Early Life
Fancy Ray grew up in Minneapolis and graduated from Minneapolis West High School, which was located in Uptown Minneapolis and closed in 1982.
Fancy Ray explained the origins of his name to "Weird Al" Yankovic on Ray's cable TV show in Minneapolis, Get Down With It, as follows: "Fancy comes from the Flamboyant, the Fertile, the Fashion part, and the Fragrant."
However, in a 1998 interview, Fancy Ray claimed he was actually principally influenced by his grandfather, Fancy Wade, a sharp-dressed ladies' man. Upon Wade's 1984 death, Ray inherited Wade's music collection, including Little Richard recordings, which inspired him to become known thereafter as Fancy Ray.
Ray began to perform standup comedy in 1989, then launched his television program ""Get Down With It"" on a Public-access television cable TV channel. He interviewed guests such as Tiny Tim and Whoopi Goldberg. In the ensuing years, Ray cultivated an extremely unusual career in Minneapolis as a flamboyantly dressed advertising pitchman.
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