FORT LAUDERDALE , Florida ( CNN ) -- Standing onstage , comedian Aron Kader describes how his cousin in the Middle East likes to curse the United States -- in English . Maz Jobrani ( left ) says Middle Easterners get a bad rap in the media . Ahmed Ahmed has the name of a `` most-wanted '' terrorist . `` Arabs love to cuss in English , '' Kader belts out . `` They cuss their heads off in English , but they wo n't do it in Arabic because then God can hear them . '' The audience , two-thirds of Mideast descent , explodes in laughter . Kader is a member of the `` Axis of Evil '' comedy group , a collection of comics with Mideast roots who have formed a niche by taking on Mideast stereotypes and making subjects such as war , terrorism and suicide bombers funny . It 's a delicate balance , but one that seems to be catching on with a larger audience . The comics ' videos on YouTube have been viewed more than 200,000 times , they recently had a one-hour special on Comedy Central and they currently are on a 15-city tour with packed crowds . How do they make such serious topics funny ? The key , Kader says , is getting the audience on board . `` Let them know that 'Hey , I get it , you guys have a stereotype of us , and I know what you see . ' `` Ethnic humor has a long history in the United States , but Kader says being Middle Eastern is different . He says people too often think of militants , terrorists and suicide bombers . `` You just say you 're Palestinian , and it 's like you made a political statement . '' And so the group has worked to try to change those stereotypes , one laugh at a time . In November 2005 , the comics took up the name Axis of Evil , playing off the term President Bush used in his 2002 State of the Union address to describe Iraq , Iran and North Korea . There are four members of the Axis comedy group . Kader is a Palestinian-American , and Maz Jobrani is an Iranian-American with a degree in political science from the University of California , Berkeley . ( Jobrani was one of the stars of the ABC series `` The Knights of Prosperity . '' ) Rounding out the Axis are Ahmed Ahmed , an Egyptian-American , and Dean Obeidallah , a Palestinian-American who once was a practicing attorney . Their biting humor is something to which many in their audience can relate . Jobrani says when he tells one joke begging for the news media to show Middle Easterners doing something positive -- like `` baking a cookie or something '' -- the crowd loves it for more than just its humor . `` That gets a laugh , but it also gets a clap from regular audiences , and I think that 's because a lot of people are sick of seeing Middle Easterners depicted the way we 're always depicted , '' he says . Obeidallah says he never felt like a Middle Easterner until after the September 11 , 2001 , attacks . Now , he says , he does his comedy `` not just for me . '' `` It 's for my cousins , it 's for my friends , it 's for other Arabs and other people who get dirty looks or looked at funny because they have an accent or are viewed as suspicious simply because of their heritage , '' he says . `` We do n't want to be defined any longer by the worst examples in our community , and it 's a very small amount of people . There are a few terrorists and they define all of us . '' Ahmed says he gets problems at the airport -- because his name matches the alias of a terrorist on the FBI 's `` Most Wanted '' list . But he takes it in stride . Like his fellow Axis comedians , he says , you can `` scare people into laughing . '' He quotes a comedy colleague who is a rabbi . `` He always says you ca n't hate anybody when you 're laughing with them . So it 's nice , when we 're doing our comedy show , to see the diversity in the crowd and people actually laughing together , '' Ahmed says . `` You see Arabs and Jews and Mexicans and whites , and they 're all sitting together and they 're sharing the same laugh . Comedy 's like food or music . It 's universal . Laughter 's universal . '' E-mail to a friend .
`` Axis of Evil '' comics joke about Mideast stereotypes . More than 200,000 have viewed their videos on YouTube . One member has same name as terrorist on FBI list .