Sarah Silverman was a bed wetter until she was halfway through high school. So in a weird way it's fitting that the girl who once had to sleep on rubber sheets grew up to make people wet themselves laughing.

Not that comedy came easily for her. When the New Hampshire native first started doing stand-up in high school, her jokes went something like this: ''If you say something that rhymes by accident, what do you say? 'I'm a poet and I didn't know it.' Well, what do you say if you say something free verse by accident? 'I'm a poet and I never realized that…''' Ooof.

Needless to say, Silverman has come a long way. Actually, as the captivating, caca-mouthed comedian proved over and over this year, she may just be the funniest woman in America. And the naughtiest. First, there was The Aristocrats — the dirty-joke documentary she walked away with by uncorking a dry, deadpan monologue (fictional, of course) about being raped by New York TV legend Joe Franklin. Then there was The Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson, where the sexy smart-ass took the stage, made fun of boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel's balls, quieted lipstick-smeared heckler Courtney Love, and then proceeded to rake the pneumatic roastee over the coals. The third step in Silverman's 2005 will to power was Jesus Is Magic, a concert film so deliriously depraved she managed to make fun of 9/11, the Holocaust, and Martin Luther King Jr. — and tie it all up in a dainty little bow by singing ''Amazing Grace'' in three-part harmony with her butt and her vagina.

So what is it that makes Silverman so damned funny? Is it her looks? Her sacred-cow tipping? Her spicy vocabulary? Definitely not the last one, she insists. ''I don't think being dirty is all I have to offer by any means. And if I hear the words potty mouth one more time, I'm going to puke and diarrhea at the same time.'' Regardless of just how revolting that might be to imagine, we get her point. Sarah Silverman is more than just pretty, provocative, and proud of her bodily humor…and humors.