Ray Romano grew up in the Forest Hills section of the borough of Queens in New York City and turned to comedy in his mid-twenties after appearing at an open-mic night in a New York comedy club in 1984. The same year, he gave up outside work and won a standup comedy competition sponsored by a local radio station. He went on to appear in comedy clubs around the country, eventually getting television exposure on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and its successor with Jay Leno, then on Late Night with David Letterman.