Ray Romano was ‘stiff’ in Everybody Loves Raymond season 1, felt nervous after getting fired from NewsRadio.

Starring in his own show was “a little terrifying,” the comedian recently admitted.

Ray Romano on ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’. Credit:CBS / Courtesy Everett

Ray Romano admits he was “stiff” during the first season of Everybody Loves Raymond.
The comedian was terrified after being fired from NewsRadio.
Joe Rogan replaced Romano on the NBC sitcom.

Ray Romano didn’t love his performance in the first season of Everybody Loves Raymond.

The sitcom ran for nine seasons and was so beloved that CBS honored it a few months ago with a 30-year anniversary special. But Romano admits that he was feeling nervous when it premiered in 1996.

“The first day, I’d just gotten fired from a sitcom, and this sitcom has my name … and it was a little terrifying for me,” he shared at the ATX Television Festival in Austin late last month. “And I know when I watch that first season, I see myself get better towards the end of the season. I was a little stiff still, a little green.”

Created by Phil Rosenthal, Everybody Loves Raymond starred Romano as Ray Barone, a sportswriter living with his wife (Patricia Heaton) and children on Long Island, across the street from his ever-present parents (Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle) and his quirky older brother (Brad Garrett).

Ray Romano at CinemaCon in 2026; Joe Rogan on ‘NewsRadio’.Monica Schipper/Getty; Bill Reitzel/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

Romano had made his name as a stand-up comedian, and Everybody Loves Raymond was his first onscreen acting credit; shortly before that he’d been fired from NBC’s NewsRadio. Romano was originally cast as an electrician named Rick, starring alongside Dave Foley, Stephen Root, and Phil Hartman on the sitcom about the staff at a New York City AM radio station.

But Romano was shown the door during rehearsals, replaced in the pilot by Greg Lee, and then Joe Rogan was cast as a new character, handyman Joe, in episode 2 and would stay on board for all five seasons. The role proved to be a breakthrough moment for Rogan, now an influential — and controversial — podcaster.

“I got cast in the original cast of NewsRadio,” Romano said at the ATX TV Festival. “I’d never really acted before. I was doing stand-up. And on day two, I got fired.”

Years earlier, Romano admitted that, at the time, “I kind of knew that I wasn’t pulling it off.”

“The second day of rehearsal, my manager called me and said, ‘They decided to go in another direction,'” Romano recalled in 1999. “I said, ‘Tell me what direction. I’ll meet them there.'”

Romano can currently be seen in season 2 of Netflix’s basketball comedy Running Point, and he’s set to be the patriarch in Greg Berlanti’s new HBO Max family drama, How to Survive Without Me.