Jon Huntsman brought his nice-guy shtick to The Colbert Report hoping to build a little momentum, but he made at least one joke that stunned the audience into an awkward silence, according to an audience member's account to ABC News. Huntsman, the former ambassador to China for the Obama administration, was treated to ribbing about his candidacy and ambassadorship throughout the interview with Colbert. And Huntsman took the jokes in stride (especially about being arguably the biggest moderate in the field) and even spoke a little bit of seemingly fluent Mandarin asking the host to be his running mate. But one Huntsman quip that didn't make the show's final cut fell flat, as ABC News reported from the audience's reaction:

When Colbert played a sound effect of a stereotypical Chinese riff, Huntsman joked, "When’s the delivery food coming?" After a few seconds of awkward silence, Colbert replied, "Did that go over well in Beijing?" This portion of the interview was cut for time from the broadcast. "There was a gasp," audience member Dana Cole told ABC News. "A little tasteless. No one really saw it coming. He got ahead of himself."

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Erik Hayden