What color do the Blue Men turn when they are choked? That question was never answered in the Sept. 20 showing of the Blue Man Group at the San Diego Civic Center, but no matter! The show ‘blue’ us away with its brilliant sound mixings and creative and humorous skits.

The Blue Men Group is a performance theatre organization that produces shows featuring comedy bits and musical concerts but on by the iconic Blue Men characters, who are stoic, silent, and clad in blue face paint. The shows are well-known for their tendencies to include the audience in their performance, and this show was no exception. Even before the show “officially” began (half an hour late – perhaps they ran out of blue paint), scrolling text above the stage called attention to certain notable audience members, such as an Olympic curler, and first space tourist Dennis Tito.

Of course, audience participation was not confined to more famous patrons. During one of the skits, the Blue Men pulled up an elderly woman to the stage. They then proceeded to take turns wooing her in a dining room setting, competing for her affection using flowers, candles, Twinkies, and a catchy Adele song.

Towards the end of the show, yet another man (who, incidentally, was publically humiliated for arriving late earlier in the night) was strapped up and covered in blue paint before being smashed into a canvas, creating a bodily imprint of a fourth blue man.

The Blue Men are also known for their skillz at percussion. The show opened with three Blue Men beating on drums filled with luminous paint, which they used to create a Jackson Pollock-esque painting. Throughout the show, they continued to demonstrate their mad skillz using household items such as PVC pipes and Captain Crunch cereal to create delightful musical beats, even covering Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” whilst adorably wearing iconic Gaga headgear.

Later on, it was clear that, though the Blue Men did not speak, they certainly had big mouths. One of the Men caught not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, but thirty marshmallows in his cheeks before spewing them into an unlucky patron’s purse.

The night ended with a euphemistic bang, as large weather balloons (upon which the Men had previously drummed) were tossed out into the audience, along with streamers and “streamers” (i.e. toilet paper). The crowd was then schooled on proper rump-gyrating technique, as synonyms for the rear end were displayed on screens on the stage. It was a good-natured conclusion, as everyone left the theatre shaking their dinners with Andre, airbags, and tweedledees and tweedledums.