Axis of Evil-ution

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Wish these guys a happy landing.

When you are Middle Eastern-Americans traveling the country as “The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour,” you can expect delays at the airport.

The four comedians visiting the Hard Rock Hotel today are mostly new to performing in Las Vegas. But one of them, Ahmed Ahmed, still remembers a previous McCarran International Airport visit that turned into a 12-hour stretch in the county jail.

“The day before Bush was re-elected, they did a random (sweep) and a thousand Middle Eastern people and Muslims were detained, profiled or arrested. I just happened to be one of them,” says Ahmed, who was born in Egypt but raised in the United States since he was a month old. “I was leaving Las Vegas going to St. Louis to do a show, and I got snagged at the airport and they took me to Clark County (Detention Center) for about 12 hours.”

At least he got a story for his act out of it: “This Latino guy with a bald head and a tattoo across his head (asked me), ‘They think you’re a terrorist? Well then blow this place up and get us … out of here.”

Just last week, on the day of a phone interview, it was New Jersey-born Dean Obeidallah’s turn. “They usually search Ahmed. Today he did not and I got picked,” he says.

It was a random search, which meant the security guard had seen the “Axis of Evil” stand-up special on Comedy Central and was “patting me down, telling me how funny the jokes were.

“It was very surreal,” Obeidallah says. “I’m going to turn it into a bit, the idea of the guy patting me down: ‘You’re funny. Take off your pants now.’ “

The tour with Aron Kader and Maz Jobrani — an actor-comedian who is probably the most recognized member — has built momentum since the Comedy Central special. “When we first started out, we only had Arabs and Persians and Muslims. Now we’re getting 40 to 50 percent white audiences,” Ahmed says.

“It’s certainly written for everyone to get,” adds Obeidallah, a New York-based comedian of Palestinian descent. Those of Middle Eastern heritage “laugh harder at certain things because they’ve been through a certain experience,” but the jokes appeal to “progressive people of whatever color.”

The tour follows the path of Kings of Comedy, Blue Collar and other packaged stand-up tours appealing to specific groups. The difference is that this one is newly defined. The comedians speak for Middle Easterners who have been treated with heightened suspicion since the terrorist attacks of 2001.

“My comedy is self-deprecating, kind of making fun of myself in a post-9/11 world,” Ahmed says. “Before 9/11 we were talking about immigrant stories. After 9/11, people didn’t want to hear about nice Arabs, so all my jokes were self-deprecating; talking about hate crime and civil rights and traveling and dating.”

He says the comedians were first teamed as “The Arabian Knights” by Comedy Store operator Mitzi Shore before Sept. 11. “She had an epiphany that there was going to be a war between America and the Middle East and that Middle Easterners were going to be more misrepresented than ever, and that comedy would be able to dispel all that,” Ahmed says.

The response to the tour has been amplified by the reaction to “The Watch List,” a series of Web shorts produced by Obeidallah and Max Brooks (son of Mel Brooks). One short adds live footage to illustrate a stage routine based on Obeidallah’s hearing on cable news that “Arabs are the new blacks,” depicting how “white kids in the suburbs will start pretending to be Arab.”

“It’s been their number one downloaded show of original content for the past four months,” Obeidallah says, sounding mildly surprised.

Ahmed isn’t. “It’s one of those things that people were kind of waiting to hear. Especially our community,” he says. “If anything, we owe it to our community to be a voice for them.”