Johnny McCann remembers when his younger brother Whitmer Thomas moved to Los Angeles from Gulf Shores, freshly 18 years old with dreams of making it in the entertainment industry.

"I think the first thing he did was look up who Tom Cruise's agent was and just called him," McCann said. "Absolutely, totally green."

This first unsuccessful networking connection didn't deter Thomas, and, really, he has done pretty well without it. Earlier this month, the comedian and musician released his second HBO comedy special, "Terminal Crew of Dudes," an introspective ode to his childhood friends and the things they got into growing up in their small Alabama beach town.

Thomas, who is now 38, came back to the Gulf Coast to screen the special to a crowd of about 80 people, largely family and friends, at The Handlebar in Pensacola ahead of its Aug. 14 premiere, something he wasn't able to do with his previous special when COVID-19 derailed its in-person rollout.

Like that novel special, "The Golden One," Thomas' second special doesn't follow the traditional stand-up formula. First of all, there's the music. While he performed solo in the first special, Thomas is joined by his band this time, the "terminal crew," including McCann, Gulf Shores natives Jeramy Ritchie and Clay Tatum and a newer addition in Budd Diaz, who Thomas jokingly describes as the group's "coastal elitist." There's also all the home movie footage, most of it filmed by another Gulf Shores friend, Sam Sumlin. Clips of Thomas and the others as teenagers, jumping off buildings, busting skateboarding tricks, throwing up. It's these dudes Thomas says the special is not only about, but who its for.

"I think a lot of it is just seeing if I can make Johnny or the guys laugh," he said.

Thomas and McCann moved from Birmingham to Gulf Shores with their mom, Jenny, after she spilt from Thomas' dad when the boys were teenagers. While Jenny, a fairly successful musician herself, struggled to balance a career with an alcohol addiction, according to Thomas, the two brothers pretty much had "no rules" in a beach town that was on the cusp of a development boom but still flying under the radar.

"It was a kind of a free-for-all for the most part, but we were good kids," Thomas said. "I just had a lot of really good examples of how to not do it right."

Despite this, the brothers who wore a lot of black, skateboarded and listened to punk and hardcore music got a reputation as being devious. Something no amount of truth can break in small town gossip.

"The only laws we ever broke were skating," he said. "Or Johnny would park his car illegally to get into the condo hot tub."

Thomas, who went by Alex at the time, met Ritchie pretty much immediately, and the two became fast friends. Tatum joined not long after. The next few years revolved around playing music and opening for older brother McCann's various bands on tour around the Southeast.

"Anybody that didn't know me always thought I was, like, a huge f***up. Parents would all be like 'you're not allowed to hang out with Clay and [Whit]'… 'But you can hang out with this kid, Jeramy' because Jeramy would, like, go to church with his mom or something, and Jeramy was the worst kid in the entire town," he joked.

By the time Thomas turned 18, he was itching to get out. And he did. After some fumbling around in Los Angeles, he started hitting the stand up circuit hard, performing as often as he could. At this point, he was still playing music but mostly for himself.

Then he got booked by a promoter for a "homework" show, a type of variety show where the performer has to deliver a new act outside of their main medium of choice. Since stand up was out of the question, music was the obvious alternative.

"So I changed words in a song. Originally it was, like, an earnest song I had written to make it what it's like to go out on a date with me." he said. "People responded to that in a way that nobody had ever responded to anything I had done. I remember kind of doing that and immediately seeing people pull out their phones and film it."

This revelation led to a band called The Tooks, which included all the guys in the new special minus McCann.

"They were sick, man." McCann said. "So sick."

Thomas had a more measured review but credits the band as being a precursor to "Terminal Crew of Dudes."

"LA venues hated us because we would go insane on stage, and the bands hated us 'cause we would talk too much on stage," he said. "That's what eventually got us doing comedy is we just loved talking on stage, and then we eventually just stopped playing music... and only talked."

The band gives a collaborative feel to the new special, a loose, liveness. The transitioning in and out of the songs, the side jokes and bits from each of the members, there is no question you're watching friends who actually like each other messing around on stage.

"But it's all [Whitmer]," McCann said. "He's writing the tunes, he's writing the jokes. He is orchestrating getting people where they need to be when they need to be there."

He may not have always felt this way, but Thomas likes coming back to Gulf Shores now. He said he felt then like the place changed for the worse after the one-two punch of Hurricane Ivan and the BP oil spill.

" People started rebuilding some of the ugliest things you've ever seen in your life just so that they wouldn't get torn down by the next hurricane," he said.

When he comes back now, he said he doesn't have the same resentment. He credits the turn in opinion to younger people choosing to live here and creating the things they didn't have when Thomas was a teenager.

"Finally feels like they've figured out how to expand in a way that works and, like, attracts cool young people," he said. "Like our friend Alex [Warner] and his spot Cheeseburger Randy's; would have loved to have a place like that when I was a kid."

His brother still lives here with his wife, Caitlin, and their son, Thomas' nephew, Ronin, whom he clearly adores.

Throughout "Terminal Crew of Dudes," Whitmer refers to McCann as his "big brother" after which he usually adds some variation of "he's huge!" The two obviously have a special bond, even for brothers, and Whitmer's stories about how cool McCann was growing up are littered throughout the show.

McCann doesn't get the opportunity to respond in the special, but he made his feelings clear on the day of the HBO premiere. On the phone with him and Whitmer, who was in New York City doing promotion for the special, Gulf Coast Media asked McCann what he thought about Whitmer's career so far.

"I tell him all the time, like, 'dude, you're the funniest person I've ever met,'" McCann said. "I could tell it could happen... with his perseverance and personality... I knew he could make something happen."

"I just, you know, I just hope you make a ton of money and then you can give me some," he said to Whitmer.

"Still don't have money," Whitmer responded. "But eventually I'll make money and give it all to Johnny or buy [Fortnite] V-Bucks for Ronin.

"Actually, that's really the ultimate goal is just unlimited V-Bucks. I'll bribe Ronin to get off that e-bike."