Even while appearing on daytime morning television, controversial radio host Howard Stern can’t seem to refrain from using unsettling imagery.

Stern on Tuesday unleashed a slew of scathing criticisms at comedian Jay Leno, the morning after Leno’s return to NBC’s “Tonight Show.”

“Just the mere mention of Jay Leno’s name makes me want to vomit,” Stern told Harry Smith on CBS’ Early Show. “I don’t like this guy. I don’t disguise it.”

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“And probably what irritates me the most is people in show business are afraid to say how much they dislike Jay Leno, but I am not,” he added.

An outspoken and forceful critic of the highly successful NBC comedian, Stern blasted Leno as a “lap dog” for seeking his old “Tonight Show” time-slot after exiting. He said Leno should have proven himself by defeating rival Conan O’Brien on another network.

O’Brien hosted the “Tonight Show” for seven months after NBC last year experimented with putting Leno in prime-time, giving him his own show at 10:00 pm.

“Jay Leno seems to be the kind of show-biz animal who will not let go,” Stern said. “I was fired by NBC many years ago… I didn’t sit there like a lap dog and take it. I got up, I brushed myself off and I went on Terrestrial Radio on a competing station, and I buried NBC into the ground. That’s what you do.”

The host of Sirius XM’s The Howard Stern Show also lamented that Leno allegedly “pushed Johnny Carson out of the Tonight Show” and “did it in a merciless way.”

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Echoing a charge he has leveled at Leno in the past, Stern called him a “thief,” claiming one of his signature segments “JayWalking” was a ripoff of his own “man on the street” skit.

The self-described “King of All Media” said he would consider taking Simon Cowell’s spot as a judge on American Idol “if they gave me a hundred million dollars.”

This video is from CBS’ The Early Show, broadcast March 2, 2010.

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