Joe Buck Live was a talk show hosted by sportscaster

Sportscaster

In sports broadcasting, a commentator gives a running commentary of a game or event in real time, usually during a live broadcast. The comments are normally a voiceover, with the sounds of the action and spectators also heard in the background. In the case of television commentary, the commentator...

 Joe Buck

Joe Buck

Joseph Francis "Joe" Buck is an American sportscaster and the son of legendary sportscaster Jack Buck. He has won numerous Sports Emmy Awards for his play-by-play work with Fox Sports.-Education:...

. The show premiered on HBO on June 15, 2009 and ended on December 8, 2009, being cancelled three months later. It replaced Costas Now

Costas Now

Costas Now was an American monthly sports television show hosted by Bob Costas on HBO.-History:In 2001, Costas was hired by HBO to host a 12-week talk and interview series called On the Record with Bob Costas. In 2005, the program was revamped to become Costas Now, with more of a focus on sports...

, which Bob Costas

Bob Costas

Robert Quinlan "Bob" Costas is an American sportscaster, on the air for the NBC network since the early 1980s.-Early life:...

 hosted for HBO until February 2009, when he left for the MLB Network

MLB Network

MLB Network is an American television specialty channel dedicated to professional baseball. It is primarily owned by Major League Baseball. Comcast, DirecTV, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications have minority ownership of the new network, with MLB retaining a controlling two-thirds share...

.

First episode

The first guests to appear on the show were Brett Favre

Brett Favre

Brett Lorenzo Favre is a former American football quarterback who spent the majority of his career with the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League . He was a 20-year veteran of the NFL, having played quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons , Green Bay Packers , New York Jets and Minnesota...

, Michael Irvin

Michael Irvin

Michael Jerome Irvin is a former American football player for the Dallas Cowboys, and actor. He is also a former broadcaster for ESPN's NFL Countdown and currently an analyst for NFL Network. Irvin was self-nicknamed "The Playmaker" due to his penchant for making big plays in big games during his...

, Chad Ochocinco, David Wright, Paul Rudd

Paul Rudd

Paul Stephen Rudd is an American actor and screenwriter. He has primarily appeared in comedies, and is known for his roles in the films Clueless, Wet Hot American Summer, Anchorman, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Dinner for Schmucks, The Object of My...

, Artie Lange

Artie Lange

Arthur Steven "Artie" Lange, Jr. is an American actor, comedian and radio personality best known for his tenures with the The Howard Stern Show and the comedy sketch series MADtv....

, and Jason Sudeikis

Jason Sudeikis

Daniel Jason Sudeikis is an American actor and comedian currently starring as a cast member on Saturday Night Live.-Early life:Sudeikis was born Daniel Jason Sudeikis in Fairfax, Virginia, the son of Kathryn , a travel agent who was president of the American Society of Travel Agents, and Dan...

. The episode drew attention for Lange's outrageous behavior and Buck's seeming inability to stop it.

Lange made remarks about Buck and Dallas Cowboys

Dallas Cowboys

The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football franchise which plays in the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference of the National Football League . They are headquartered in Valley Ranch in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas...

 quarterback Tony Romo

Tony Romo

Antonio Ramiro "Tony" Romo is a professional American football quarterback in the NFL for the Dallas Cowboys. Romo's career passer rating - at 95.8 - ranks third-best all time. Tony Romo didn't play in the regular season in 2003, 2004, or 2005...

 and called Romo's then-girlfriend, Jessica Simpson

Jessica Simpson

Jessica Ann Simpson is an American recording artist, actress, television personality, and fashion designer whose rise to fame began in 1999. Since that time, Simpson has achieved many recording milestones, starred in several television shows, movies, and commercials, launched a line of hair and...

, a "fat chick" and compared her to Chris Farley

Chris Farley

Christopher Crosby "Chris" Farley was an American comedian and actor. Farley was a member of Chicago's Second City Theatre and cast member of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live from 1990 to 1995....

. Lange continued to insult Buck after being asked to take his feet off the table, responding that "somebody should look natural on this show." Buck came back when Lange held a cigarette in his chin with no hands by saying "I think it's in chin number four." Lange then retorted by saying "Number four, the show you won't get to." Lange went on to tell the flustered host, "you're out of your league, Buck ... stick to play-by-play." Buck responded, "I know, believe me, it was right after this segment started that I realized that." Coincidentally, Buck did not make it to show number 4, it was canceled after 3 episodes.

HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg said Lange "bordered on bad taste" with his "mean-spirited" tone. But according to Lange on the next day's Howard Stern Show

Howard Stern Show

The Howard Stern Show is an American radio show hosted by its namesake Howard Stern. It gained wide recognition in the 1990s when it was nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from 1986 to 2005...

, Greenburg told him to "go nuts" if Rudd and Sudeikis start to get boring. Lange has since been banned from appearing on future HBO Sports shows, although he was in a pre-taped segment for the second episode of Joe Buck Live, where Buck runs away from Lange after accidentally running into him in Times Square

Times Square

Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...

.

Two other episodes aired in 2009. In March 2010, Buck told a St. Louis

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

 radio station that HBO might be planning to cancel the program. HBO subsequently confirmed the show's cancellation to Broadcasting & Cable

Broadcasting & Cable

Broadcasting & Cable magazine is a television industry trade magazine published by NewBay Media. Previous names included Broadcasting/Telecasting, Broadcasting and Broadcast Advertising, and Broadcasting...

.