Artie Lange is Going Strong

There seems to be some good news if you happen to be a fan of the Howard Stern Radio Show, now broadcast on Sirius XM Satellite Radio. For now, you can only hear him on the Sirius side of the newly merged companies, but that will all be changing soon. For those who have been keeping up with Stern, you know that no one is more popular on his show than his sidekick Artie Lang.

Artie was brought in over 7 years ago now in 2001 to replace Jackie Martling who had left the show after contract disputes to work independently. Artie Lange was first introduced to the Stern Show in 1998 by his friend Norm Macdonald after they had made Norm's film Dirty Work. He had previously done a lot of work as a stand-up comedian and in TV as a cast member of Fox's MadTV and introduced as a cast member during the 2^nd season of Norm, Macdonald's TV series that ran from 1999-2001.

Artie Lange had began his entertainment career after a few years after he was arrested for handing a bank teller a note demanding $50,000 which he did as a joke to impress a girl. As part of his sentence, he was to enroll in an institute of higher learning of which he chose the Connecticut School of Broadcasting. Before that he had worked mostly in manual labor as both a longshoreman in Jersey and a Cab Driver.

The bank incident would not be Lange's only brush with the law and his troubles and addictions grew out of control along the same lines as his hero, John Belushi, the late Sam Kinison, and Chris Farley. While making the best money of his life from MadTV, he began to use cocaine regularly on and off set, including an incident while filming "Babe Watch" a parody of Bay Watch featuring Lange as a half man, half pig lifeguard, ending with Artie waking in his hotel bed with a pile of his own excrement. This story has been told and retold several times on the Stern Show and now is referenced simply as "The Pig Story."

During a cocaine binge Police were called to set. Lange tried to run, but he was caught just outside the studio and was arrested for a slew of charges including open alcohol, assaulting an officer, and possession of cocaine. After a brief stint in LA County Jail, he was released into a rehabilitation program. Surprisingly he was able to keep his job with MadTV after the intervention by Quincy Jones, one of the executive producers of the show. However, after continuing his reckless behavior, and appearing disheveled and incoherent in the same clothes for days on end he was eventually fired from MadTV the following year.

While working for the Howard Stern Show, Lange began to work on his own movie, Beer League, and was absent from the show quite a bit. Several years later, on air, he admitted to missing the show so frequently because he had been addicted to heroin. He was snorting powdered heroin for almost two years and it finally caught up with him.

After quitting heroin and detoxing with the help of the drug Subutex, Artie was clean (but not completely sober) for over two years, however his addictive behavior had only shifted to alcohol and food. During this time, he put on over 100 lbs and during the last part of 2007 and into 2008 he was known for nodding off during broadcasting of the Stern Show. He also began to call in sick again, time and again. Stern decided to make light of the situation by performing comedy routines around the sleeping Artie, waking him up with air horns and even bringing a cot in for him to sleep on during the show. When he would call in sick to work, they would record his messages to play back on the air and laugh at him.

While listeners and fans were troubled by Artie's behavior and knew that something was wrong, Stern and the other cast defended him and chalked it up to his overeating and working too much doing his stand up comedy across the country without rest.

Other incidents had abounded on the show, including two on-air resignations. The first was after a heated fight and argument over a bit whereby Stern was trying to hook him up with a "chubby-chaser" to which Lange took offense. The second was when violent fight erupted after an argument with his assistant, Teddy. After a short hiatus, Lange returned to the Stern Show.

On August 6, 2008, it came as no surprise when Lange was reported to have checked himself into a rehabilitation clinic. He later admitted on air that he had been using heroin again for at least the past two months, and many believe even longer. As of this writing, he is currently undergoing intensive outpatient therapy. He has been back on the air on the Howard Stern Show for two weeks with a renewed sense of humor and energy. He claims to be drug and alcohol free and walks daily. He is back on track and it is evident in his comedy and the attitude with which it is performed.

This gives hope to the millions of Stern listeners and fans of Artie Lange who is sometimes voted as being funnier than Stern himself. Just two years ago he was on celebrity deathwatch lists and we are happy that he may pull through yet and avoid the fate of his predecessors. Lange has recently completed his book Too Fat to Fish and although not set to be released until November 11, 2008, is already a bestseller through advance sales on Amazon.com.