Artie Lange

I really like Artie even though he was before my time of coming into age of the Stern Show and enjoying comedy, so I never knew his back story. I knew him through Madtv and as Howard Stern's sidekick, and then one day he was off the Stern Show for good after all of the infighting and addiction behaviors.

I didn't know about his whole backstory, and how he really had a blue collar, straight upbringing that tailspinned after the death of his father, and the type of guilt he had after that.

I also didn't know he relapsed that much, but the show did a good job of covering that and struggle people overcome to becoming clean, then falling right back into a life of abuse.

It also shows how addiction to substances really drives You also saw how Howard was having trouble finding the happy medium of what can be seen as entertainment for the show, and then how that was actual, real anger and conflict and how it plays out on the show in real life. Howard not being there for Artie at times was super disappointing, as this episode covers.