Comedian Rachel Scanlon wants audiences to laugh until their face hurts, then kiss

Comedian Rachel Scanlon likes to say she was “basically born and raised at the Mall of America.”

It makes sense then that the Minnesota native got her start performing while working at the largest mall in the country, but not in the way you might think.

Scanlon worked as a professional mascot in the mall, stepping inside costumes for SpongeBob SquarePants, Diego from “Dora the Explorer,” Blue from “Blue’s Clues” and Jimmy Neutron, among others.

When the Mall of American later opened a comedy club, Scanlon, a longtime fan of comedy, jumped at the chance to work the door.

She grew up laughing with her grandma (“She had this type of silliness that I really try to hold on to throughout all aspects,” Scanlon said), memorized Comedy Central Presents specials from comedians like Maria Bamford and completed a research project on women in comedy in high school.

Until discovering the likes of Bamford though, the only connection Scanlon had for talking in front of people was in relation to church. Looking back on her upbringing, Scanlon said she had a phase where she thought she would become a pastor or a youth worship leader.

After discovering Bamford, who is also from Minnesota, things clicked for Scanlon.

“Is this a job?” she pondered.

Getting to take in shows from local and national acts at the House of Comedy, the comedy club in the Mall of America, was a dream, and Scanlon soaked up as much as she could.

“I felt like I wasn’t old enough yet to command a room,” she said. “So I waited until I moved to L.A. and that’s where I did my first open mic.”

Scanlon remembers that open mic vividly. She spoke “a million words a minute” and was really high energy. She stuffed so much material into each set that Scanlon estimates a 10-minute set she performed when she was younger could easily fill 30 minutes now.

She wishes she could tell her 23-year-old self to take a breath, but she also remembers how excited she was to be on stage.

“I was figuring out how I could balance what makes me laugh with what makes the crowd laugh with what message I want to send,” she said. “I was so young that I was so excited to do it. I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going too fast.’ ”

Scanlon was surrounded by theater kids in Minnesota and feels like Minneapolis is an “unbelievably diverse, queer, progressive, bikeable” city where she was able to meet artistic, diverse people, but moving to Los Angeles, where there were even more opportunities to perform, felt like finding the perfect community.

“I felt less like ‘What is this new world?’ and more like ‘I found people who really love this thing that I also love…’ ” she said. “I was so excited to be with other comedians. I love comedians, I love talking about comedy, and I love having my class of open mic-ers, and we’re growing together.

“I found it to be a really communal experience.”

Almost 13 years later, Scanlon gets the same buzz of excitement she felt at that first open mic.

“Every time I do it, I feel that exact same feeling of ‘I cannot believe that I get to do this,’ and I had felt that the moment I started,” she said.

Scanlon released her debut special, “Hot and Hungry,” in 2017 and her second, “Gay Fantasy,” in 2024. She’ll perform in Spokane for the first time at the Spokane Comedy Club on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

In addition to performing standup, Scanlon also co-hosts the “Two Dykes and a Mic” podcast with her friend McKenzie Goodwin. Though she’s had more than a decade of experience talking on stage, Scanlon said she had to learn to be a podcaster.

“There is that freeness, where instead of me on stage trying to make everyone laugh and doing my prepared material, I’m literally just trying to make my friend laugh,” she said. “It feels like a similar muscle that you’re working.”

On stage or in her online offerings, Scanlon works to put her material on the “bouncier, lighter, joyful side of life.” Comedy has taken a weird turn toward divisiveness as a way to get clout and more views, but Scanlon believes a comedian’s job is simply to make people laugh, not upset half the audience.

A queer comedian herself, she also knows a lot of lesbian and queer content can be rather serious and, at times, preachy. While she knows she can’t control the way the internet reacts to comedians, with live audiences, she works to bring the joyful, silly, friendship-driven side of that queer comedy to the stage.

“I’m really intentional about showing levity and joy throughout what I do,” she said. “You’ll see it in basically anything that I am creating, whether it’s a podcast episode, whether I’m on tour or whatever. My idea is ‘I am a comedian. My job is to make you laugh, period, point blank …’ I want people to come to my show and to laugh so hard that their face hurts, and then they’re like, ‘ … Should we kiss?’ ”