Apr 21 2008
Is Artie Back?
Its 6 hours and counting until the Howard Stern show comes back from vacation. As you may recall from Japa’s previous posting Artie Lange decided to unceremoniously quit from the show amidst a fight with his assistant Teddy.
I’ve been a Stern fan for a number of years and its always been apparent that Howard is the perennial professional. I don’t see how he can allow Artie to remain on the show while he abuses the staff, falls asleep on the show and generally doesn’t care about being there. Artie has been getting worst and worst on the show, he barely talks and he seems to just not care about the day to day. Its like he’s touring at a frantic pace to gather cash quickly for some end. What is it?
I hope Artie comes back but if he’s going to be an asshole all the time and not contribute to the show he’s gotta go.
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I say artie will be back. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon. Perhaps after some therapy or something. He knows he f’ed up…he knows he loves the Stern show and more importantly he knows he needs the job.
Will Howard have him back? Of course. Howard is really unable to fire anyone, and Sirius won’t force Stern to fire Artie…especially since Artie is the most popular cast member. At most they’ll force him to see a shrink.
I think there is going to be a huge lack of trust between Stern and Artie going forward, however. Stern always claims that he loves Artie and that Artie is his bro. But in reality, Artie, like everyone else on the show is part of a bit. And to Stern the bits come first.
The whole Teddy situation took place because Stern goaded Artie by taking Teddy’s side. I’ve been listening to Stern for a while now and there is no way he’d ever take the side of an assistant as incompetent as Teddy in real life.
I think part of Artie’s anger was that Stern wasn’t taking his side…and that’s wrong. Artie needs to grow up with that shit. Perhaps the have a different relationship off air, and perhaps off air Howard and Artie can reach some understanding, but on air Artie should know that he’s fair game and be able to control himself.
I disagree that Sirius will not fire Artie. I think the lack of a Howard tv clip AND a replay of the show means the company has begin to look at the situation legally. Remember the whole Sal artie situation?when he threw the stuff at Sal it appeared that he really hit him but the show attempted to white wash the situation with Sal saying nothing hit him. Because they covered that up before now I would think legal is involved because of the huge liability. If it comes down to risking the franchise or keeping Artie they’ll just hire Greg Fitzsimmons