Ricky Gervais makes brutal James Corden joke in Netflix Christmas Day special

Ricky Gervais' comedy special landed on Netflix on Christmas Day, giving fans a bucket load of laughs while they nursed a food coma and supped a glass of Baileys.

The comedian, 62, didn't put a smile on everyone's face with the content of his new show Armageddon though.

Before it was even released, a promo clip of his routine which included a controversial joke about terminally ill children and the Make-A-Wish Foundation sparked uproar.

Now viewers have had a chance to sit down and watch the funnyman do his thing, focus has fallen on Gervais' other jokes and who else he seemingly took a swipe at with his 'taboo-busting' comedy special about the end of humanity.

Fellow humorist James Corden ended up in the firing line - and as the punch line - in one of the After Life star's elaborate wisecracks, and it's not for the first time either.

The pair have taken aim at one another at lot over the years - but both insist it's all a bit of fun - in their comedy sketches, such as when the Gavin and Stacey creator parodied Gervais’ infamous The Office character David Brent in 2009.

Armageddon might have just reignited this long-standing war of words though, as the 62-year-old took the opportunity to make the former The Late Late Show host the butt of his joke.

Matt Crockett/Netflix

In the Netflix comedy special, Gervais explained he had found a website where dog lovers who hate to see animals get hurt in films and TV shows can check whether anything of that nature goes down in what they plan to watch.

Gervais told the crowd: "People love their dog so much, they won't even watch a fictional thing where a dog gets hurt. And I get that! There's a website, it's a real website, it's called doesthedogdie.com.

"It was set up because people would watch a film or a programme with a dog in it and something would happen to the dog and they'd turn it off. It would ruin it for them, it would ruin their day.

"So this website was set up, you could go to it you could put in any film or TV show and ask, 'Does the dog die?'

"Someone would answer you, 'No', or whatever. It's become a thing for anyone's phobias. Anything you don't want to see in a film, you just look up the film and they answer your question, right? I looked up one film on here - Schindler's List."

If you don't know, Liam Neeson starred in the Academy-Award winning film that told the real-life story of Oskar Schindler, who saved the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust.

Samir Hussein/WireImage

Gervais began to reel off a list of queries that had been left by people about the 1993 movie, saying: "First question: 'Does a dog die?' No. 'Does a cat die?' No. 'Are any animals abused?'

"Someone answers, 'There is a chicken that's handled roughly but otherwise unharmed'."

After littering a series of gags in his explanation of the bizarre site, Gervais pointed out that doesthedogdie.com was founded in 2010 and that the line of questioning has noticeably changed over the years.

He said: "The later questions start reflecting the times we live in now and they get more and more fragile and narcissistic. 'Is there any fat jokes?' Someone asks, 'Is there hate speech?' Yeah... suck it up buttercup."

The comedian then added: "I asked one question myself on this... 'Is James Corden in it?'"

The audience erupted into laughter, but I'm sure Corden might have had a bit of a different reaction if he tuned in to watch it yesterday - such as burying his head in a tub of Quality Street.