NEW YORK — NBC is pumping up the return of “My Name is Earl” with a guest shot by Paris Hilton.

Hilton appears as herself in a dream sequence. Earl has been knocked unconscious and various things from his life and imagination are bleed into his fevered mind.

Her appearance will come in the one-hour episode on April 3 that is the first new material following the writers strike settlement, NBC said.

“When we wrote the role of Paris Hilton in the script, we weren’t exactly sure who to go with for the role,” said Greg Garcia, the show’s executive producer. “But after an exhausting search we finally settled on a relatively unknown actress by the name of Paris Hilton.”

Hilton has just finished work on the movie “Repo: The Genetic Opera.”