Stage/Comedy

What: 101 Holiday Movie Moments
When: On now until Sun., Dec. 31
Where: Comedy Bar Danforth, 2800 Danforth Ave.
Vibe: A rowdy office holiday party for movie nerds
Highlight: The surprisingly deep knowledge of Muppets lore to reference Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas
Rating: NNNN (out of 5)

’TIS THE SEASON for group outings with your extended family or office colleagues. Everyone, from HR to your aunt-in-law, is looking for something new for this year’s annual holiday party. It needs to be something that’s fun, quirky and will get your boring cousins or co-workers to loosen up a bit — but without pushing anyone too far outside their comfort zone.

That, in a nutshell, feels like the intended audience for 101 Holiday Movie Moments. It’s a high-energy show that can sometimes get a bit raunchy but never pushes the envelope so far as to offend anyone but the most uptight members of your family or workplace. It’s a solid bet for this kind of outing and a guaranteed enjoyable time, even for those who might loathe the thought of going to a comedy show with this kind of crowd.

The show’s plot is a satire of Hallmark Christmas movies: Carissa Mass (Ann Pornel) is a bad-ass boss lady in the big city with a busy schedule and a bad attitude. She finds herself, inexplicably, staying at a small-town B&B owned by the hunky widower Kevin (Andrew Bushell) over the holidays. You can fill in the rest from here.

The plot, though, is mostly just a vehicle for the rapid-fire peppering of the titular 101 holiday-movie references. The narrator (Paul Bates) introduces the crowd to a countdown clock that ticks down with every holiday movie referenced in the show, though some are woven into the plot more seamlessly than others — for example, why would anyone reference the Star Wars Holiday Special being the first appearance of Boba Fett while standing at the altar on their wedding day?

The show is heavy on audience participation: in addition to improv elements, audience members are encouraged to shake jingle bells every time they spot a movie reference, to singalong or speak-along to lyrics or lines of dialogue on the screens flanking the stage, and — perhaps most importantly — to take part in a drinking game throughout the show. It all comes together to ensure a noisy, rowdy atmosphere.

For the most part, the holiday movie references are what you’d expect: Home Alone and A Christmas Carol do a lot of heavy lifting, though the show does cycle through the many iterations of the latter. Some references are more obscure, though: The Muppet Christmas Carol makes the list, of course, but surprisingly, so does Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas.

The stellar cast is clearly having a fun time on stage. Second City alumni Pornel and Bushell are excellent as the romantic leads — unsurprisingly, as Bushell is an actor with actual Hallmark movie credits on his IMDB page. Bates, a Canadian comedy veteran, is terrific in the straight-man role as the show’s narrator, and supporting cast members Kirsten Rasmussen and Kris Siddiqi are consistently hilarious as the weirdly horny old couple that help Kevin (“Kevin!”) run the B&B. Rasmussen, in particular, stands out whenever she’s on stage with a show-stealing old lady performance that’s somewhere between Betty White and Saturday Night Live’s Molly Shannon as Sally O’Malley.

Clocking in at about 90 minutes, the hyperactive performance feels a bit long and starts to lose steam towards the latter half of the 101 references. Still, it’s a very funny show put together by an experienced team of comedy professionals. Combined with some food and drinks at Comedy Bar’s swanky new venue on the Danforth, it’s a solid bet for any holiday outing.