Here’s Patrick Stewart reading the part:

Here’s Stephen Colbert getting dramatic:

But before you derive too much enjoyment from the failure of a peaceful exploratory journey to push the boundaries of human knowledge, let’s not forget that the US has its own inexplicably personified, selfie-takin’ planetary rover.

Jon Stewart tackled China again on a recent episode of The Daily Show — more specifically, the belief harbored among some (who are you people?) that China’s recent rover moon-landing somehow threatens American national security or identity or dominance or something. He squeezes in a joke about Chinese voting.

Meh. Stewart’s done better before with less. (No dildo joke on Jade Rabbit?) The segment’s worth a chuckle though.

“Things may be bad, but at least our streets don’t burp mystery goo,” says Jon Stewart, referring to the ooze that randomly appeared one day out of a street crack in Nanjing.

We asked you to come up with guesses for what it can be. “Bird shit and Bisquick,” Stewart says. “Corn starch and Foxocnn worker tears.”

The audience was slightly aghast at that last suggestion.

(H/T Ben Ogle)

As Barack Obama’s failure to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp continues to anger his liberal base, interested observers outside the US are beginning to take their potshots at the reeling POTUS. The Chinese news media, for instance, has decided to lightly prod the American president with a little humor — not with its own humor, mind you, but with The Daily Show’s.

Watch the above, or this, or this (different Chinese news stations, same Daily Show episode). It all seems to have begun when CCTV, China’s central broadcast station, ran with the Daily Show clip, according to SCMP. And while the segment is unquestionably funny, Chinese netizens, who are generally fans of Jon Stewart, are laughing for another reason — at their domestic news outlets.

“There are so many problems happening domestically that you choose not to broadcast every day, but instead choose to smell the farts of other countries,” one person posted in the video’s comment section.

“This is our country’s mainstream media … They just want to divert our attention to problems [of other countries] away from poisonous ginger, tainted milk, gutter oil and undrinkable tap water … We are so lucky,” another said, sarcastically.

Others pointed to CCTV’s blatant and “low-blow” attempt to humour audiences with an American political satire show when few of the sort was on offer domestically.

“At least they are free [in the US] to criticise their president openly on television,” one netizen observed on China’s biggest microblogging platform Sina Weibo.

Ah, yes. Chinese media, without the trust of its viewers, can basically never win.

On the other hand, holy crap Jon Stewart, first Egypt, now China (and soon, Iran)… the man might be the most globally recognized American comedian currently working.

CCTV ‘misses irony’ in using Jon Stewart satire to mock US on Guantanamo Bay (SCMP)

If you’re looking for analysis on why China loved Jon Stewart’s digs at Kim Jong-un (above), head over to the Washington Post, where Max Fisher writes:

When the popular Chinese Web portal Sina posted an eight-minute segment from the show discussing the latest North Korean provocations, it racked up an astounding 2.8 million views and counting, as well as tens of thousands of comments, many of them praising the show. That appears to make it one of the most-watched “Daily Show” clips ever. It also raises questions about whether China’s flagging support for North Korea might reflect popular sentiment as well as Beijing’s own geopolitical calculus.

Otherwise, watch away first. We’ll wait. Here it is on Sina, for those of you whose Internet isn’t fast enough to stream Comedy Central:

The above, posted to Sina on April 4, is now at 3.3 million views. Jon Stewart and staff have noticed, and presented a follow-up (below) that has racked up nearly half a million views on Sina after less than a day. Here’s Fisher again explaining the show’s appeal to Chinese viewers:

Maybe it has to do with China’s restrictive media, which tend not to venture into the kind of cutting political satire that has made the show so popular at home. The population of young, urban, middle-class, Web-savvy Chinese is growing rapidly. They’re making the Chinese consumer market one of the world’s largest, snapping up luxury goods, watching foreign films and enrolling in prestigious American universities. It stands to reason that they’d also be interested in the sort of news coverage that so appeals to young, urban middle classes around the world. But they can’t get it from the Chinese media, so they have to go elsewhere.

Jon Stewart, in other words, seems to have stumbled upon one of the most underserved media markets in the world. He’s right: He, or someone, should be doing a China-focused “Daily Show.” Unfortunately, something as freely critical and openly mocking as “The Daily Show” is unlikely to get past China’s censors anytime soon.

Nor does it hurt that Stewart is funny, of course.

The latest clips. The cookie joke at the end is good.

Jon Stewart gave China’s air the comedic treatment last week (and rhymed it with “Nair”), using footage from a week before (and referencing this story about the Hangzhou factory fire). We bring it up now because, first, we hadn’t seen it on the China blogs yet, but more importantly, everyone is talking about pollution again. And if you must join in on this one-way conversation – pollution sure is unwelcome, eh guys? yeah, totally — you might as well make an Auric Goldfinger reference, as The Daily Show does.

The segment is called “Things May Be Bad, But At Least We Can’t Chew Our Air.” It’s not Stewart’s best effort, and Neil deGrasse Tyson’s appearance is totally wasted, but the audience seemed to dig it.