@JTT,
I first heard this phrase on the Simpsons in the episode where Homer writes the song everyone hates Ned Flanders, and Apu uses the phrase 'He's so white bread.' At first I just thought it was an American version of rhyming slang, but then it dawned on me that Americans don't do rhyming slang. So I googled it to come up with this link. It is an Americanism, and wouldn't catch on over here, basically because it's too close to rhyming slang. Rhyming slang in this case is always used as a threat. That bloke's brown bread/dead.