The road to a comedy renaissance in South Africa was rocky, to say the least. For decades, comedy was the white man’s domain — blacks who made incendiary jokes in public were liable to be arrested. And it was steeped in racist tropes. The country’s most beloved comedian, Leon Schuster, was known for slapstick-style routines performed in blackface. When Mr. Lediga and Mr. Gola began doing standup more than a decade ago with jokes about apartheid, their audience was almost entirely white; both the entertainment scene and entire neighborhoods were still de facto segregated.

“You’d get onstage, and they’d say, ‘Who is this black guy and what is he doing?’ ” Mr. Lediga said. “And, ‘How dare he make jokes about this stuff?’ ”

Eventually Mr. Lediga moved from Cape Town to Johannesburg to take his brand of comedy to TV. First came “The Phat Joe Show,” hosted by a local shock jock. Then in 2003, he collaborated with the comedian David Kau on the Monty Python-inspired sketch series “Pure Monate Show.” It became a cult favorite, attracting fans of all races, an achievement, considering how divided South African TV audiences can still be. One character was an Ali G-esque Jewish man who imagines himself a township gangster; another episode featured a mock trailer for a horror flick titled “Apartheid II,” in which blacks slept through Election Day and thus allowed white apartheid-era rulers to stage a comeback.

After the show ended, Mr. Kau created the Blacks Only Comedy Show, a roving stage show for the mounting number of nonwhite performers, attended by a diverse audience of thousands.

By the time “Late Nite News” came along in 2010, there were hardly any taboo subjects left for comedians. Or were there? Is there a topic the show’s writing team simply won’t touch?

Image Trevor Noah. Credit... Comedy Central

“No,” Mr. Lediga said flatly. “But we check each other. If I was on my own, there would be a joke about Mandela dying of AIDS.”