O & A should call the Audience network.

Colin Quinn's about to catch his next big break.

I give Artie another 5 months, poor guy. The Stern show really died when he left as well.

Tons of people stopped listening to Stern once it was clear Artie was never coming back, myself included. Happy I found O&A. That said, I heard Artie on Jay Mohr recently. Artie changed his whole stomach stabbing story around. Told Jay he did it so that he'd lose blood and get a higher high. Bullshit.

Yea, I think I read that on the thread over at /r/howardstern. I still listen, just not as quickly. I have like 3 weeks of Stern to catch up on, but I have to listen to O&A everyday. There is no question that O&A are doing great radio these days while Stern is doing pretty much garbage.

You dont really notice how crazy those guys over at /r/howardstern are until you mention O&A. It's like they're still living in 2003 when Stern vs O&A was a thing and they'll downvote you any time you even mention there might be another good radio show in existence.

I became aware of these shows after the whole O&A/Stern thing...I got my first taste of both simply from YouTube clips. O&A hooked me after awhile, to a degree where I felt compelled to listen to every show. Ant+Jim+guest comics just shooting the shit was a revelation to me.

I never felt the same impulse towards Stern. Often, it was obvious and gimmicky subject matter with porn stars and "characters" doing outrageous things, etc.

Yet even today I'll track down the most recent Stern interview with a celebrity guest I care about (recently: Tarantino) because he really is the best celebrity interviewer going right now. O&A do charming, chummy celeb interviews, but they're still too wary to go deep...Stern takes it as far as he can. He's an amazing interviewer. The best going right now. But the rest of his show is boring, side-show circus shit.

That's pretty cool how differently people perceive the shows. I moved around a lot growing up, never had an actual "circle of friends" at about 13 or 14, I discovered the Stern show and began listening as much as I could. I would wake up in the morning and set my stereo to record the show and I'd listen to whatever it actually recorded when I got home. I went to a really shitty high school in the inner city of Baltimore and began listening live everyday during class, no one was doing any actual teaching or learning, so I wasn't missing much. I was actually the first one to hear about the WTC in class because I was listening to Stern at the moment and the teacher was reading a book or whatever. She didn't even believe me when I told her what happened.

Everyone on the Stern show became the closest I had to a steady group of friends, so I have always enjoyed what they were up to the most. I've always liked the staff drama and hearing about what they did on their days off and never minded when I missed a celebrity interview or a porn star being in.

I joined the military after high school and I would download a bunch of shows at a time so I had stuff to listen to on deployment. Eventually, I ran out of Stern and decided to give O&A a shot. I didn't get it at first, but I had nothing else to listen to when I was out to sea for months at a time. I eventually was able to tell the difference between Opie and Anthony's voice and I fell in love with Chip. The show had a fresh feel to it and I started listening to anything I could. There is nothing better than having a room full of comedians fucking with each other. Stern's show only started looking gimmicky to me when I saw how genuine O&A were.

Naturally when the Stern show started to suffer after Artie left, O&A became my primary show. I still download and listen to all of Stern's shows, but more so just to see what my old "friends" are up to, O&A is so much more entertaining these days.

This is an absolutely spot-on description of the difference between Stern/O&A for me as well. I kept listening to Stern for so long because it felt comfortable and like family. But I eventually realized I was never laughing at the show much anymore once that Baby Gorilla left. I was just listening to it because it was part of my routine and it again was "comfortable".

Around the time Howard started AGT and wouldn't stop talking about it, I decided to try O&A for a week and I was hooked. Everyone show I find myself literally laughing out loud from something Jimmy or Ant says. The show just has more of a freshness and energy to it. I'll still though read some of the Stern daily rundowns because it's like checking in on old friends, but I don't think I've listened to a full episode in well over a year.

I still find it very bizarre that Howard is on AGT. Like, what happened to that badass I looked up to growing up?

He moved to the Hamptons.

I think the shift in personality from more edgy to less edgy over the years may just be Howard getting older (not meant in a derogatory way) and him having achieved the status of top radio personality in the country. I bet if American Idol or AGT were out in the 80's/90's he would probably publicly make fun of them, but privately he'd be hooked on them. Maybe now the difference is that he just doesn't care too much what people think and just does what makes him happy.

He did kind of go from mad ringleader to dad keeping things in order at the party though didn't he?

What was his original story?

Wanting to die.

Where/when did he talk about that?

The quote the King, "Google it."

I did. I can't find any interview where he gives the old story you're talking about. I've only heard the story he told on Mohr Stories.

Bing it then.

his original story is one where he gives "I just wanted to go to sleep for a really long time" as a punchline, I think he gives it on either Marc Maron's or Adam Carolla's podcast back when Nick and Artie was starting up, but it has been a while.

Thanks, man. Gonna check those out.

The reason I asked was anytime before the Mohr podcast I'd only heard talk about his suicide attempt in jest, facetiously, or in a form of avoiding the question or real info.

I followed the story for quite awhile, and I've never heard him say "I did it to try to kill myself" except maybe as a punchline. Anytime I've heard him talk about it "for real", it's always been the blood loss/get high story. While I think that's bullshit, I don't think he's ever changed his story (and probably won't...until the book comes out).

I've heard him say that somewhere else before though. I forget where but it was right around when Nick & Artie started up.

I listened to Stern strictly for years. I had given O&A a shot and remembered hating it. It seemed like there was no format and the show was all over the place. Once Artie was gone I gave O&A another chance and immediately got it. I've gone back and listened to Stern since, but it seems so stale, fake and scripted by comparison that I can't make it through a whole episode. Its obvious O&A dread coming in for work, but once they're there things start immediately taking off and they start having fun. You can tell Stern HATES every second he's there. He's been phoning it in for years now.

They need a visual medium like the Artie and nick show.

I'm sure the boys will talk to him and get at least something close to the truth. If it is true that he left because Artie is back on drugs I doubt he'd come right out and say that.

Was wondering where the show was. Remembered DiPaolo posting to his twitter that the show would return January 7th. Damnit.

Oh, no... :( :( :(

ArtieLangeShow. Well, I guess it's official. This'll be interesting.

Good. I like Artie a whole lot more than Nick. I just hope he is okay.

Tons of people stopped listening to Stern once it was clear Artie was never coming back, myself included. Happy I found O&A. That said, I heard Artie on Jay Mohr recently. Artie changed his whole stomach stabbing story around. Told Jay he did it so that he'd lose blood and get a higher high. Bullshit.