Jokes... British comedy is peppered with them. Many scientific studies have looked into what makes humans laugh, and most agree that an element of surprise is needed for the majority of gags to work. The Naked Jape, co-written by Jimmy Carr, is very detailed on the subject.

As Carr knows well, surprise and shock often go hand in hand. But sometimes when pushing for that, a stand-up comic, advertiser or comedy programme goes just a bit too far in the eyes of a section of the audience, and front page news stories end up being generated off the back of the controversy.

We thought we'd take a look at 4 moments in British comedy where the joke was not received as well as the deliverer had perhaps hoped and expected...

Julian Clary at The British Comedy Awards

When Julian Clary appeared on stage at the 1993 British Comedy Awards, he inadvertently put his TV career on ice with a single cheeky remark consisting of six words. He's since bounced back, but in the mid-1990s some broadcasters studiously avoided him in case he said anything else that might get them in trouble.

So what was the line that provoked uproar, and caused the Independent Television Commission to rule his conduct as "wholly unacceptable"? A seemingly off-the-cuff remark that the shrubbery-filled TV set reminded him of Hampstead Heath - and that he had just been "fisting" the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont, backstage.

Thankfully, Clary eventually bounced back from the controversy, and is now on our screens and stages again. He's set to tour in the UK next year with a new show, Born To Mince.

Dapper Laughs

Daniel O'Reilly built up a strong online following with his brand of 'lad humour' across a range of social media platforms in the early 2010s, however he found out to his cost that a switch to TV results in a more mainstream spotlight being focused on what you're saying.

Following widespread condemnation that his cheeky dating-advice show was sexist, footage from a live performance came to light where he was heard repeating back a rather violent, rape-related quip to a heckling member of the audience. Smelling blood, the tabloid press were quick to pile in, and within days the comic was on the BBC's highbrow Newsnight current affairs programme, discussing the incident whilst wearing a sombre turtleneck, announcing the retirement of his "Dapper Laughs character" in the process.

Whilst Dapper Laughs might not be on our screens any more, misogynistic humour continues. UK online casino website Fruity King found themselves in trouble after they wrote and promoted a tweet featuring an image of female TV presenters in their swimwear, quipping "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig."

The 'joke' was immediately branded 'outrageous' and 'offensive' and The Advertising Standards Authority stepped in and banned the company from any further use of the campaign - but the gambling company continues to push boundaries with their marketing still, particularly around the topic of football now.

Brass Eye

'Paedogeddon' was the name of a special episode from Brass Eye, the spoof news show fronted by Chris Morris. Broadcast in 2001, several years after the series had aired, the one-off episode aimed to satirise the way the media portrayed and reported on paedophilia.

Airing within a year of the murder of Sarah Payne, the script was clearly going always going to be controversial, but even then it's fair to speculate that neither Channel 4 or the show's writers were prepared for the media storm they were about to create.

Nearly two decades on, the episode still remains one of the most complained about broadcasts there has ever been on British television. Outrage rose further as newspapers put the show on their front pages, and the government soon got involved. Beverley Hughes, the Minister for Child Protection, called the show "unspeakably sick".

It seemed many had missed the joke the creators were trying to make. An article from The Atlantic that looks back at the show, notes: "The mob justice Paedogeddon mocked now might now play out online, rather than in front of a TV camera, but its power remains just as frightening."

Heil Honey I'm Home!

This is a programme that has gone down in telly legend. Written by Geoff Atkinson, the satirical 1990 sitcom Heil Honey I'm Home! was produced for the little-watched satellite television channel Galaxy. Set in 1938 and spoofing American sitcoms of the 1950s and 60s, it presented Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun as the neighbours from hell, residents in a perfectly normal apartment block in a quiet part of Berlin.

Remarkably, despite the tiny viewership of the channel in the days before the mass take-up of subscription television services, the tabloid media managed to kick up such a frenzy around the series that it was cancelled after only a pilot episode had been broadcast. A further 7 episodes - of 12 ordered - had already been filmed, and have still not seen the light of day.

Atkinson maintains that the aim of the show was not to shock, but to examine the appeasement surrounding Hitler in 1938. However, he concedes that the satire of this appeasement did not translate as well as he intended.