if I may. Now, your stereotypical donut is nothing but dough and sugar fried in fat, am I right? Now that fat gums up your arteries and goes to your brain, and you turn liberal. And the next thing you know, Barry Manilow is on the turn-table and you're not going to work and you're voting for gun control. You see what I'm saying? You see the connection? That's why I eat granola.
• Played with on Stargate SG-1 when the team are helping out in a police surveillance van on Earth.
  Daniel: I've never been on a stakeout before. Shouldn't we have... doughnuts?
• Stranger Things: In the first episode of season 2, Hopper is introduced trying to eat a donut as he arrives at work and is being pestered by Murray Bauman. He gets in one bite before Flo takes the donut away and gives him an apple.
• Supergirl (2015): Played with. When Winn gets called into the police station for questioning, he decides to bring doughnuts as a peace offering. Cut to him sitting in an interrogation room, stuffing his face while the cops look on, unamused.
  Winn: I'm stress-eating, okay!?
• In Supernatural a fellow law enforcement officer sources the joke. As part of his Establishing Character Moment as a scarily effective, no-nonsense man, FBI Agent Victor Henriksen responds to a local cop's assumption that the FBI would be working with the police on stopping the serial-killing, grave defiling Winchesters with "you can go eat a donut and bang your wife for all I care!"
• Referenced on Third Watch:
  Bosco: No powdered sugar on your shirt, Sully. What, Krispy Kreme burn down?
• Titus episode "What's Up, Hollywood?"
  Ken Titus: You built me a cop magnet! I might as well be a black guy driving a large powdered doughnut!
• In Twin Peaks, the protagonist FBI agent Dale Cooper sees a spread of donuts at the police station and exclaims "A policeman's dream!"
• Averted in the Weinerville New Year's Special; Boney offers a cop a donut, but the officer replies, "Nah, I never touch the stuff. I'll take this apple, though."

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