Sarah Silverman still messing with minds

Sarah Silverman wants to take you higher.

And she does so not by falling back on making something outrageous instead of funny, but by making it - get this - both outrageous and funny at the same time.

Eat your heart out "10 Items or Less," "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and every other mediocre, tossed-together, "improvisational" cable comedy on TV.

Because if you think that's a neat trick, she makes it signify by throwing in some cutting corporate satire as well.

"The Sarah Silverman Program" returns to finish its second season at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 8, on Comedy Central, immediately after a new "South Park." It moves to its normal time slot at 9:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 9, but really I think it should stay put, because I can't imagine a better live-action companion to Matt Stone and Trey Parker's outrageous, hilarious satirical cartoon.

Fresh from her Emmy win for her infamous music video with Matt Damon, Silverman launches her new run of fresh episodes by going where even "South Park" has been reluctant to go: actively endorsing drug use.

Just say no - at the risk of your own lost belly laughs.

Even so, I'll be the first to admit, Silverman's humor does not suit everyone. To that end, she tries to scare off the timid right away by making music in an unusual manner with a particular body cavity (and no not that body cavity; Silverman doesn't settle for flatulent humor, except very briefly in a voice-mail prompt).

With only the initiated left to watch, she meets up with her nebbish buddy Brian, played by Brian Posehn, who has been left high and dry, shall we say, by his equally nerdy roommate and lover, Steve Agee's Steve. Brian invites Sarah to party.

"What's the worst that can happen?" They wonder, and clearly they have not seen "Pineapple Express."

Notice, Aware One, how all the actors are simply playing fictional extensions of their own selves. Like, wow, Silverman's sister, Laura, is even played by her sister, Laura. Pretty freaky, huh?

In much the same way, Silverman builds the humor out of taking real-life absurdities to their illogical conclusions. She and Brian quickly notice they have brilliant ideas while in an altered state of consciousness.

"Stoners always have genius ideas," he says, "we just usually never do anything with them."

So Sarah gets around that by calling herself on her cell phone and leaving messages from her stoned self to her sober self.

"Hey you, it's you," she says gleefully.

This sort of nonsense is funny in itself, but Silverman takes it one step beyond when she confronts a conglomerate called SchaarCorp headed by the ever-agreeable Garry Marshall. It turns out that while one SchaarCorp subsidiary is making irresistible snacks that cause diarrhea, others are making indigestion medicine and toilet paper.

"Think about it," Sarah says. "Corporations are creating problems and then marketing solutions." You don't have to be buzzed - or a conspiracy theorist - to see the reality in that.

So they kidnap the corporate nabob, only to find things don't go so well.

"I'm sure we kidnapped this guy for a perfectly good reason," Brian says, "but I'm a little unclear on it now."

There's also a subplot about Sarah's police-officer pal and her sister's boyfriend, played by Jay Johnston, fantasizing about a local TV reporter played by Missi Pyle, but that's a little more pat in the "Seinfeld" manner, and a little less successful satirizing the fetishization of news.

In any case, rest assured that somehow things will be returned to a certain sort of normalcy before the show is over - Silverman's universe is sort of like "The Simpsons" in that regard - but no one who sits through an episode of "The Sarah Silverman Program" will ever be quite the same.

The show messes with your mind, man, and makes you laugh at the same time.

In the air

Remotely interesting: Chris Rock's brother Tony gets his own show when "The Tony Rock Project" debuts at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 8, on WPWR Channel 50.

The new "South Park" compilation "The Cult of Cartman" hits stores today.

Errol Gerber has been promoted to director of sales at WGN Channel 9. He joined the station in 2002 as an account executive.

End of the dial: The usual suspects carry the presidential debate on TV at 8 p.m. today, but keep in mind WBEZ 91.5-FM will also air National Public Radio's live debate coverage.