They’re on the Cutting Edge of Two Disciplines : Comedy: Jon Wee and Owen Morse mix juggling (with running chain saws yet) and ballet. The duo opens tonight at the Improv in Brea.

Pundits can debate whether the world has become too weird, but when chain-saw jugglers need a gimmick to set them apart from the crowd, it’s clear what direction things are headed.

“People would always ask if we do chain saws. That sticks in their mind as the ultimate juggling prop,” Jon Wee, of the Passing Zone juggling duo, said by phone last week from Decorah, Iowa, where he and Owen Morse were performing at Luther College and enjoying an old friend’s hospitality. (“Free lodging and food,” translated Morse.) They open tonight at the Brea Improv.

Wee said they decided that “if we did it, we wanted to do it in a very unique way.”

They struck on the idea of setting it to a ballet. They would juggle three running chain saws while dressed in tights and dancing to Strauss’ “Blue Danube” waltz.

“It’s pretty funny,” Wee said, adding that they worked with a professional choreographer to get it just right. “We’ve only performed it a dozen times, but people seem to like the juxtaposition of ballet and chain saws. They are the main topic after every show now.”

Becoming the talk of the town wasn’t easy. They broke at least half a dozen of the tools, which cost $200 each, and it took time to get them running at the right speed and finding a place to put the handle. And they are dangerous. But at least nobody got hurt, save for a scraped arm on Wee.

“The hardest thing is that they’re really heavy. Other things we juggle we can drop and cover it up. It doesn’t matter that much. With chain saws, you don’t have that leeway.”

Less dangerous but equally exciting was a command performance Wee and Morse did for Prince Charles in London’s Dominion Theatre. The colonials were in Europe for a London TV show and a juggling convention on the continent when they caught the eye of the royal producers.

“There were a lot of international acts, and Tony Bennett was there,” Wee said, adding that they talked to the prince for a few minutes after the gala. “He asked where we were from and mentioned he was glad he wasn’t in the front row. He seemed a pretty nice guy--well, as much as you can tell in three minutes.”

Wee, who graduated in 1988 from Luther College with a degree in economics, grew up in Minnesota and took up juggling in the eighth grade. The three balls took the place of sports, and soon he was doing birthday parties and Renaissance fairs.

“I was about 15 when I realized we needed to add comedy to make any money.”

Morse, a Lake Forest resident who was born and raised in Yorba Linda, followed a similar path before graduation from UC Irvine in 1989 with a degree in psychology. He worked the Sawdust Festival in Laguna Beach for 10 years and earned some money as a court jester in Fantasyland at Disneyland. But he knew that wasn’t the future.

Since then, Morse has improved his lot and now claims three world records in the Guinness Book of World Records for “joggling,” a sport in which contestants must run and juggle at the same time. Morse holds the mark for 100 meters while juggling three balls. His time was 11.7 seconds. To put that in perspective, consider that world-class sprinters are only a couple of seconds quicker.

“I ran track in college. I had never heard of this sport, and when I did, I said, ‘Man, this was almost intended for me,’ ” Morse said, adding that he also hold the Guinness record for five-ball joggling at the same distance with a time of 13.8 seconds and is part of the record-holding mile-relay team.

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Morse and Wee now, in their late 20s, met in college at a juggling convention. Since then, they’ve been on “The Tonight Show” and did some work on “The Addams Family” movie. (Those are Wee’s and Morse’s hands doubling for those of Gomez and Uncle Fester in the big dagger-throwing song-and-dance scene.)

The team also headlines at clubs clubs across the country, does corporate shows and about 20 NBA halftime shows a season.

“We have a clean act, it’s real up, and we have a great time,” Wee said.

From here, Wee and Morse want to stitch together a complete, seamless show tied together from beginning to end that they can perform in a theater.

“It’s still in the initial idea stage about how to piece things together,” Wee said. “We’re trying to avoid the stigma that comes along with being a juggler. People have a preconceived idea of what a juggler is . . . like a Vegas or a circus thing. We don’t fit that very well. We can’t ignore the fact we’re jugglers, but we’re different enough that we want to put a different spin on it, like Penn and Teller did with magic. They’ve almost created their own category.

“We pride ourselves on being very good jugglers and doing the best we can. But we know audiences aren’t that interested in the tricks,” said Wee, who just moved to Hermosa Beach from Garden Grove. “They want to be entertained and have a good time--less with tricks and more with comedy and presentation.

“There are jugglers who are better, and there are comedians who are better, but I think combining everything, we have the best of both.”

* The Passing Zone and Scott Cerbine open tonight at the Improv, 945 E. Birch St., Brea. 8:30 p.m. Through Sunday. $8 to $10. (714) 529-7878.