MINNEAPOLIS — Tommy Brennan has never had a Netflix special, starred in a hit movie or headlined a major venue. Yet here he was Thursday, kicking off the first of six sold-out shows at Acme Comedy Club where rabid fans treated him like a superstar.

That’s what happens when a native son makes it to “Saturday Night Live.”

A year ago this week, NBC revealed Brennan would be the first Minnesotan since Al Franken to join the late-night cast. It made sense that the St. Paul native would mark the anniversary by coming home.

“How many of you have some kind of personal connection to me?” Brennan said near the top of his early set. More than half of the crowd whooped. “That may be the smallest amount out of the shows this weekend.”

Brennan spent a good deal of his stage time tugging at his Lynx jacket, fidgeting and pacing as he tested out new material that targeted staunch Republicans. Most of it didn’t work — and he knew it. That didn’t stop the audience from roaring.

“No, shut up!” he said after a new joke about Vice President J.D. Vance that was jotted down in his notebook. “That sucked.”

But people just seemed happy to be in the same room as Brennan — he posed for pictures for more than 20 minutes after Thursday’s early show — even if he didn’t appear in many memorable skits during his rookie “SNL” season. His best bit — a “Weekend Update” commentary honoring Minnesotans who stood up to ICE agents — got cut before the live show.

The laughs were were more deserving when Brennan focused on his huge Irish Catholic family, the same subject that impressed me when I first saw him at the 10,000 Laughs Festival three years ago.

You could almost see his parents on stage Thursday as he told vivid, hilarious tales about his conservative father adjusting to news that three of his daughters are gay and his mom patting herself on the back for attending a “No Kings” rally.

“She talks about that like she had been on the last chopper out of Saigon,” he said.

What works at the club won’t necessarily work on a sketch show. Almost all the breakout stars in the history of “SNL” are masters of impressions and wacky characters. Those don’t seem to be in Brennan’s bag of tricks, at least not yet.

But he seems to have enough smart ideas that could allow him to stand out in the writers’ room. At the close of his set, he shared a few sketch ideas that he had pitched last season. They were rejected, but they seemed as clever as a lot of stuff that made it to air.

Brennan also showed off his smarts by recruiting Laura Peek to be his opener. The Los Angeles-based comic finds ingenious ways to be self-deprecating with the kind of stage confidence that’s sometimes lacking in Brennan’s act.

But no need to worry about Brennan. He said he couldn’t reveal whether he’d be asked back for a second season, but with the premiere date only three weeks away, it’d be stupid to bet against it.

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(Neal Justin is the pop culture critic of The Minnesota Star Tribune.)

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