Jim Cramer sure got his assets handed to him tonight.

On Thursday, in an extremely hyped culmination of a week's worth of finger-pointing, insult-exchanging and lamentation over the U.S. stock market, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart took the Mad Money host to task in no uncertain terms.

"I understand that you want to make finance entertaining, but it's not a f--king game," Stewart said, one of a series of hardballs he tossed at Cramer, who strode into the studio looking as if he'd been brawling in the hallway, sleeves rolled up and prominent brow already glistening.

And Cramer's voice may have even cracked a few times as he uselessly tried to defend himself against Stewart's sobering critique of the CNBC star's on-camera treatment of the prevailing economic mess.

"I can't reconcile the brilliance and knowledge you have of the intricacies of the market with the crazy bulls--t I see you do every night," Stewart told Cramer, whose 2008 advice to snatch up shares of the since-failed investment bank Bear Stearns was the clip du jour on The Daily Show all week.