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The crisis facing Japanese automaker Toyota has been a gift for joke-makers in the United States as the company recalled over eight million vehicles worldwide for faulty accelerator and brake systems.
"Toyota has issued a recall of 8.1 million vehicles whose faulty gas pedals could cause them to accelerate out of control. In their defense Toyota's slogan is "Moving Forward" -- they don't say anything in there about stopping," quipped late night comedian Stephen Colbert on his eponymous show "The Colbert Report."
The other night-time US talkshow hosts were quick to jump in, too.
"Over the next two weeks, we're going to have the Winter Olympics... They're doing something this year that is going to add a little more excitement. All the bobsleds are made by Toyota," joked NBC host Jay Leno.
Comedian David Letterman at CBS similarly couldn't help himself.
"Critics of the automobile industry are saying that Toyota executives knew about the problems with the brakes years and years ago. And they're wondering, rightly so, why did they drag their feet? Well, trying to stop the car. That's what they were doing," he said.
"Things are dangerous, and I'm coming to work in my car. Here's how scary it is. The navigation lady was actually praying," he laughed.
On the Internet meanwhile, fun-making users of micro-blogging site Twitter were keeping up with their professional counterparts.
User @evilray posted: "Hey, y'all! Check out my new Toyota keyboaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..."
The technical problems have become a public relations nightmare for Toyota, one of Japan's greatest corporate icons, after millions of recalls were issued because of "sticky accelerators" that can cause cars to race out of control, and because of braking problems on Prius and other hybrid models.
US officials this week said they were also reviewing complaints about steering problems on Toyota's popular Corolla cars.
