Smothers Brothers--Offering 32 Years of Experience--to Play at Knott’s : Pop/Comedy: They are in their early 50s and have dropped some of their early mainstays, agreeing that ‘it’s a little strange to do too-young material.’

The Smothers Brothers raised sibling rivalry to an art form, and for 32 years now, Tommy and Dick have been bickering at each other publicly, via television and regular concert tours.

But to those who go to see the musical jokesters this weekend at Knott’s Berry Farm’s Good Time Theatre, don’t expect to hear their classic “Mom Always Liked You Best!” routine of yore.

As the siblings have updated their act, some signature pieces have been dropped, including that one, which was eliminated even before the death of their mother, Ruth, two years ago.

“We’re in our early 50s now--I’m 53 and Dickie’s 51--and it’s a little strange to do too-young material,” Tom explained. “People would say, ‘My God, how long are we going to hear that?’ George Burns always said, ‘Keep the material that fits your age,’ and that’s what we’re doing.”

The four Knott’s performances Friday and Saturday mark the third time that rubber-faced buffoon Tommy on guitar and long-suffering straight man Dick on double bass have appeared at the Buena Park theme park, most recently in 1985.

The Good Time Theatre “is a nice room, an enjoyable room to play. We like those venues, because the people come here for fun, so it’s easy for us to keep them entertained,” Tom said last week by phone from his home in Sonoma, site of the Smothers Brothers Winery that the twosome launched in the late 1970s.

On this day he was taking time during his monthlong break from Smothers Brothers shows to talk about their upcoming engagement, before going off for a morning’s round of golf; Dick was spending time with wife Lorraine and their two young children on the opposite side of the country in Middleberg, Va.

The mainstay of the Smothers’ 60-minute act is, of course, their comedy routines, which they have been honing since their beginnings at the Purple Onion club in San Francisco: folk songs, show tunes and madrigals constantly interrupted by Tom, and Dick’s futile attempts to get things back on track.

But there are two relatively recent additions: a pianist named Michael Preddy who is billed only as “The Piano Player,” and the “Yo-Yo Man,” a popular, hip-swaying, finger-pointing character portrayed by Tom who performs all manner of yo-yo tricks while in a so-called life-enhancing “Mystic State of Yo.”

“Michael has probably been the most important element in the last 10 years for us,” Tom observed. “We hadn’t been doing (the act) for four years and when we started again, in 1980 or 1981, we ran into him; he was a replacement for another piano player in Houston. It was one of the most fortuitous meetings. He’s made the Smothers Brothers musical--my guitar work and Dickie’s bass haven’t really improved that much, but he can even sound like a banjo on the piano. It’s a real musical flavor that comes across.

“Michael slowly became part of the comedic act,” Smothers added. “He’s got this wonderful deadpan face.”

Yo-Yo Man began attracting national attention during the brothers’ hourlong variety series that aired in 1988-89 on CBS but was actually conceived much earlier. “Thirteen or 14 years ago, Mason Williams brought us a song called ‘I’m a Yo-Yo Man,’ which told the story of a traveling demonstrator for the Duncan Yo-Yo Co.,” Smothers recalled. “I liked the song, and we started doing it, and within a year or two I picked up a yo-yo and started doing tricks.”

The yo-yo went into retirement during the Smothers’ four-year hiatus in the late 1970s--during which they did theater independently then teamed up for a nine-month Broadway run in “I Love My Wife”--but became a part of the show again when the act was resurrected.

The rest of their act blends improvisation with loosely scripted material. “Like jazz musicians, we’ll do conversions--we’ll switch around chords and he’ll take a line one time and then I will,” Smothers said. “Dickie cannot be thrown--I can say anything I want to. He encourages me to be a little more reckless, take more chances.”

The show has been undergoing some changes, he added, because they have debuted fresh numbers and are hoping to discover worthy replacements for the classics they have dropped recently, such as their opener, “Boil That Cabbage Down.”

The brothers also have indirectly benefited from their physical disabilities. Tom’s dyslexia precludes easy memorization, making their routines seem even more spontaneous. Dick is legally blind in one eye and deaf in one ear. “His good ear is by his bass, so his deaf ear is closest to me. It’s an advantage when he sings harmony, because he doesn’t get confused. And sometimes he just ignores me!” Tom noted.

Away from the concert stage--which in recent years has encompassed appearances with orchestras along with the more conventional performing arenas--the brothers do commercials for Magnavox and Stouffer’s. They are pursuing their own situation comedy on CBS--the same network that unceremoniously fired them in 1969 after their politically satirical “Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” show provoked numerous clashes over censorship, and the same that aired their 20-year reunion special in 1988.

Reviewing their “Comedy Hour’s” tumultuous times, Tom said, “If you’re right, you’re right. You’re acting ethically for the right moral reasons. But at this point I can look back and say, ‘Boy, that was a great ride.’ Any resentment or anger is long gone. It’s kind of a residual gift, the respect we get from people who remember.”

And a position which, ironically, reflects one of today’s foremost entertainment issues. “People ask me, ‘What do you think about Andrew Dice Clay, and the rap thing?’ I say, ‘I think there should be no censorship, regardless.’ In a free society, we should have free information, whether it’s likeable or disagreeable. We can’t stop that kind of stuff. We can just disapprove of it and move on.”

The brothers are gearing up for a full round of appearances over the next few months, and in November, Tom will marry Marcy Carriker, who was associate producer on their reunion show. He and Dick feel fortunate, he said, that they are still working after more than three decades; he attributes their longevity to their clean-cut family appeal and their own kinship.

“Our being brothers has an intimacy that people relate to,” Smothers remarked. “We don’t have to fake a relationship--we just turn it on and turn it up two notches. The relationship is very special. I love him more than anyone else in the world.”