Dick: “You're acting like a stupid fool.”

        Tom: “That's my job.”

        That exchange could be none other than the Smothers Brothers, who had the Cincinnati Pops season off to a screaming start Friday in Music Hall. In more than 35 years of show business, the sibling comedy team has changed little in appearance — or silliness.

        If they don't quite hit all the notes any more (but did they ever?), their musical numbers have been fine-tuned into works of true genius. Who else but Tom Smothers, for instance, could wreck a perfectly good rendition of “Cuando Caliente el Sol” by fudging the lyrics, lapsing into German and going off on a Swiss yodeling tangent?

        Dick: “Wipe that smirk off your face.”

        For their first appearance with the Pops in Music Hall, the Smothers Brothers sang only six tunes — but expanded on them for more than an hour, in the second half of the Pops evening. With Dick (on bass) playing the straight man to Tom (on guitar and yo-yo), their banter often had the rhythm of “Who's on first?”

        They opened with a madrigal, but it wasn't long before Tom had abandoned that for a trilogy of dog songs. His digressions were long, convoluted and hilarious, an act that had more belly laughs than music-making.

        Dick: “You didn't come in.”

        Tom: “I don't know the words.”

        Gilbert and Sullivan's “Poor Wandering One” from Pirates of Penzance got the treatment, too, when a cadenza of “fa-la's” somehow degenerated into a kind of “Dueling Banjos” between Tom Smothers and the Brothers' pianist Michael Preddy.

        “To Dream the Impossible Dream” (dedicated, of course, to the golfers in the audience) was sung with a '60s folk-song beat.

        It all made a crescendo to “Just Say Yo,” the routine where Tom reached “the mystic state of advanced yo” — meaning he boogied while doing yo-yo-tricks. (If you saw their show in the '60s, you'll understand.)

        They were witty and warm, and the large crowd stood for an encore. “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” became an audience sing-along. Soon Tom transformed himself into a fire-and-brimstone preacher while the audience hummed. You get the picture.

        Pops maestro Erich Kunzel opened the evening with epic film scores, including a sound bite from Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001: A Space Odyssey).

        The best, though, was Tan Dun's imaginative score to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which included impressive drumming by the percussion section.

Every piece tells a story
Aging Aerosmith still packs a wallop
Plants thrive in fall's cool air and warm soil
Things to do this week
This garden is therapy for the soul
Toil with soil for well-fed bed
We tested it: Tools easy on wrists
Gerald at Dance Theatre of Harlem
Smothers Brothers add fizz to Pops opener
Circle this
In the know
Get to it