Artie Lange quit the Stern Show

Artie Lange quit the Howard Stern Show yesterday after going after his assistant live on the air.

The bickering started off air in the morning, in the hallway adjacent to Stern’s studio. Show staffers overheard Lange screaming at Teddy because Teddy asked him for his passport for the fourth time as he planned their flight to Amsterdam, which was set to take off last night. Lange told Teddy he should have photocopied the passport the first time.

Stern was told they had been bickering and brought it up on air. When Teddy came in to defend himself, Lange snapped.

“He’s a loser,” yelled Lange. “He’s the most unorganized assistant. I want to fire him, but he has no money. I hope he dies of AIDS.”

Lange, who pays Teddy $24,000 a year for part-time work, then accused Teddy of embarrassing him in front of friends last week in LA when he called Bloomingdale’s department store by its nickname, Bloomie’s, and announced the store didn’t have something in Lange’s size.

“I think I hired a fag,” said Lange. “I wanted to throw him out the window.”

Lange then threw a cup of water at Teddy and lunged at him, throwing a punch

that didn’t land. Show writer Benjy Bronk jumped on Lange and held him back, while Ronnie “The Limo Driver” Mund burst in to get Teddy out of the studio.

Any guy that says Bloomies does deserve a punch in the mouth so you can’t fault Artie for that, but this guy was a ticking time bomb. It was only a matter of time before he snapped on someone. You can hear the actual show clip right here.