"The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart has been the site of some controversies lately, and this week it was the host himself who was caught in a furor.

First, Ricky Gervais cracked some Anne Frank jokes on the show, then had to explain himself and his "intentionally ignorant" comedy.

Gervais, who was promoting his show "An Idiot Abroad," said that his show's co-star, Karl Pilkington, is so out of it that he thought the Frank family decided to hide to avoid paying rent. When Stewart seemed uncomfortable, Gervais did what he does best, took it a step further, saying that the "Nazis must be stupid" for taking so long to find the Franks.

Unsurprisingly, some people took offense. One of them, Dan Bloom of Boston, started a petition to boycott Gervais and Pilkington and calling them "ugly and sick antisemetic Brits."

This week it was Stewart himself who found himself under fire from the Catholic League for suggesting that women use "vagina mangers" to call attention to threats to female reproductive freedom.

Stewart has criticized Fox News for using the term "war on ..." from Christmas to salt, yet holding back from saying "war on women" in reference to recent abortion and birth control debates. To catch Fox News' attention, Stewart advised women to put "vagina mangers" over their genitalia to catch the media's attention. His suggestion came with a graphic that featured the manger as the Nativity scene.

That upset the Catholic League, which launched a campaign to boycott Stewart and Comedy Central. The league's president, Bill Donohue, was scheduled to appear on Fox News' "Hannity" on Tuesday to discuss the boycott campaign.

via jta.org