I watch very little TV. Usually, it’s regulated to catching up on HOUSE when the season’s ended and Pam’s DVR’d the whole run so we can watch without commercials, and the NFL season and some NHL games. So it took me a couple days to catch up with the controversy over Artie Lange’s appearance on the inaugural episode of Joe Buck Live, HBO’s latest sports/entertainment offering. For what it’s worth, I like Buck as a broadcaster, but even had I heard about the premiere before it aired, I probably wouldn’t have cared enough to tune in. There didn’t seem to be a lot there to grab me even as a huge football fan, as I find zero suspense in the Brett Favre saga. That anybody considers the issue of whether or not Favre will actually be quarterbacking for the Vikings this season to be undecided seems kind of ridiculous to me. News of Favre showing up for Vikes training camp, I suspect, will be met with the same kind of surprise reserved for fans of the old Saturday Night Live when Chevy Chase announced that Francisco Franco was still dead.
But on to Lange, the Howard Stern Show regular who’s made a name for himself as a comedian, treading on the same rude & crude territory that the shock jock’s made his career on, especially now that he’s gone on to satellite radio and can say “Fuck” a lot more. Lange can be funny, sharp, cutting, and acerbic. He can fire a little social commentary in there along with the lowbrow toilet humor. In short, he’s got all the skills necessary to succeed, especially in a live broadcast format.
What happened on Joe Buck Live, though, was anything but sharp, anything but witty, anything but…but what one would’ve expected of Lange. Sure, he brought the frat house humor. Unfortunately, it was old-school frat house humor. As in, tired frat house humor. Gay jokes playing on Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo’s name rhyming with homo. A clunker to long-retired Cowboys wideout and audience attendee Michael Irvin about being the reason Lange owes a Staten Island bookie money—a line that would’ve gone over a helluva lot better had he fired it at troubled Bengals wideout Chad Ocho Cinco. The only thing missing was a couple of “Your mother…” rank-outs and a reference to Buck’s masculinity. Oh, wait…Lange did spend time targeting Buck’s sexual orientation and masculinity, while also peppering his commentary with disparaging remarks about the show itself.
Buck, as host, was undoubtedly going to be the target of some zingers, and nothing about that would have been out of bounds. When Buck introduced the panel for the show’s final segment, which included actor Paul Rudd and Saturday Night Live cast member Jason Sudeikis, Buck’s longtime relationship with Rudd was probably going to result in a funny anecdotal from the past, Buck getting ribbed, etc. But Lange took the easy shots every chance he got, starting with hitting Buck on the claim that TMZ is his favorite web site (undoubtedly a no-win entre for Buck. Had he picked a sports site, Lange would’ve taken him apart for being a sports geek with no life). But not only was Lange not particularly funny (despite his maintaining so on Chris Russo’s Sirius sportstalk show, where apparently Lange considers Michael Irvin the arbiter of funny business), he went out of his way to be patently obnoxious to the host and network, while also coming off ill-prepared. Lange’s solo foray into the sports/entertainment crossover was a stilted, long-winded ramble about Jack Buck (Joe’s legendary broadcaster father), which was pitifully delivered, had no real punchline, and more resembled a good-natured Norm Crosby flashback told at a made-for-TV celebrity roast than anything that should’ve wound up on Joe Buck Live. Was this it? The best Lange had to bring out to the audience that would have lapped up any good sports anecdotal? A lame reminiscence of Jack Buck segueing from a Meredith Baxter-Birney TV movie about battered women to batters in the All Star Game? You know Lange didn’t just trot this puppy out because it struck him on the set. He had it in his pocket. But like most of his material, it came out like a crumpled napkin, got a few polite chuckles from the audience, and that was that.
I expected a hell of a lot better from Lange, especially in the aftermath. To try and tell Chris Russo how he killed on the show, when you can listen for yourself to the faltering applause and lengthy periods of silence, (not to mention negative reactions to his Jessica Simpson bashing and his taunting Buck about how the show won’t last four episodes), sounds overly defensive and desperate. Did he have one or two funny lines? Sure. Over nearly 20 minutes. Did he bring the Artie Lange who’s supposedly a huge sports fan with knowledge about the subject to the show? If he did, he left it in the green room. Lange came across as nothing more than a Stern lackey who didn’t have anything more in the gun than a few fag jokes, a couple of tired put-downs, and a fat crack or two. Did he create a lot of buzz? Sure, but so did Roseanne Barr when she ‘sang’ the national anthem and grabbed her crotch to a chorus of boos. I’m sure she thinks she killed that night too, because a couple of her comedic pals talked her up and thought she was the best thing about an otherwise dull ball game. Lange had plenty of openings and room to work, but went straight for the lowest common denominator. I wonder what Jim Norton would’ve done with the same opportunity? Quite a bit more, I’d imagine, and probably without instantly making himself persona non-grata at HBO. He may be a huge sports fan, but I doubt you’ll be seeing Lange show up at halftime on Monday Night Football or chatting in the booth with Tim McCarver during the baseball playoffs. Maybe at a WWE pay per view, though. That’s about as close to sports and entertainment as Lange showed himself to be capable of.
Side note? Lange may have made one valid point to Chris Russo when referring to Michael Irvin’s comedic prowess. Irvin, the retired Pro-bowler, had the best line of the night bar none, saying, “It’s just refreshing to see white on white crime.” Maybe Irvin should be the sidekick on the Stern Show when Lange is out of town playing gigs.
