The artist known as La Daniella portrays Gooey, who is billed as “an orphaned sorta mermaid” and dressed in what looks like a fishnet with dredged up detritus from the sea. Her costume looks cleverly homemade, colorful and cluttered. The same could be said of her show, a puppet musical that’s fanciful and fun, but goes on for too long. 

It is also familiar. In the script, La Daniella, who is credited with the concept, book and lyrics, offers a list of thirty-four “ingredients” that presumably went into the making of “Gooey’s Toxic Aquatic Adventure.”  These include Pee Wee’s Playhouse, Little Shop of Horrors, The Coney Island Freak Show, as well as more generally “MGM Musicals, 50’s-80’s Horror and 70s Exploitation.” Their influence is evident (She doesn’t list “The Toxic Avenger,” or the movie and digital musical “Ratatouille,” but I’ll throw those in too.)

Gooey was born in the toxic goo of the Gowanus Canal, after her pregnant mother Juanda, a beauty queen wearing her Miss Gowanus sash, fell into the canal,  and the man who had impregnated her, Alfredo “Fred Boss” Bossalino, ran away rather than saving her from drowning. Pigeons rescued her, carrying her in her dead mother’s sash like so many storks, and delivering her to safety.

Thirty years later, Gooey believes herself an orphan and a mermaid. She wants to be a star of her own show, and makes puppets out of dead rats and pigeons (There are gross-out moments throughout, which are often, but not always, funny.)  She sets on a journey to Gowanus Canal, which has been cleaned up by that same dastardly villain, Fred Boss, into G’Wond’rLand, which is holding a contest for a Mermaid Princess. On her journey, she meets a rat named Scabby, who is initially hostile, but with whom she eventually forms a bond, based at first on a sense of smell. Scabby doesn’t have any:

Scabby: Did so much coke in my 20s, can’t smell eggs, ass, armpits or gas.
Gooey: Really? I can smell everything.
Scabby: Yeah, you look like everything can smell you too.

Their relationship is the heart of the show, but only part of the plot. Once they reach G’Wond’rLand,  there is complication, confrontation and reunion — too much of it for me. “Gooey’s Toxic Aquatic Adventure” did not need to take up 150 minutes (including intermission)

La Daniella, who is an established actress (as Daniella De Jesus, she portrayed Zirconia Cabrera in the series “Orange is the New Black”), does a fine job first as Juanda and then as Gooey, capturing her naivete and her yearning as well as her joy.  The other four people on stage are impressively versatile: León Ramos Tak stands out as Fred Boss, the CEO of  G’Wond’rLand who was once an outright mobster, and is now merely corrupt and corrupting. Jon Schneidman functions as a sometime voiceover artist and the one-man orchestra for the 16 songs composed and arranged by Ben Langhorst. If the tunes are not especially memorable, they are catchy enough to allow choreographer Maya Quetzali Gonzalez to go to town (top-hat-and-tails, jazz hands, the works.) The MGM-style song-and-dance entertains but also amuses because performed on such a small scale.

 The real stars of “Gooey” are the puppets, for which I suppose the humans who handle them should get some credit; they do such a good job, the puppets seem to deserve their own bios. (Also kudos to puppet designer Gaby Febland)

Amanda Centeno is terrific in manipulating the rod puppet Scabby. My favorite puppet character is Sludge (manipulated by Sushma Saha), who knows exactly who he (it?) is

I’m an oozing mass of oil and poo,
A funky hunk of gunk.
I’m a greasy blob of foaming goo,
A nasty bunch of stunk.
I’m a grimy brine of roaming slime,
And I’m one big environmental crime!

The song reflects the deliberately off-putting aesthetic of the musical as a whole. Gooey and Scabby even sing a duet “Off-Puttin’”  The musical seems to be trying to score serious points about the need to belong, as well as both ecology and gentrification, but I can’t say I understand what seems to be the musical’s political stand against exterminating rats. 

Gooey’s Toxic Aquatic Adventure
The Bushwick Starr through February 21
Running time: Two and a half hours including one intermission
Tickets: $25 to $45
Concept, Book & Lyrics by La Daniella
Music, Arrangements & Lyrics by Ben Langhorst
Directed by Sammy Zeisel 
Scenic Design: Cat Raynor, Costume Design: Hahnji Jang, Lighting Design: Kyle Stamm, Sound Design: Kathy Ruvuna, Puppet Design: Gaby Febland, Props & Assistant Scenic Design: Jonathan Schatzberg, Music Director: Jon Schneidman, Choreographer: Maya Quetzali Gonzalez
Cast: Amanda Centeno, La Daniella, Sushma Saha, Jon Schneidman, and León Ramos Tak