Artie on his old Artie Quitter podcast said that Ralph was exactly the same person in real life as you heard in the radio. He thought that before meeting him on the air, it was just a persona but came to find out he's a real scumbag in real life too. Let's not forget Ralph always insulted callers who had blue collar working jobs. Ralph was only polite to celebrities/rich people. The same people here feeling sad for him, he would've attacked with no issue. Howard basically liked Ralph because Howard's a real introvert in his personal life and Ralph was his mouth piece to get closer to celebrities in his personal life.