Fancy Ray

Fancy Ray McCloney is a stand-up comedian and advertising pitchman from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is known for his flamboyant comic persona, once described as "gleefully narcissistic," blending elements of Little Richard, Muhammad Ali, James Brown, Prince, and a tent-revival preacher. He is known for producing and starring in low-budget TV ads for local businesses in the Twin Cities and markets across the U.S., Rarely breaking character on stage or off, Fancy Ray is a buoyantly self-aggrandizing, larger-than-life personality given to spontaneous poetry (about himself) and mock-boastful proclamations including his oft-repeated characteristic catchphrase "I'm the best-lookin’ man in comedy."

In 2020, he released the career-retrospective stand-up album The Best Lookin' Man in Comedy on Stand Up! Records. Writer/producer Diablo Cody, who wrote the liner notes for the album, calls Fancy Ray a "subversive" and "bombastic character (who) looms large in the collective psyche of the Twin Cities ... a nontraditional, nonconformist guy" whose "shtick is almost like a spell." His penchant for bombastic nicknames also includes "The Human Chocolate Orchid." The show cemented his status as a local celebrity in the Twin Cities, interviewing guests including Ron Jeremy, Bootsy Collins, Whoopi Goldberg, Al Green, Bo Diddley, George Clinton, Carol Channing, Kevin Garnett, and Gloria Steinem.

Television advertising McCloney runs a one-man ad agency, Chocolate Orchid Productions,

Other appearances

Fancy Ray has appeared on a number of nationwide talk shows and reality series, including The Tonight Show, America's Got Talent, Last Comic Standing, Entertainment Tonight, The Maury Povich Show, and The Jenny Jones Show. He contributed guest vocals to the 2003 song "Parrots" by indie-rock band Hymie's Basement, and stars in a promotional video for Sleeping in the Aviary's 2010 album You and Me, Ghost, described by the Minnesota Daily as "a tongue-in-cheek homage to all those late night advertisements you’ve probably fallen asleep to once or twice."

He was profiled in a 2019 segment of Twin Cities PBS' Minnesota Original.

His face appears on a mural painted on a building at 2933 E. Lake St. in Minneapolis.

Personal life McCloney has a son, Trevon.

He claims to be "ageless", and for decades has given his age as between 24 and 29.