Ricky Gervais fans may have heard something rather familiar on Monday night's edition of The Late Late Show.
In a clip that has now been widely circulated on Twitter (ironically), host James Corden can be seen discussing Elon Musk's recent $44 billion takeover of the social media platform.
During the monologue, Corden discusses Musk's reported firing of the Twitter board and the rumors that the billionaire may start to charge users to keep their verified blue tick.
After joking that the Tesla CEO was making Twitter "suck differently" rather than "suck less", Corden then made the following gag:
"When you see Elon Musk talk about Twitter, he does this thing where he goes, 'Well, it's the town square. It's the town square.'
"And I'm like, 'But it isn't.' Because if someone puts up a poster in a town square that says 'Guitar Lessons Available', like, you don't get people in the town go, 'I don't want to play the guitar! I want to play the piano, you piece of s**t!'
"Well then that sign wasn't for you, it was for somebody else. You don't have to get mad about all of it."
However, some viewers were quick to point out that this joke was remarkably similar to a joke Gervais tells during his 2018 stand-up special, Humanity.
Check out one comparison below:In fact, Gervais had also made the joke back in 2016, when he told GQ: "On Twitter, people sometimes say, 'Why don’t you keep your opinions to yourself?' I go, 'You’re following me. I didn’t tweet at you.' That’s like going to a notice board in the middle of town, seeing a sign for guitar lessons, and yelling, 'I DON’T WANT guitar lessons!' Well, it wasn’t for you."
Responding to the joke similarity, one Twitter user wrote: "How do you blatantly steal @rickygervais material on national TV and think nobody is going to notice".
A second added: "James Corden has literally ripped off Ricky Gervais’ very widely shared 'guitar lessons' bit live on his show with no reference to Gervais.
"Surely he didn’t think he could do it without anyone (Gervais included) picking him up on it?"
And a third Twitter user wrote: "James Corden blatantly just stealing Ricky Gervais gags on national TV now... Not even an obscure joke, it gets millions of views every time its posted on [Twitter]... Surely everyone knows the guitar lessons routine now?"
However, one person who did defend Corden was Gervais himself.
In response to one tweet asking if Corden had permission to use the joke, Gervais said: "No. I reckon one of the writers 'came up with it' for him. I doubt he would knowingly just copy such a famous stand up routine word for word like that."
Gervais and Corden are certainly no strangers to poking fun at each other, but The Office star has previously insisted that there is no animosity between the two comics, telling PA earlier this year: "James did an impression of me in his show, I didn't take it personally, it's just fun.
"I've got no animosity. People will think that though, but as long as they [the subjects] don't, that's all I care about."
VT has reached out to James Corden's representatives for comment.
