I doubt Artie Lange is being honest with that stuff about the producers and Buck telling him to "let em have it" and even further, about the token hug after the show, but if it did happen, I'm sure it was just the respectful thing Buck felt he needed to do, more than any reason to just make him try to think that it didn't bother him that Artie was just being a complete dickhead to him in front of a live audience on his first show and pretty much effectively killed any little sense of potential the show had (although it was funny as hell). And if anyone told Artie shit before the show, I am sure the intentions were not to do what he did. Honestly, Lange is probably just trying to save his own ass so he doesn't get blackballed from hollywood and the entertainment world in general at this point. He also just recently got a Conan appearance cancelled, partly because the last time he was on Late Night, he was all fucked up and acting weird, but part of it probably was because of how he acted on this show as well.
But there's no way that whole situation was planned ahead of time as you could tell during the live show, Buck was having a really hard time keeping control of things when Lange would constantly be ripping on him, the show, and just about everything else in between. It totally threw him off for the rest of the show. Rudd and Sedakis could take it better since they are comedians, but Joe Buck, he is not.
Like I said before though, Lange's shit made the show what it was, basically a complete car crash of an idea that was just being openly talked about as such.
