Some of the gags that attracted most opprobrium.

Jimmy Carr's gypsy joke

On the BBC Radio show Loose Endstwo years ago, Carr said the following: "The male gypsy moth can smell the female gypsy moth up to seven miles away - and that fact also works if you remove the word moth."

The BBC made an apology, saying "the joke should never have been transmitted", and The UK Gypsy Council was quick to condemn Carr's remarks.

Sean Hughes on Madeleine McCann

At a show last year, Irish comic Sean Hughes noted how the parents of missing child Madeleine McCann had visited the Pope in the Vatican. "I know the Pope was in the Hitler Youth, but I don't think he has anything to do with Madeleine's disappearance," he said.

Subsequent newspaper reports struck the tone "comedian thinks Madeleine McCann is game for a laugh", and RTÉ's Livelineprogramme fielded phone calls saying the comic should have been banned from performing in Ireland.

Chris Rock's race routine

Rock's controversial "Black People vs Niggers" material made him a household name in the US. In the routine, Rock made a comedic distinction between what he felt were the two kinds of black people.

For Rock, the behaviour of "niggas" was detrimental to the image of all black people. "Every time black people want to have a good time, ign'ant-ass niggas f**k  it up."

He has since distanced himself from the act, saying: "I will probably never do that routine ever again. What I found was that it gave some racist people the licence to say 'nigger'. So I'm done with the routine."

Chris Morris on paedophilia

Apart from announcing live on radio that both Jimmy Saville and Michael Heseltine had died (when they hadn't) and various other media pranks, satirist Morris is in third place of the most complained about TV programmes in the UK ever. In 2001, he presented a Brass Eyespecial about paedophilia. The show was a satire on the hysterical treatment of the subject by the tabloid media - inspired by the fact that, following a tabloid newspaper's "name and shame" campaign, a paediatrician's clinic in the UK was attacked by an angry mob. The show attracted much negative comment and in terms of viewer complaints is only surpassed by Celebrity Big Brother2007 and a screening of Jerry Springer: The Opera.

Joan Rivers on 9/11 widows

The US comedian caused uproar in 2003 when she told a joke about the compensation received by the widows of people who had lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks. "Don't tell me a few of those women aren't jumping for joy. "I got rid of Harry and I got $5 million as well - hurrah."

Responding to the furore, Rivers said: "We live in horrible reality. How else can you get through it, if not with jokes?"

Bill Maher on the Pope

The US comedian Bill Maher was sacked as the presenter of his Politically Correctsatirical TV show when, in 2002, he voiced the opinion that the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks were not cowards. ""We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away," he said. "That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly."

On another occasion, the American Catholic League said that "no one has insulted Catholics more than Bill Maher" after he said: "If you have a few hundred followers, and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you Pope!"

Ricky's 'racist' Extras episode

The role played by Keith Chegwin in an episode of the Ricky Gervais TV comedy Extraswas originally to be played by ventriloquist Keith Harris (of Orville fame). Harris had turned the role down saying Gervais was asking him to spout racist language. "He wanted me to be a racist bigot," said Harris. "I would have to say things like: "Is the BBC still run by Jews and homosexuals?"

I thought that wasn't clever writing, it was pure filth. So I turned it down."

Sarah Silverman's Asian insult

On an episode of Late Night With Conan O'Brien, comedian Sarah Silverman told a story about trying to get out of jury duty: "A friend told me that if you wrote a racial slur on the form like 'I hate chinks', you wouldn't have to do it," she said. "I didn't want to appear to be racist, though, so I just wrote 'I love chinks' . . . and who doesn't?"

Silverman later said the joke was a commentary on the racist thought process, but the Media Action Network for Asian- Americans protested to the NBC network, which duly apologised for broadcasting the remark.

Johnny Vegas's dubious advances

At a gig in London two weeks ago, Johnny Vegas focused on a young woman in the audience and made some crude remarks about her.

He later asked some audience members to carry her up on to the stage. Press reports of the show claimed that Vegas then threatened to kick the girl if she moved and that he then touched her inappropriately.

Another comedian on the bill, Simon Munnery, attempted  to shield the spectacle from the audience with his coat.

A furious debate about Vegas's actions broke out on www.notbbc.co.uk