SIBLING RIOTS : After 32 Years, the Smothers Brothers Are Still at It

With rubber-faced buffoon Tommy on guitar and long-suffering straight man Dick on double bass, the Smothers Brothers have for 32 years made sibling rivalry an art form.

Friday and Saturday, the brothers return to the Good Time Theatre at Knott’s Berry Farm, where they have performed twice before, 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 recently by phone from his home in Sonoma, site of the Smothers Brothers Winery that the twosome launched in the late 1970s.

The mainstay of the Smothers’ 60-minute act is their comic routines, which they have been perfecting and updating since their beginnings at the Purple Onion club in San Francisco: folk songs, show tunes and madrigals interrupted by Tom’s antics and Dick’s futile attempts to get 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 hip-swerving, finger-pointing character portrayed by Tom who performs all manner of feats on the yo-yo 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,” Smothers observed. “ . . . 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.”

Yo-Yo Man began attracting national attention during the brothers’ 18, one-hour variety shows which aired in 1988 and ’89 on CBS, but were 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 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. They have debuted fresh numbers, hoping to discover worthy replacements for the classics they have recently dropped, such as their opener, “Boil That Cabbage Down.”

Also missing is their popular “Mom Always Liked You Best!” routine, which was eliminated even before their mother’s death 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,” Smothers 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.”

What

The Smothers Brothers.

When

At 7 and 9 p.m. Friday, Aug. 17 and Saturday, Aug. 18.

Where

The Good Time Theatre, Knott’s Berry Farm, 8039 Beach Blvd., Buena Park.

Whereabouts

Take the Beach Boulevard exit from the San Diego Freeway (405) and go north, or from the Riverside Freeway (91) and go south.

Wherewithal

Admission to the park is $12 after 6 p.m.

Where to call

(714) 220-5200.