Pardon My Take - Joe Buck, Artie Lange, and Paul Rudd - An Oral History Of HBO’s Joe Buck Live

Episode Date: August 24, 2018

This very special episode of Pardon My Take leads us on a deep dive of the inaugural infamous episode of Joe Buck Live from June 15, 2009 that was derailed by Artie Lange, ultimately leading to the show's cancellation. We interview Joe, Artie, and Paul Rudd (who was also a panelist on the show) and get a behind the scenes look at what happened before the show, the incident itself, and the ensuing aftermath. Video of the Joe Buck Live appearance can be found here: https://youtu.be/pj8y2Oi1lFk    You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/PardonMyTake

Hey, pardon my take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen, ad-free, on Amazon Music. On today's part of my take, we have a special episode for all you listeners out there. We are revisiting Joe Buck live, as told by Joe Buck, Artie Lang, and Paul Rudd. So we're going to go through that whole story, and it's going to be a really fun, different podcast for you as we get close to football season. And before we do that, a couple of ads.

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Football. Okay, let us begin. Welcome to part of my take presented by SeekGeek today is Friday, August 24th, and we have a very special episode for you today. We are doing something a little different, what are we calling it PFT? These stories, I don't know, we are probably going to change that. We are going to workshop it. Tell you what, let's crowdsource it.

Yes. If you have a good idea for this type of show where we go back through time and we tell you a story using the people that were there, tell it to us and then we will take it from you and probably not give you credit. Yes. So win, win. This is something that we have been tossing around, we actually initially were planning on doing a bunch of these over the summer but we have a busy schedule but we did get

this one and what it is, it is the history of Joe Buck live, the infamous television show on HBO. It debuted on June 15th, 2009 with Joe Buck, Artie Lang, Paul Rudd and Jason Sudeikis and it was an absolute dumpster fire. Were you even alive then Hank? I was. Really? That's a shocker.

To set the stage a little bit, like we said, June 15th, 2009, Joe Buck gets a show on HBO. It was Joe Buck's first attempt at becoming the relatable cool Joe Buck that you know because you listened to this show and the show was supposed to be a couple pieces where he interviews famous athletes, then has a round table discussion afterwards with famous celebrities and comedians and his first panel was Artie Lang, Jason Sudeikis and Paul Rudd and then fireworks happened. It went sideways real quick and this was one of those stories that went viral before really things even went viral.

You had to share this with your friends, your family by like emailing it to them. So that will tell you a little bit something about just like how outrageous the show was. I personally liked it. I thought it was funny. Yes. They brought Artie Lang on. He was the co-host. I think he still pops in from time to time on the Howard Stern show and he's known as

just being complete lunatic. Yep. Raunchy. Raunchy. Off color. Everything. And he went on that set and he did what Artie Lang does. Yes.

It shouldn't have been a surprise to anybody but it was a surprise to I guess a lot of people who haven't, I guess they'd never seen anybody talk to Joe Buck that way. Yes. I'll just go ahead and say this. If it wasn't for that Artie Lang show, I don't think that we would have the conversations that we have with Joe Buck. Yeah. And Joe Buck, he brought on Paul Rudd because he was a longtime friend, Jason Sudeikis who's

not on this show but was on that show because he was an up and coming star with SNL at the time and Joe wanted it to be kind of just guys talking in leather chairs and you know, as guys do and Artie just threw a stick of dynamite into the whole thing. So we have interviews with Joe Buck, with Artie Lang, with Paul Rudd telling their side of the story. Joe Buck gets into exactly how the show came together, what it was going to be. Artie talks about what he thought he was there to do and what happened immediately after and Paul Rudd explains his relationship with Joe and what he saw as basically a bystander

to a train crash. Just as an FYI, we're going to be splicing in some audio clips from the different people that we interviewed. When you hear this sound, that's going to mean that it's Paul Rudd talking from a phone interview and when you hear this one, that's Artie Lang. We had him in the office and we talked with him. So hopefully that'll be easy for you guys to follow in real time. So what we're going to do is we're going to run through all these interviews, hopefully

give you guys a good picture of what happened that day, but you can find the interview online. Yes. It's on YouTube. It's pretty easy to track down. So you might want to check that out before watching or after. We're also going to play in a couple clips during the show to give you kind of a look of what it was like at the time. And before we do all of that, I have a Seeky question for you, PFT, promo code TAKE.

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Yeah. PFT. We have some ads we have to do, but we don't want to interrupt any of the interviews. Should we do them right now? I think we should. So award-winning listeners, scouts' honor on your part. Don't fast forward these ads because you're not going to have any more for the rest of the episode.

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All right, let's start from the top, Joe Buck live. How is it? I feel like this is a deposition. It is. How is it pitched to you? Have I been sworn in? Yeah, well. Because I can lie.

You can lie. How is it pitched to you? Or was it something that you pitched to HBO? No, I didn't. For years, I guess Costas was on for three or four years and he was the host. And when he went to MLB Network, they didn't allow him to double dip or he just decided he wasn't going to double dip. So Ross Greenberg, who I had always had a really good relationship with and I'd been

on the Costas show, came to me and he said, Bob's moving to the MLB Network. We need a host. We've always looked for something to do. Here's our chance to do something together. And that's, I was like, absolutely. I mean, it's HBO for God's sake. You jump at that opportunity and I think putting the show together, I was anxious and excited and I felt like it was going to work.

But it was, I think in hindsight, what I wanted wasn't what they wanted and vice versa. I think they wanted a continuation on of what Bob was doing and I just wasn't interested in being that serious with it. And I think that's kind of where, we didn't know it at the time, but that's where all that started and obviously it ended fast. What sort of preparation went into getting ready to do Joe Buck live? Because that is a little different skill set than what you've done in the past. Yeah.

And you would think that we would run through the show a couple of times or maybe have fake guests or rehearsed it or whatever it might be. But it was one of those where they rented a theater in New York and then they would load the, they loaded the set in and basically that day, I kind of went over the blocking of where I would walk out and what have you. But it was just kind of, that was it. It was like, that was the pilot that we just put on live on television. And if I'm not mistaken, that show started with Brett Favre.

I ended up flying Brett Favre into New York on my own dime on a private plane. That was the only way that we could get him. And I remember telling that to the people at HBO, especially when the show got canceled and I said, you know, I paid for Brett Favre to come in. And what I got back was, you know, oh, well, is that something you'd like us to reimburse you for? And I was like, you know what, forget it. Yeah.

Forget it. So you fly a private plane into like his house in Mississippi. Is that where you got him from? Yeah. Because if you remember, this was at a time where he obviously was at the Packers and then he went to the Jets and then he was retired yet again. And it was, there was speculation that he was going to maybe go to the Vikings, but he kind of stayed out of the public eye and wasn't announcing anything.

I said, look, if you can, don't say anything to anybody until you get on the show. And he was kind of leading you down. If you watch that part, although I'm sure nobody watches the artie part of the show, he was, he was, I, I loved that interview because I felt like he was kind of letting you in on, on the fact that he was going to be a Minnesota Viking. Now look, the real culprits to me are fucking, uh, Chateau Chocinco and, and uh, Brett Favre. Like they were the first, uh, half 45 minutes of an hour show. And I think Joe thought he was going to get a big announcement about one of those guys.

If Favre was going to retire, Chateau Chocinco was going to, you know, do something else like an asphalt. I'm not going to announce it first. Uh, I hate that guy, but, um, they were boars. They're, they're typical, like Dennis Robbins, they think just because they have orange hair, they change their name, they could sit there and they're, they're a young Albert Brooks on a talk show. Right.

You got to kind of bring it. And they're just boring people. And, um, they could, I think Favre said, uh, you know, fucking, I'm not going to say anything. And I think Joe Buck, if he was full of truth rumors that, you know, they did kind of burn me. I thought they had a big announcement to make. You know what? Honestly, I, I totally forgot they were even, well, when you say it, I remember meeting Brett

Favre. That's right. Yeah. It's like, Oh yeah. Brett Favre is at that show. So you mentioned Ross Greenberg, president of HBO sports. Did you sit down with him and set maybe a, uh, here's what? A great Joe Buck live show is going to look like.

Was there any standard? Did he feel comfortable with you or was it a relationship that was maybe doomed to, to, to fail? No, I didn't sense that at all. I, yeah, I think he was very comfortable and I was comfortable with him. I, I just think that now looking back, uh, it was probably not a good match. I think they hold HBO sports up and maybe rightly so is kind of this cherished thing like with, uh, you know, the shows they have, the Bryant Gumbel show they have and, and

the different kind of high brow, journalistically sound shows that they put on the air and, and that's great. And, and I, I just never wanted to kind of do that. I'm, I'm happy and I was happy to interview somebody that had, that had some meat to it and had some, I guess some journalism involved, but I also wanted to have fun. I mean, I, I'm the last guy to take myself seriously. And they said, you know, I said, why don't we do like a little comedian thing at the end?

And I got Rudd and I said, Artie Lang would be great because I'm a stern fan and I knew that he would be able to handle sports stuff. I had met Sudakus. Rudd got him for me and it was like, this is a solid group. You know, when I met Joe, he was, we were freshmen in college, you went to Indiana and um, his best friend was my roommate and, uh, so that's how I met him and when I met him like early on, I go, this guy's hilarious. I mean, he was really funny.

And uh, and then when he started doing, uh, you know, commentary, I would listen to him and think like, Oh God, I feel like you're holding back sometimes. Joe Buck, I was told was always a big Howard Stern fan vocal about it, which is, it takes bulls, you know, in a corporate guy in the sports world and like in Howard and like you, me and Howard, he would say you like me specifically that that takes a lot of bulls because you get fired. And he would say, you know, I'm just saying that in some, uh, places and even after see it, we're on serious.

So we're saying crazy shit. And he was nice enough to go out of his way to say he was a fan. And uh, when I heard he had a show, I said, that's cool. And I said on Howard, I, you know, I support Joe Buck. I can't wait to see it. There's a guy named Jeff Singer who books the comedy world, um, uh, in New York and he's been doing it for years. He's a guy who comedians love and he gets a lot of jobs like that where he freelances

a show that's coming on and he'll book it. And he pitched me and, uh, called me up one day, I was on the road and he said, would you do it? I go, I'd love to. And that's just simply, this guy called me. I said, yes, you know, and I'm a fan of Joe and it was, it was a HBO is what the fuck, you know. So when you pitched already laying, um, was there any concern?

Was there any pushback at all from HBO about bringing him? They're the ones that actually landed him. So I, I didn't have any numbers for him. I didn't have any contact with him before we went on. I was just a fan of his and, and so we're putting a list together and his name came up and I was like, Oh man, he'd be great. I mean, he's exactly what I wanted to have on that show so much so, and I know we're jumping ahead, but I met him in the dressing room in the green room and I said, when we

go out there, just give me shit, light me up, have fun. I, you know, Rudd's going to be next to you and I don't even know if he knew who Paul Rudd was, but, uh, and watching it, I get the sense, probably not. And Sudeikis, who, who he was aware of, but I was like, let's just mix it up and it is HBO. Let's, let's do it. And obviously it, it went down real pretty fast. So that was the first time you'd met Artie was, was there in the green room?

Uh, well, we met at, um, uh, meetings where people are addicted to hair plugs. Jason Sudeikis is such a talented guy and Paul, you know, successful insanely, uh, uh, great movie star for Christ's sake. I knew Paul, but in the comedy world, I should have known who Jason Sudeikis was on Saturday. Right. I was so, at that point, fried. I didn't know who Jason Sudeikis was, but a guy did backstage, say, uh, go nuts and have fun and that guy was a joke up.

Well, you know, I was probably going to do it anyway, but, um, if someone specifically told me not to do it, I probably was not even worse, uh, because I burned bridges. It's all a little hazy now, but no, I think I saw him and I saw Jason and, um, Jason, I knew already I was a fan of, I didn't really, I think I'd met him one time, but I, uh, uh, but he was totally cool and nice. Was there any moment though where HBO said, okay, uh, we need to, cause it's a live show, right? It's completely live.

I mean, it's really live, really live. And I say that it sounds stupid, but like Jimmy Kimmel live is, you know, when he's saying that it's not on my TV in St. Louis at 1130. This was, I say it in Midtown Manhattan and it's on your TV in Oklahoma. And there's not one person, uh, was there anyone at HBO, anyone who had a little push back like, Hey, maybe already isn't the perfect guest for a live show. Why would he not be? Well, I mean, you're a stern fan.

You know that he, you know, but, but, but that's my point. I mean, we are on HBO. We're not doing this on Fox news. We're not doing this on the lifetime network. We're doing this on HBO. If there's ever a place where at that time you could do something like that. Okay. So if he went overboard or if he started, you know, if he got really dirty or if he was

just coming at me like that, well, all right, but I felt at least, uh, that that, that would have been okay. That was the place to do it. I know, you know, you ain't got to be funny, it's HBO and I figured we could be a little rated off. Take the car out and see what's got under the hood here. We're not in NBC. Joe did say, well, go, go not, she's thinking of the green light, but also again, it's

HBO, you know, and, and we were there to bust balls and listen to Artie enough. I knew kind of, you know, I'd listen to my stern. I knew, I knew his, his kind of his, his stick. I'm not, I'm not so sure that the guys that said, Oh, this is great. Let's go with this guy. I knew exactly what he, what, what his thing was. So he was polite to you. He was polite to your daughters when, oh my God, he was awesome.

And you know, he and I become really good friends over the years after, after that show, because he's a sweet guy. He's a sweet, really flawed, kind of sad guy. And I say that in the best sense because he, I just root for the guy because he really is genuinely nice. And so when I met him, now I found out when I got his book and I wrote the forward to his second book that he had snorted Vicodin and was drinking Jack Daniels before he went out there.

So I, I don't know if that happened before I introduced him to my daughters or an I said hello or not, but he was great. He couldn't have been nicer to my kids. And let's say the reason you asked that is I didn't see the train wreck around the bend. I just felt like, Hey, it's Artie Lang. I was psyched to meet him. In retrospect, do you, do you regret telling Artie Lang, Hey, light me up, give me a bunch of shit?

Well, yeah, because, you know, I think in his mind, you know, whatever state of mind he was in, he's thinking, and I've said this a thousand times, it's HBO. If there's a place where I can really go dark and go blue, this is the place to do it. And to this day, and I said it the next day and ever since, you know, when you're, you can't be on HBO and go, well, this is just way too much when you've got like porno copia that's on after that real sex, real sex, which is, you know, that's about as far as you're going to go on normal cable taxi cab confessions, taxi cab confessions, which yeah. So it's all there.

And this was a nighttime show. I don't know what time we went on, maybe nine, nine or 10 at night on HBO in his mind. He's going, I can do whatever the hell I want. And I had no problem with that. Whose idea was it to do it live? And did you feel comfortable? I mean, you, they had always done that show live. If you remember, Bob Costas's last show or the one prior to his last show, they had,

what's his name? The Buzz Bissinger was on and they had the guys from Dead Spit, Will Leach was on. And it was, I mean, that's another good YouTube moment because I mean, Buzz Bissinger went nuts on Will Leach, like jumping at him and yelling and spittle flying out of his mouth. And it was, he used the phrase, pisses the shit out of me. You did it? Yeah. He said that what dead spin does, pisses the shit.

Yeah. And he grabbed a thing. He's like, I'm going to read now from a transcript from a, from a commenter, balls deep. That was what balls deep said. And so I went out, I was on the next segment with like Tariqo and Dan Patrick and Bob asked me the first question. And I said, Bob, if you don't mind, I'd like you to refer to me for the rest of the interview by my screen name, balls deep.

And it got a big laugh, Costas laughed. And I felt like they kind of knew I would be a little different than what they, yeah. And you know, again, was it ideal? Absolutely not. That changed the, you know, the flow of my bloodstream and made me suck my thumb and cry myself to sleep at night. No, the reaction did, but, but not the show. So let's get to the actual show.

You start talking about TMZ and Paul Rudd getting accosted at LAX with TMZ. I'll start with you, Rudd. I got on TMZ, my favorite website. Whose idea was it to lead with that? I can't remember, but just for purposes of the conversation, I'll say it was my idea. I don't know. I don't remember. And it's, it's funny.

You know, a lot of moments in that show are kind of so foggy to me. I can remember specific pitches in the World Series that year or the Super Bowl the year before whatever it is, but, but that seems foggy to me for some reason. And that's not just an excuse. Probably I brought it up talking about being a celebrity in New York or something. And I said it facetiously, like, uh, you know, my favorite, yeah, you know, my favorite website. I've been TMZ before and certainly he had in Sudeikis.

If he hadn't at that point was about to really get that a lot in his life. And that's when I already just jumped in. Joe, TMZ is your favorite website. I thought, uh, what's your second suck and cock.com? The word, the phrase second cock was in the first joke. Yeah. And his parallel kids were like a foot from us. I didn't realize that.

Yeah, I probably, after that, I thought, this has the chances of not ending well. But, but I think again, that's easy to say now, probably not that early. So it's not your favorite or your second favorite website. I'm not going to say that. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. So when he brought that out and he kind of let you know he was coming in hot right off the start, uh, did you think at that point, maybe I just, maybe it'll take a while before I call back on Artie again.

Well, yeah. Uh, I, what I thought was, what am I going to do? Because I know that I'm smart enough to know that if there are cameras and there are microphones, these moments are going to last. And no matter what he says, it's still him saying it. And if I want to jump down in there with him, first of all, I'm going to lose the battle because it's already lying. I mean, he's going to, if I start sparring with him verbally, I'm dead.

But if I start sparring with him verbally and I start saying stuff that would, you know, try to be going back and forth, then I'm on camera saying stuff that I really don't want to be on camera saying. And that, that was going through my mind like I'm getting pissed. Um, I, it's uncomfortable, but I have the world series to do. I have the Super Bowl to do. So do I want to flush that right now and jump down in there? Or am I just going to have to kind of sit here and take it?

And I opted to, for the most part, sit there and take it. You did. And you tried a few different times to segue to something else. Jason, would you like to follow that? Uh, nah. Okay. Kind of an awkward segue cause Artie had already decided that this was going to be his show. Do you think that Paul Rudd and Jason Sudeikis, not really chiming in at all, uh, made it

even more like a stark contrast, like here's Artie, he's, he's controlling this. Yeah. It became one on one. Right. And the other two were just had really good seats. And then I remember thinking, Oh, this is what it feels like to be in Thornton's band. Just because I remember like about that same month, I think, uh, there was this viral clip of Billy Bob Thornton on a radio show talking about his music, his band, and the, uh, really

teeing off on the host and his bandmates just kind of sitting there and not really saying much and kind of taking it all in. I know what it feels like for those guys. And Paul and Jason are not stand-ups. Yeah. They're stand-up against his energy from the crowd. So I just kept talking. So when I got out there, I saw maybe, I don't know, um, you know, we'll try to turn it up

another lot. And so that's where I went a little, a little far. Did you maybe give them a look or anything or kind of like, absolutely. I think if, uh, I, I don't know what my eyes look like to Rudd, but I've known him long enough. I've known him since we were 18. And I think I was looking and I'm like, Hey, a little help, jump in. And I think maybe to, to defend him, he's seeing what's happening.

And he, I'm sure he's thinking, if I jump in, this guy's going to turn to his right. And then I'm next. Of those two, Sudeikis really came at the end of it more than Paul did, which, you know, I'm not faulting anybody. It's so ancient history, but yeah, I was looking for help and kind of saw blank faces staring back at me. There's not much you can really do in that situation, except kind of like sit back and enjoy it.

I didn't want Joe to feel, I remember one time just saying, like, are you going to help me out here? But I don't know what you do really in that, uh, in that situation, in that scenario. At any point of, of this interview, did you see anybody backstage in the stage hands? Did you hear anything in your ear from the production staff telling you, Hey, like stay away from already or Hey, go to break, we're going to try to get already off the stage. Anything like that? And there were no breaks.

So we were out there. There was no commercial. I mean, it's, unless I went, that's it. You know, then you look like a jerk there. I think if you, if you, if you go, uh, you know, I can't take this, we're going to stop the show. Right. That's how live it was.

It had the show been taped. You would have never seen that or it would live on somebody's computer right now. But it wouldn't have been on TV. So I just had to kind of, you know, the, the, what kind of ticked me off was it, I, I felt like at the beginning I was, I was laughing along and probably laughing appropriately. But when I look back at it the next day or whenever I could stomach to look back at it, every time the director took a shot at me, it was just uncomfortable. Yeah.

I looked at myself as an uncomfortable person, but I didn't, I don't think I was like that the entire time. And I think already lost the room. I don't know how it sounded audio eyes, but I can tell you sitting up there about midway through the, the room kind of turned and it was like, okay, you know, enough. He didn't have the, he didn't have the off button for whatever reason. Joe's been good enough and saying it wasn't always false. I should have recognized halfway through it was as, as a human being with a conscience

should have noticed he was like a deer in headlights and stopped. But I didn't because of the laughter. It was a bit of a strange sensation. I remember having this thought early on as it was kind of happening thinking, oh wow, you know, this is makes for a great television. So there was, so he went from the cocksucker.com to or secondcocks.com to the Tony Homo Joe. I'm also a well known homophobic. It's, it's like a, it's like a white trash gift from God that the fucking cowboys have

a quarterback whose last name rhymes with Homo and say that shit on angel dust. I know I've tried like Tony Homo. And then like you said, right after he sort of lost the room. And I think it was because he was just kind of now instead of jokes that, you know, maybe play, even though they're dirty and off color, he was now just taking mean shots at everyone. Yeah. And, you know, I was leading the way. And I think, you know, I, the one thing that all these TV hosts do that I think is brilliant

is you go out before the show starts and you talk and you answer questions and you try to have a little bit of a rapport with the room. And I think after a while it just became kind of, it felt personal or it felt like a guy kind of hijacking the show. And then when he lit, he's tried to light a cigarette or something and he's like, you know, oh, what do you, what do you care about the cigarette? And I said, you know, I, at this point, I don't care. I won't, I won't light it.

Okay. No, I, do you think I care about you smoking a cigarette after what you just laid out? Let's do it, brother. Well, you said, if we want to go to a dark place, I'll go to a dark place with you. You're going to pull me into a dark place in about one more minute and it's not going to be good. Let's do it, brother. Let's fucking make some news, man.

And was there ever a moment where you're like, maybe I will do this. I think you know me well enough to know that I, I could try, right? I could at least give it a shot. And whatever other voice was in my head, like the animal house moment was the one that won by the end. And it was like, just, just put up with it and, and just get through it, which I did. And then life continues. I have no defense for that internet part of it because I just got obnoxious and awful

and it was starting to bomb. But the first part of it is the audience was laughing. So a comedian that's, you know, like heroin, heroin is like heroin to me. But laughter like I got after the country, they got like an applause break because the show was boring before. And, you know, so I, if that, if that happens, I'm going to keep going. Do you think there was any, you know, looking back. We obviously know he wrote the book and said that he was on Vicodin and whiskey.

But do you think there was any malicious intent from Artie to kind of expose you as not a guy's guy? Did some sense? I really don't. When that all happened, I think he was shocked that that, I think he genuinely was shocked that that was the reaction, at least, you know, in whatever circles would react to something like that. So, so you end the show.

He thinks that he nails it. What was the immediate million 15 minutes after the show, he, the first of all, they leave and he wasn't like, Hey, you know, I'm sorry, he was fine after the show and he thought it was good. When the thing ended, he was like, All right, guys, that was really fun. I'll see you later. Like he was, he snapped back to being normal. I don't even think that he, I think he thought it was great.

And first of all, I gotta say this, I did not plan. I did not hate Joe Buck. I've never hated Joe Buck. We've become friends with this. Joe's a great guy. I wanted to make the show better. I never wanted to fuck him over. That's one thing.

I should have, as a human being with a conscience, should have noticed he was like a deer in headlights and stopped. But I didn't because of the laughter and we're all ego maniacs now. And I kept going. And there were two flairously funny guys next to me. I could let them have a, have a shot at it. But I thought it killed because it did. And right afterwards, Paul Rudd leaves into me and said, he said, You know, you know what

he just did is legendary. Like, you know, that's where that was a review. And then I couldn't get off the stage. I go down to the front. The HBO PR guy pulls me down to the front of the stage and all of a sudden I'm doing like an impromptu press conference. And I hadn't talked to, first of all, I hadn't peed. Secondly, and I, and I had to go, I'd been standing out there for an hour and drinking

water the whole time. And I hadn't talked to the producer. I hadn't talked to the director. I hadn't talked to the executive producer. And I'm now I'm kind of fed to this little bevy of reporters, one of which was from the New York times. That reporter asked me if I felt like I just got cornholed on TV. That was, that was the question.

Do Joe, do you, do you feel like you just got cornholed onto already already loosened the room up a little bit? Yeah, I guess so. And then the next guy was a stringer for the post and he said, is TMZ really your favorite website? Okay. Is this what we're doing here? And then all of a sudden, like over my back came the executive producer who was like,

that was a disgrace. Artie will never be on HBO. And it just became a thing. It became, instead of, I think my boss at Fox at the time, David Hill would have embraced it and said, Hey, it's live TV, wasn't what we wanted. But who knows, tune in next time, you know, maybe we'll be juggling puppies or whatever. But he would have had some sort of positive spin on it. And it just became like, this is an HBO sports.

And so then I kind of get lumped in with them because I'm part of the show, even though I've been there for five seconds. It was such a weird bubble we were in, but I thought it went well. It didn't. What I found out was there are some sports guys who take sports really seriously. And the guy wrote Screenberg who really gave me shit in the paper and I haven't talked to him since I'd like to. I'm a big fan of his stuff.

Like those documentaries on HBO, Mickey Mouse, Ted Williams, his name is on those. He produced them. So I would actually love to talk to him about how big of a fan I am. He's another guy who said, Godot, you're our colleague before you. And I would discuss with him and say, let's just get this out because it's weird. So I don't know. Artie's whole thing was like, yeah, that's what I do. I'm a tornado.

It didn't start off obviously with that show the way that probably HBO imagined it. But here we are years later talking about it. And that's what led me to call Artie the next day and just apologize to him. And I said, you apologize to him. I just said, I want you to know that I said, you don't know me. I want you to know I'm just glad you came on. And I'm glad that at this point that anybody would agree to come on my show. You have no reason to go.

So thank you. And I want you to know that I don't have any problem with what you did. In fact, I'd like you to come on the second show, which is on such and such a date three months from then. And he's like, hey, man, look, and I've done this imitation 500 times, but he's like, look, I'm a comedian. I got a little crazy. I got a laugh.

I went a little overboard. But then he said, anything you want me to do to make it right, I will. Because he said, I'm shocked that people are reacting like this. And I said, I'll tell you what you can do. Come on the next show and let's have fun with it. And he's like, I'm in. Just tell me when. And I had to fight for that.

That would have been great if he had become like your Andy Richter to your Conan O'Brien. I would have loved that. I would have loved, already as a genius, obviously, and an incredible mind to go through what he's been through to be the legit sports fan that he is. But movie fan. And I think he's well read. He's just got a really good take on most things that I agree with. And that's why I wanted him on.

And that's why I've gone on multiple times with him since then. I really enjoy him and he's been great to me. He was, I was indebted that he came on. So you reached out to Artie. Did you reach out to Paul Rudd or Jason or did they get in touch with you? And if so, what was that conversation? I talked to Rudd. And I think Rudd and I, and my, Rudd came out with my family afterward, we went to eat

and he was with us and we laughed about it. I mean, you don't know what the reaction is until the next day rolls around and then Stern shows talking about it for two hours and Francesa's ripping me and people are ripping the show and they're, you know, Artie Lang, hijacked that. But that, that's all after the fact. So you go out and you're like, man, that was, that was intense. I mean, I just didn't expect that to happen, but it wasn't like we went and cried our way back to the hotel.

We went out and had, I think we went to McDonald's after that with my daughters and Rudd came with us and we laughed about it. As soon as the show ended, we went back to kind of like the green room area and there were just, I just remember there were some people in suits kind of, they, their emotions were heightened and they seemed kind of pissed or confused or they were walking quickly. And Joe and I were looking at her just, we were laughing because like, that was incredible. What the hell just happened? And Jason too, like we, I think we, I don't know, man, I think we all thought it was pretty

funny. You know, Joe said, Hey, they're going to talk about this show for sure tomorrow. Like who knows if they would have it all. That was kind of, that was, that was really interesting TV and he was right. Do you think the dye was cast by the HBO execs after that one? Cause he only had three shows and it was, it was quarterly. So your next show is not for another three months, but do you think in the back of their mind they're like, this is already done?

I do. I didn't know that then. And at the time when they canceled it, they blamed a show Pacific that Tom Hanks did about World War II and the Pacific theater and it came in way over budget and I was the last one in and I, so I was the first one out that, that, that was the excuse that, that I got. But I think our conversations had happened after that show, not only let them know that I wasn't for HBO sports at the time, it also let me know that I didn't need it. And I, because I worked this out with Artie and I said, you got to do the cold open at

least the next time and, and the, the powers that be at HBO, I worked it out with Ross Greenberg. He said, we'll write something. And if it's funny, then we'll do it. So I booked Artie and two weeks before the show, before I'm going to come up here and do it, Richard Plepler, who still, I think runs HBO calls and says, not only are you not going to do the cold open with Artie Lang, I don't want you to reference it. I don't want you to talk about Artie Lang when you go out there on the stage the next

time. I don't want you to act like it even happened. So to me, that, that just reinforces what some people might have thought about you going into it, is that, you know, you might be a humorless guy because you, you hadn't really put your personality out there too much, that you can't take the heat, all that stuff. And do you think that that had a lot to do with the fact like about how you weren't able to kind of get back on your feet with that show? Yeah, I think that it was over at that point.

Even though I said to Richard Plepler and Ross Greenberg was on the phone, I said, here it is, I'm either going to have Artie on the show for the second one, or I'm not going to do the show. And I quit. I said, I, you know, not that this is, you know, me walking out of the presidency of the United States is not that big of a deal, but I said, I'm employed at Fox. I'm doing the World Series and the Super Bowl. You don't know me.

I've never worked for you before, but if you think I can't laugh at this or you think I'm not allowed to laugh at this because you think they see his quote was it's under the pavement. Nobody cares about it anymore. Meanwhile, Artie had just been on Letterman and in the second segment of the Letterman Artie interview, Letterman goes, Hey, what was that deal on HBO with, with that Joe Buck? What happened?

This was like two weeks before the show. And so I said, either we do something with Artie or I quit and, and whatever the answer is going to be one or the other. And if I quit or you fire me or however that sounds or comes out in a press release, I don't care, but I am not going to go out there and act like it didn't happen because that is exactly what you're talking about. Then I look, it's twice as bad for me. Okay.

It happened live, but if you can't go on the next time, it's like, it would just be sitting there the whole time, like it's the elephant in the room and you can't laugh at that. Are we, are we taking ourselves that seriously that we can't have fun with that? It's weird. At the beginning, people, at least it's four episodes. People gave me shit about, I was, I was far from the reason the show didn't get to stop. You know, I think Joe, look, at the end of the day, a guy who can be funny on TV with

a monologue is usually a guy who's a good broadcaster who can read a teleprompter. Joe is that. If he had some funny jokes, the funny jokes worked because he's good at it. I just think there's a quality of the writing maybe here and there because you can't get real great writers unless you're a letterman or somebody. And the other thing is athletes are tough to get a good interview out of. So it just, it just, I don't think it was my fault, but I think Joe got fucked too. Oh man, I'm not, I'm not shocked anything's canceled.

I'm always more shocked something gets on TV. You know, this one was short lived, but who knows why they make those decisions. Do you think if HBO had leaned into it and embraced it, you know, maybe not embrace the actual content of his jokes, but saying, Hey, this is what happens on live TV. You got to watch the next one. Do you think the show has more success? That'd be easy for me to say. I just don't think it's in, that's not what they wanted.

That's not in the DNA of HBO sports. So that's fine. Then you take that show, you know, now as we sit here in 2000, I guess it was 2010 as we sit here eight years later, you could, that show could live in a million places. But back then there, it was really kind of that or nothing. And I just wasn't a fit for them. They didn't like me. And by the end of that experience, I didn't really like them.

Do you think if that show, if the already laying show debuts in 2016, let's say, and wait, by the way, sorry to interrupt, but all of this from my perspective sounds like sour grapes. No, not. I don't think so. But it does when you have a show that gets canceled and you go, well, that was a failure. And so now anything I say kind of, at least for some people listening or watching will say, Oh, that's, that's just sour grapes.

It didn't work out. And but, but I swear to you, that's not it. It just was not a fit. So right. I mean, we've been through something very similar where we were on a show and it was not the show that didn't work. It was the people around the show and the people we agreed to be in a relationship with that didn't work.

And I think they're very similar in that I can't speak for your show. But I know at HBO, we never really said what the show was supposed to be like, what do you want? Do you want me to be Costas Jr. and, and, you know, Bob's so journalistically sound and so good with that stuff that that I don't think I even have that skill. So okay, is that what you want? Because if so, I'm not the guy. If you want to have somebody who can kind of do some of that and kind of have fun, then

we can work with this. But you know, the frustrating, the only frustrating, and it is sour grapes on this is that I only got three cracks at it and they were three months apart. It's like, you go back to Letterman, Fallon, I'm sure Carson back in the day, you guys when you first started up, you, you watch your first three, four, five shows, you go, my God, we look at how did this even stay on the air? But you do one and then three months later you do another. It's really hard to kind of get your comfort and you can't really be yourself.

And that's, that's the part that, that just always has stuck with me. In retrospect, looking back on that show, what was the funniest line that Artie Lang said? Well, he does like a Jack Buck impersonation, an impersonation of my dad, which I've heard a bunch of times with the, the way he used to do, you know, he would give you the, the lineups and then you go, and then when tonight the burning beds starting Meredith Baxter Birney and that was, that was all good. There's a fly ball of bonds, he's there, he's got it.

That's the way this one starts. By the way, tonight on CBS, Meredith Baxter Birney stars as a battered woman in a something called, I want my kids back, the Jessica Connor story, starring Meredith Barney Baxter. He's a battered woman, speaking of batters, here's Barry Larkin. In fact, he led into that by going, your dad is Jack Buck, breaking news, breaking news. Good nail. Jack Buck was your father. Correct.

And it wasn't like a lot of people think Louis Armstrong, that was your, Jack Buck was your father. It's true. And is this going to, is this going to take a while? Yeah. Sorry to ruin your fucking great show. Yeah. No, no.

I appreciate the apology because you have it. I don't know. Maybe I'll ask you, nothing really for somebody that I think is that funny, but I don't remember it all. So for somebody that is that funny, I didn't think a lot of the stuff he said was really that funny, but I could be wrong. I like the part where he said that you shot a bunch of jizz on his chest. Yeah, that was funny.

You asked a little guy here, you asked him already, do you need to get anything else off your chest? And he said, yeah, all that jizz that you splashed it on there. Anything else you'd like to get off your chest, Artie? Uh. You bastard. Yeah, the jizz, the jizz you shot on it. Did that really happen?

Yes. You guys are all, I swear to God on my children, I don't remember that. Yeah. That was, that was decently funny. Yeah. And Jason's today because actually had the funniest moments when he went back at Artie. When he went back, I do remember that oddly enough when he said something like, do you have to carry Howard Stern's balls with you everywhere?

Or what? I don't know what he said, but something like your Howard's little puppet guy. Yeah. And they went back and forth and, and Artie said, uh, you know, like at least Paul Rudd's in a, Paul Rudd's in A-Lister, we're just a couple of, uh, Schmoes that will never be in that. And Jason Snake has said, well, at least I still have a shot. Thanks for saying that.

You are. It's not true at all. Not true at all. This guy's in a lot of big movies, man. Uh, but, uh. Not me and Jason. Whoa. No, no, but at least I've got a shot still.

Right. Yeah. That's right. I mean, that was smart. That was funny. And, um, but all that stuff, whatever. I mean, I, I'm not, it does go back to what you said. I'm not the guy that I think people from a distance think I am, but for whatever reason,

that's kind of, whether it's the Randy Moss touchdown thing or it's, I don't know, being Jackbuck's son or being the young guy that started as a kid, I don't know what it is, but kind of the perception that I'm this stuffy douche that, you know, can't laugh at himself. And that was, that was what killed me. Well, so I have a theory and you can tell me if it's wrong, but I think, uh, the premise of the reason that you were attracted to do that show was because you wanted to show people a different side of you, that you weren't that stuffy guy, that you had humor, but I

don't think it was all the way there yet. And I think in the last few years you have gotten there where it's very natural. We're in that moment and, and it was obviously exacerbated by how hard already went at you. But, uh, it was, if you saw Joe Buck 2018 in that same spot, I think you would have rolled with the punches. I think you're right. A little bit better on air. Yeah.

I think you're exactly right. Um, I think I have grown that way. I think in private, if we were at Puck Fair or like at a bar in downtown New York or whatever, and we were doing that, it would have been a lot different. Right. I would have been a lot different. But on camera, I think I was still at a, at a point in my life, not just on camera, but personally where I was a lot more guarded.

And I think for whatever reason, I don't know. There's probably a thousand reasons that I'm not even aware of, but having gone through this vocal thing that I went through, you know, kind of not really caring anymore. What people think, uh, not hanging my hat on everybody's approval. I think I would have been different. I think I would have been better with it and I would have been more equipped. I don't know that I would have gotten down there and kind of, but I think I would have handled the moment probably better than I did.

And, and you're, I think you're exactly right. But I, you're right. I was kind of frustrated. It's like, all I'm doing is play by play. I'd hosted the late, late show for two nights prior to that. I'd done little things here and there, but never had my own. And I probably, I certainly wasn't ready for that, right? But maybe it wasn't ready.

I don't know. But I, I, I was never nervous walking out of there, uh, from behind the stage on live TV and I felt comfortable, but I, I don't know that I handled that and had I handled it like I probably would have handled it at puck fair or some bar HBO probably would have fired me that night. Yeah. True. You went to the dark place to expand on that just a little bit.

I remember watching the show, watching the reaction to it, and there was definitely an element, at least in the media of Joe Buck like it represents the authority, the stuffy old school and what Artie Lang did was like, it was just a shot at, you know, the stuffy old guy. And I remember reading. Do you think that's giving him maybe a little too much credit? I think it's giving him a lot too much credit, but I remember that was the tone of some of the media and some of the, the write ups that I read after it was like a lot of praise

being heaped onto Artie into what I felt was like funny at first and then went way, way, way overboard. Yeah. I don't think he was making some grand statement. I think he was just fucked up and was like having fun and thought it was probably his job to carry the show. Yes. And that's why I called him and I said, I told you to do that.

I'm not mad at you. Please come back and do the second show. And I mean, I don't know what more proof I can show than threatening to quit if he didn't come on the second show. And, but you're right. I think, and I'm the easiest target of all. I mean, at that point, if that's 2010, you know, I'm whatever, I'm basically 40. I've been doing these world series.

I'm somebody's kid who got in the business. There's a whole generation of guys like Francesca and other people. I'm the easiest bag to take a whack at. And this was their opportunity to, to hit me. So they hit me and, you know, writers hit me and, but you learn and you get better. And, you know, it didn't stop me. It kind of, maybe that's part of the reason looking back as to now as I sit here in 2018, I really, I don't, I don't care about that stuff that much.

You know, I think over time now, he's, I just, like, I don't care. You just get more relaxed and he probably feels like he has less to prove. I think he's looser and funnier. And I remember when his voice was going and he wasn't talking about it. He wasn't, he wasn't, he didn't explain what had happened. I didn't know about it. But like anything, when you start to just say, Oh God, I'm just going to, I'm just going to tell you what's been going on.

You just, you, you, there's a, you feel freer. And when you're freer, you're kind of, you're just, you're a bit more approachable. You can joke about this kind of stuff and I see it in Joe. Is there any desire whatsoever for you to go back and do a show like this? Yeah, I feel like it's unfinished business. I haven't failed a lot of stuff in my life. I don't think, um, I think I'm a, I think I'm a good dad. I think I'm a good husband.

I think I work hard. I think I call a good baseball game. I think I call a good football game. I'm learning golf, but that was like, man, that, that really left me, uh, disappointed. Yeah. And the result, maybe in myself, in the circumstances, yeah, I'd like to do it. I had a show and a pilot I did with Rudd and with David Spade and with Molly Shannon for a late night Fox, uh, show that never saw the light of day that, that I'm really proud of.

And I, I think at some point I could do something along those lines, but if not, who cares? And if you do get that chance, Artie Lang, first guest, I would love to have Artie Lang. I mean, I, I was hoping that when the three of us sat down here, he'd walk through the door because I think of all the interviews that I've done, and I obviously enjoy being on with you guys or I wouldn't keep coming back. He is one of the guys who's given me the best interview, who's interviewed me and given me the best interview and really worked at it and asked smart questions. And, you know, I, I think the world of him and I, I really root for him.

And that episode of crashing that I watched only because it was about this very type stuff, you know, it's kind of heartbreaking that, that he's got so many people that love him. And I'm one of those people that, you know, you just, you just root for the best for the guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah