Frankly, I almost didn't go, world premiere or not. "A Kodachrome Christmas" sounded just too sweet -- too obviously fabricated to hit us in the comic/emotional solar plexus at this time of year.

It is. But I had a good time.

Not initially. To start, I was mainly bemused by the audience. I've been to enough City Theatre openings to realize from the first laugh that this wasn't the usual crowd. Opening-night audiences want to have a good time, but this one had a different sound, a throatier, more insistent laughter. "Kodachrome Christmas" isn't part of City's subscription package, so it has to find its audience. Whoever this audience was, it knew how to have fun.

Why not? Pat Hazell's script and direction, as realized by solo performer Peggy Roeder, do go right for those predictable funny bones, summoning golden memories, real or feigned. But they're also funny about all the disasters a family holiday can produce. And soon enough, the script develops a counter current, a satiric disrespect for holiday cliches and platitudes. It begins to mock ... not exactly itself, but the show that it might have been, if it didn't keep its wits about it.

Roeder plays Earlene Hoople, the host of a small-town early morning cable access TV show, a middle-aged woman like many a slightly hyper children's librarian or third-grade teacher you've met. She tells us to "silence your blueberries," and she's given to such cute countryisms as "anyhoodle," "discombobulated" and "shuckydoo." This cornball innocence is laid on so thick that it disarms criticism, opening you up to the following wave of counter-kitsch.

Tony Ferrieri provides an elaborate set, with a mid-century kitchen and overstuffed living room for Earlene to bustle in. She makes ornaments, there's an inflatable fruitcake (Peter Leo would approve), a Christmas wreath made of interlocking little green soldiers, cookies in the oven and audience participation for a bell-ringing bit. She unfurls a good country-western twang, and there's wisdom, too, like, "Nobody holds a grudge longer than immediate relatives."

I can't praise this parodic mix any higher than to say it has something of the dry mockery of Bob & Ray, if you'll excuse an antique reference to another medium. But the subversion becomes much bolder in a series of TV ads selling the most outlandish products as spin-offs of Big Religion. The Shroud of Turin tablecloth is the least of it.

The show has some of the feel of the "Late Nite Catechism" franchise but even more of Hazell's other City Theatre show, "The Wonderbread Years." Earlene's studio is supposedly in Butler, so she peppers her broadcast (we're the TV audience) with Western Pennsylvania references, reminding us this was commissioned by City Theatre.

I'd call that a smart move. When "Kodachrome Christmas" goes on to be a Christmas staple nationwide, which it should after some pruning and sharpening, money should flow back to City. The 80-minute show does have passages that could be cut or trimmed or re-imagined. It's easy to find them: Just listen for the occasional gaps in the laughter.

What clinched the deal for me is the finale, the slide show alluded to in the title. Hazell has gathered slides at random and put them together as if they were Earlene's own family. Her comments are delicious. People who look very much like our grandparents or goofy uncles are sent up with pin-prick commentary.

Of course, you couldn't get away with all this stuff at any other season. It might even help to get giggly in advance, and the drinks in the City lobby are there to serve.

I really love the childhood pictures of cast and staff in the program. But why isn't there one for lighting guru Andy Ostrowski?

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