“Joe Buck Live” debuted as the replacement for “Costas Now” last night, and while the central story this morning should have been Brett Favre talking about his potential return to the NFL as a Minnesota Viking, the show was instead hijacked by Howard Stern footman Artie Lange, who appeared on the final segment with Paul Rudd (a high school friend of Buck) and SNL’s Jason Sudeikis.

Lange’s opening salvo: “Joe, TMZ is your favorite website?  What’s your second, SuckingCock.com?”  From there, Lange called Jessica Simpson fat, made gay jokes about Tony Romo, and steered the conversation toward Buck’s late father, legendary sports announcer Jack Buck — obviously a subject that Buck wanted to avoid.

Now, if you watch only the segment here, you might think “Wow, Artie Lange is a dick.  Poor Joe Buck.”  Don’t fall into that trap.  Joe Buck deserves everything bad that happens to him.  A man who’s only famous because of his father’s greatness, Buck has somehow convinced himself that he’s far more entertaining than he actually he is, that he somehow has the charm and humor and gravitas to entertain America.  He has none of those traits.  He showed a modicum of skill while interviewing the athletes on his program, but his smarmy lack of self-awareness makes him less funny than the worst stand-up comedian.  I couldn’t be happier to see another human fail.