"I'm unconventional," comedian Tina Friml said on a recent appearance on "The Tonight Show" with Jimmy Fallon. "A lot of people, they see me and they think I suffer from cerebral palsy. Which I don't."
She paused. "I have cerebral palsy," she went on after a beat. "I suffer from people." The audience roared — it was a dream moment for a standup comic like Friml.
The Middlebury native's "Tonight Show" set was the latest in a long string of triumphs for the 30-year-old comedian, who now lives in New York City.
In 2018, she won Vermont's Funniest Comedian contest. The following year, she was named a rising star at the 2019 Just For Laughs Festival in Montréal. She now performs regularly at the Comedy Cellar, a renowned comedy club in Manhattan. That's where Fallon first saw her perform and invited her to come on his show.
As Friml's star continues to rise, she is trying to make comedy — and comedy clubs themselves — more accessible to people with disabilities.
"I hold a responsibility to really advocate for my community," she said recently on TikTok. "Some of the freaking coolest people that I met on my tour ... are also people with disabilities."
Six years after Friml first appeared on Vermont Edition, she returned to the show to discuss growing up in Middlebury, her favorite comedians, and incorporating incisive observations about having a disability into her sets.
Friml will perform at the Vermont Comedy Club on Jan. 5th and 6th. The club's co-founder Nathan Hartswick also joined the show to talk about being in the audience during Friml's sets, and to share news of the venue's upcoming shows.
Broadcast at noon on Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.
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