Less than a day after being appointed Jon Stewart’s replacement on the Daily Show, South African comedian Trevor Noah has been embroiled in controversy over some ill-advised past Twitter activity.

Some investigation on the Twitter account of the new host, who received the wholehearted blessing of the departing Stewart, returned graphic tweets targeting women, Jews and Middle America.

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By Tuesday, Trevor Noah was a trending topic on Twitter as he drew fire for jokes described as tasteless, hateful – and unfunny.

Roseanne Barr was among those calling out the 31-year-old South African comic, who has two million Twitter followers.

“U should cease sexist & anti semitic ‘humor’ about jewish women & Israel,” she tweeted.

Noah’s controversial tweets were posted between 2009 and 2014.

In 2009 he wrote, “Almost bumped a Jewish kid crossing the road. He didn’t look b4 crossing but I still would hav felt so bad in my german car!”

A 2012 post derides “jewish chicks”, while another from 2011 jokes about “a hot white woman”.

In a post from 2011, he writes, “Oh yeah the weekend. People are gonna get drunk & think that I’m sexy!”

He attributes the joke to “fat chicks everywhere.”

When a fan tweeted him last autumn with a request to come to Texas, Noah replied, “But you’ve already got Ebola?”

He slammed the United States’ midsection in a 2013 tweet, writing that “When flying over the middle of America the turbulence is so bad. It’s like all the ignorance is rising through the air.”

Comedy Central did not respond to a request for comment.

— with AAP