In the first episode, Joe Buck become the butt of his own show's jokes.
Howard Stern regular Artie Lange "hijacked" Joe Buck Live, according to the New York Times' Richard Sandomir.
SEE UPDATE BELOW: HBO WON'T HAVE LANGE BACK!
When Buck, a Fox sportscaster who took over on HBO when Bob Costas signed with the MLB Network, announced that celebrity gossip site TMZ was his favorite website, Lange shot back: "Joe, TMZ is your favorite website? What's your second, suckingcock.com?"
In a move decried as homophobic, Lange then let his wrist fall limp, put on an accent, and said, "I'm on TMZ constantly, did you see what Angelina was wearing today? What the fuck, how about going to a sports website for Christ's sake?"
Lange even admitted to being a homophobe, to which Buck responded, "clearly."
"As a Giants fan, and a well-known homophobic," Lange said, "it's like a white trash gift from god that the fucking Cowboys have a quarterback whose last name rhymes with homo."
Lange then took it to Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo's girlfriend, Jessica Simpson.
"And he's dating a fat chick!" he said. "Jessica Simpson started out looking like Jessica Simpson, now she looks like Chris Farley from those Gap sketches."
Moments later, Lange started knocking Buck's hosting abilities.
"Good segue," Lange said, mocking Buck's attempt to move discussion forward. "You're a regular Bob Costas."
"I wanna be working construction by next Thursday, I hate show business," Lange said.
"You're on your way," Buck replied.
"So are you!" Lange shot back.
Later, as Buck attempted to rush Lange through a story about Buck's father, Lange said, "sorry to ruin your fucking great show."
"I appreciate the apology, because you have," Buck said.
Finally, near the end of the segment, Lange takes out a cigarette and an increasingly earnest Buck yelled at him not to light it.
"If you do that, sir! Sir, you cannot do that," Buck shouted.
"I won't light it," Lange said.
"You think I care about you smoking a cigarette after what you just laid out here?" Buck said, leading Lange to say, "Fuck it, let's do it bro" and light up. "No, don't, please!" Buck said.
"Say what you mean," Lange said back.
Update: HBO has said "never again" to Artie Lange.
The New York Post's Michael Starr reports that HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg has added Lange to his blacklist:
"He can go do as many Howard Stern shows as he likes . . but he will no longer appear on HBO Sports or 'Joe Buck Live,' " HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg told The Post yesterday.
"We don't have any interest in his world."...
"He wasn't who we thought he was," Greenburg said. "We thought we were going to have an entertaining and kind of comical look at sports and celebrity -- but we didn't expect the guy to hijack the segment for his own personal gain."