Can you remember the last time you laughed so hard you couldn’t catch your breath? If you’re like me, it has been a while. But over the weekend at the Maine Center for the Arts, “A Follies Odyssey: Paul Bunyan and the Aliens,” produced by Eastern Maine Medical Center Auxiliary, caused a full house of laughter.

It may have had something to do with an ensemble of dancing policemen grunting out a version of “On Broadway.” Or three silver-clad women with green wigs singing Destiny Child’s “Independent Women.” Or Bangor Mayor John Rohman, in a cameo appearance as himself, being kidnapped by a group of animated Paul Bunyan statues. Or maybe it was the Sharks-and-Jets battle between the Bangorians and Bunyans, two opposing forces fighting for intergalactic peace.

An easily won-over audience at the Maine Center couldn’t help laughing in appreciation for this talent show fueled by the far-out wackiness of Robert Libbey’s script about an alien team whose ship mistakes Bangor for New York City, where the leaders have an appointment at the U.N. to welcome Earth into the intergalactic federation. An infiltration by the evil Dark Angels (a wicked version of Charlie’s Angels) causes the mission to veer off into a battle of good versus evil. And when Bangor’s Paul Bunyan statue turns up missing, and the mayor is mysteriously kidnapped, well, it’s not a pretty sight for the old Queen City.

Fortunately, there’s always music and there’s always love. If you’re aliens who have come on an intergalactic mission to New York City, it’s not such a bad idea to be ready with a few audition numbers such as “Lullaby of Broadway” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” If you can’t win over the directors on Broadway in New York (largely because you’re 500 miles off course), there’s always Doris, a Bangor tour guide and Trekkie. When she learns that the man she loves is actually an alien from REALLY far away, she responds: “Hey, I dated a guy from Portland once. It doesn’t matter to me.”

Predictably, both love and music win in the end – as well they should in a show with corn as high as the Milky Way. A spoofy, goofy conglomeration of “Star Trek,” “Star Wars,” “Close Encounters,” “A Chorus Line,” “Pippin,” “The Lion King,” “Annie Get Your Gun,” Up With People and many examples of bad hair days, “Paul Bunyan and the Aliens” was a night of color so local it could make you blush. But it also wasn’t such a big leap to find yourself wishing that the larger battles between good and evil could be worked out as easily as Kelly Holyoke’s spunky choreography or as quickly as a song.

Directed with cartoonish fun by Kevin Bate and given musical flight by Sam Lanham, the production dipped deeply into the lively talent pool in Bangor. The entire cast could rightfully be listed for an inexhaustible eagerness to entertain during this bona fide labor of love that is also a major fund raiser for the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit. But this isn’t, after all, as much about high polish as it is about high spirits.

It would be ungrateful, however, not to acknowledge the performance gifts offered by Elena DeSiervo, Heather Astbury, Catherine LeClair, Nancy Dymond, Stephanie Lanham, Shaun Dowd and Bridget Larson, all of whom wowed the audience. Not enough can be said about the darling love story acted out (and artfully sung) by Benjamin Layman and Kim Horn. They really could save the universe with sweetness. And I, for one, will never forget Gene Syphers and Steve Estey as Bangor cops who gave new meaning to the phrase: “gimme a beat.” The orchestra, under Sam Lanham’s meticulous guidance, kept the action rolling in snappy, happy style.

Would “Paul Bunyan and the Aliens” fly on Broadway? Who knows. It’s safe to say that it soared in this town.