Middle Eastern stars as Axis of Evil plays on Comedy Central

Fellow comic Maz Jobrani imitates Iranians in America trying desperately to distance themselves from their home government’s hostility to America. “I am not Iranian,” he says with a huge, harmless smile. “I am Persian, like the cat. Meow! Like the rug!”

The Los Angeles-based threesome, who worked their way up through the local comedy ranks and have performed together since 2000, form the nucleus of the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour, which debuted earlier this month on Comedy Central. With a multi-city Axis tour starting Thursday in Anaheim and Comedy Central in talks to do a TV version of The Watch List, it looks to be a breakthrough moment for comics with Arab and Mideast roots.

“They’re going to the next level,” says Jamie Masada, founder of the Laugh Factory. “They’ve started blooming.”

Both bedeviled and inspired by life in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the comedians mine their experiences for laughs. Along the way, they say, they hope to subversively cut through ethnic stereotypes that have labeled them violent, fanatical and, ironically, humourless.

“I think comedy can change things,” says Dean Obeidallah, a co-founder of the annual New York City-based Arab-American Comedy Festival and a creator of The Watch List. “I think Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce showed you can raise issues and make people think. Jon Stewart does it every night.”

The comics see themselves following the lead of black, Hispanic, gay and Jewish comedians who have helped kick down cultural doors. “It’s our turn to do that for our community,” says Jobrani, who was born in Tehran and raised in Northern California and who has a co-starring role in the ABC sitcom The Knights of Prosperity.

“I really feel the momentum. This is going to have a ripple effect for all of us,” says Maysoon Zayid, another standout performer and co-founder, with Obeidallah, of the New York festival.

If the coming years do produce a breakout Middle Eastern star, much of the credit might end up going to a tiny Jewish woman who already is a comedy legend. Comedy Store founder Mitzi Shore first conceived an all-Middle Eastern comedy show in 2000. Jobrani was already performing at the nightclub, and Shore brought in up-and-comers Ahmed and Kader with an eye toward teaming them under the banner

Arabian Nights.