Artie “Skipper” Lange was born and raised in Union Township, Union County, New Jersey. His mother was a homemaker and his father was a general contractor. Two weeks after he was born, his father went on trial for counterfeiting money, but was spared jail time out of the court’s sympathy for his young son. His family identified themselves as Italian-Americans, despite having German and Native American ancestry on his father’s side. Lange has said that his father’s background “has always been a gray area.” During a segment of The Howard Stern Show, Lange provided a blood sample which was taken to a laboratory for genetics testing. Howard Stern announced that the results indicated that Lange was approximately 25 percent American Indian. Stern noted that Lange turned beet red after the revelation was made. Lange remarked that he had to re-evaluate his position when watching Western films, and that he was feeling more sympathetic toward the American Indian.

During high school Lange excelled in baseball, becoming an All County third baseman, and spent his free time working with his father. Some time after Lange finished high school in 1985, his father fell from a roof and broke his neck, becoming quadriplegic. He would eventually die from complications from the fall, although Lange has speculated that his father may have committed suicide through an overdose of medications (perhaps with the assistance of a third party).

After finishing school, Lange was arrested for attempted bank robbery. He claimed he was only trying to impress a bank teller by passing her a fake holdup note that said he was armed and demanded $50,000. Unfortunately, the note included his name, and the teller took it seriously and triggered a silent alarm. As part of an agreement, his lawyer arranged for Lange to avoid jail time, along with two years of probation and 25 hours of community service.

Lange attended the Connecticut School of Broadcasting from March to June 1987.

Based on his work at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting, Lange was offered a radio job in Wyoming.[1] Instead of taking the job, he stayed in New Jersey and took up work as a longshoreman to help support his family; it was around this time that, inspired by Richard Lewis, he first started doing stand-up comedy[2]. He eventually quit his job to focus full time on his comedy career. In 1995 he landed a role in the original cast of FOX’s sketch comedy show MADtv.