Stephen Colbert & Fox News' Gretchen Carlson on pepper-spraying 8-year-old (VIDEO)

Stephen & Gretchen.

But last night, Colbert made up for his tardiness with hilarity during a bit on view below dubbed "A Touch of Peppa" -- complete with a smiley face graphic that, upon getting spritzed, wailed, "My eyes!"

In the segment, Colbert describes pepper spray as "nature's face Taser" and argues that the agent is a perfectly acceptable parenting tool: "It's like a time-out for your child's vision and breathing." Then he leads into a clip of eight-year-old Aidan, who so terrified teachers with his violent actions and cries of "I will kill you motherfuckers!" that they barricaded themselves in a room until cops arrived.

That's followed by a conversation about the incident on Fox & Friends, with hostess Gretchen Carlson dismissing suggestions that the police went too far with comments like "100 percent pepper spray" and "It's called discipline" -- prompting Colbert to tout her new "book," Eat, Spray, Love.

The Aidan-Carlson footage gets rolling just shy of the five minute mark of the video, but do yourself a favor and watch the earlier stuff. It's damn funny, too.

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