If you are a fan of those old Rankin/Bass Christmas stop action animated TV special features, you will enjoy I Am Snow Miser: Walken in a Winter Wonderland, now playing at the Dark Room Theatre through Dec. 20. And if you are a fan of Christopher Walken and his impersonators, you will love this wacky show produced by local theater company, MacGyver Productions. The subtitle is “There’s No Business Like Snow Business.” This is more a cabaret than a theatre production. And it is not even attempting to be serious. If you want A.C.T. and those very proper theatrical productions, go there. The Dark Room is a place to get silly along with the actors. Usually the acting is purposely overdramatic. You are encouraged to bring your own booze (just try THAT at the Curran!) and drink openly. The scripts are usually send-ups of classics and are seldom serious. The costumes are often quite clever. Sometimes there is audience participation.

The premise is this: imagine Walken (Sean Owens doing a flawless CW imitation in voice and mannerisms) preparing to publish his biography and doing a magazine piece for a hack writer (the punkish Sherilyn Connelly with a wry Rosalind Russell wit), retelling his memories of having voiced small parts in the Rankin/Bass holiday cartoons (he never did, but you have to imagine he did). No more imagination needed, because the cartoon characters come to life (many times Walken will hop onto the stage and join them) on the tiny, bare stage (no scenery and practically no props) to replay the teeny bits Walken allegedly voiced.

You will see your favorite characters from children’s television specials such as The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974), set in the 1920s and narrated by Shirley Booth (Kelly McCarron this time) as Mrs. Claus, and voiced by Mickey Rooney (Dan Foley in this show), as Rooney did in the previous Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town (of which this special is a semi-sequel). You might recall where the demonic Heat Miser (voiced by George S. Irving and played quite demon-like in the retelling by veteran Dark Room actor Jim Jeske) battles his arch-nemesis and stepbrother Snow Miser (voiced by Dick Shawn in the original, but in this scenario it was Walken) over the fate of Santa Claus. Along the way you will meet the unnamed little girl (Alexia Staniotes) who sings “Blue Christmas” (and Staniotes does that quite nicely yet nastily); Rudolph (a gender-bending sexy Erin Lucas); Yukon Cornelius the red-bearded prospector with a sense for silver and gold (Mikl-Em, who also does Joe Cocker and Jimmy Durante – ha-cha-cha); and Hermes the elf who wanted to be a dentist (also by Foley). And I cannot begin to describe the Isle of Misfit Toys with clinically depressed dolly (Staniotes) and Betsy Wetsy who cannot urinate (McCarron).

All this is possible through the piano tinkling on an old upright piano and arranging by Dustin Manuel and the writing, production, direction, and lighting design of the talented Rhiannon Charisse. She even drew the program cover of a Walkenesque Snow Miser!

Snowmiser/Walken plays at the Dark Room Theatre, 2263 Mission St. with tix at (415) 401-7987 or wsup@darkroomsf.com. I’ll let Christopher Walken tell you all about the show. Check out: laughingsquid.com/i-am-snowmiser-christopher-walken-in-a-winter-wonderland/ for yourself. Go see this silly Snow Miser show, and as Burl Ives would say, “Oh by golly, have a holly, jolly Christmas!”