RHAPSODY IN (DODGER) BLUE COLORFUL MIMES STEP UP TO BAT FOR TV AD SPOTS.

Byline: Tom Hoffarth Staff Writer

On a West Hollywood soundstage on a cold Friday in February, blue paint is everywhere - splattered on the walls, tracked around on the floor by the dozens of production crew members, and cases of more bottles are sitting nearby to be used before this 14-hour commercial shoot is over.

It was a rhapsody in blue. More specifically, it was the Blue Man Group thinking blue. Dodger blue.

A new marketing campaign to launch this week by KCAL (Channel 9) to make viewers aware that over-the-air Dodgers games have a new home brought the original members of the world-renowned theatrical mime trio to do a series of TV spots aimed at demonstrating how they interpret the baseball viewing experience.

Hence, the big blue mess.

``The Blue Man is a huge baseball fan - he may not know a lot but, he can see that the idea of running around and diving and bouncing off the walls and throwing is right up his alley,'' said Matt Goldman, explaining why he, Chris Wink and Phil Stanton agreed to put back on the latex scalp piece and greasepaint to perform for these TV spots.

(And, yes, the Blue Man Group members do speak, but not while they're at work).

``What better way to show it than to get on this soundstage and leave paint on every surface, on everyone's clothes, splattered on all the camera lenses and tracked around by a couple hundred people on their shoes,'' Goldman added. ``The Blue Man can't pass up that opportunity.''

The spot that the Blue Man Group just finished shooting involved a living-room setting, where two of them are watching a Dodgers telecast as the third holds up a flat-screen TV. Suddenly, they become in tune with the rhythms of the game, and want to participate.

Looking around the room, one improvises by grabbing a lamppost and takes off the shade - now it's a baseball bat. The other picks up balloons that just happened to be filled with blue paint off the coffee table and starts pitching them.

Smack. Splat. Duck. Cover.

``Nothing about the Blue Man Group is about being passive, and there's something for him to interpret here,'' Stanton said.

``We're trying to show that it's more fun when you get together and watch. Baseball is a communal thing. And Blue Man wants to take that to another level.''

Between 10 and 20 different versions of the ads will run during the season. To reinforce the message, the Dodgers have also agreed to use the Blue Man Group in a series of stadium video scoreboard cameos - getting the fans to cheer, making fun of an opposing pitcher being taken out of the game, celebrating a home run, etc.

To Wink, the people who come to a Blue Man Group show aren't that much different from a sports fan who'd find himself at Dodger Stadium.

``It's all about the theater, and the expressions of the crowd for me,'' Wink said. ``Our shows celebrate that live expression, where people laugh and clap together. Baseball is a very rhythmic event, everything from the little rituals of the seventh-inning stretch. It's still like a piece of drumming. I feel it during the game - it's a gentle pulse, a tribal beat, and the tension keeps mounting.

``This just resonated for us. There's a lot of crossover, even for those who don't think about sports and Blue Man Group together. We're trying to show the fans of baseball that when they watch TV, it's not a participatory event. In 30 seconds we're trying to capture that explosive engagement for what a fan lives through.

``This isn't about just selling something, it's celebrating a quality ritual.''

Dodgers owner Frank McCourt is on board with the Blue Man Group's unique kind of marketing strategy.

``I think it's a perfect fit, a great combination of entertainment, sports and, of course, the color,'' McCourt said. ``They'll bring it to life for us. At the end of the day, the three things we're trying to do are win a championship, be a model franchise and provide a family friendly environment. So these will make people smile and be a good wholesome form of entertainment.''

The idea for integrating the Blue Man Group with the Dodgers began last October. Marshall Hites, vice president of marketing for KCAL and KCBS (Channel 2), wrote the group a letter even after reading a story that said it receives hundreds of endorsement offers a year but generally turns them down.

``I wanted to do something different and when we thought of the Blue Man Group, it made all the sense in the world,'' Hites said. ``We found out they were all sports fans to a varying degree. We already knew they are very athletic and acrobatic. We thought the best way to do the spots was for them to approach it in a very childlike way. ``It was beyond our wildest hope that we'd get the original three guys to agree to do it. That was very flattering.''

To Goldman, Stanton and Wink, agreeing to do the spots made good business sense for them, too. While the group (and its expanded troupe) does regular performances in New York, Boston, Chicago, Berlin, Toronto and London, making a connection with the Los Angeles market will help raise awareness of their standing Las Vegas act at the Venetian Hotel.

But in another selfish way, a day of acting out a baseball game on the soundstage while outside it was pouring rain also allowed them to let loose.

As Goldman marveled when looking around all the blue paint splattered about and cracked a wide, blue grin: ``It doesn't get any better than this.''

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3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) A member of the Blue Man Group takes batting practice using paint-filled balloons, above, while at left the trio sits on a single director's chair to review its work on a video screen.

(3) A Blue Man Group member gets a light reading before cameras roll on the results of his crashing into a wall like an outfielder.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer