Last fall, 30 Rock opened with a barrage of guest stars—Oprah! Jennifer Aniston! Steve Martin!—designed to draw in "real Americans" who hadn't tuned into the first season of Tina Fey's elitist, East Coast, intellectual, left-wing (to quote Jack Donaghy's euphemisms for "Jewish") sitcom. And guess what? It didn't work. The ratings needle didn't move, but some of the show's stellar ensemble was pushed aside to make room for the big names (and their egos).

This fall, 30 Rock's not making the same mistake—yet it's still trafficking in the culture of celebrity and using famous faces more judiciously. In one subplot of this week's episode, "Stone Mountain," Tracy (Tracy Morgan) becomes terrified he'll be the final megastar to die under the "Rule of Three" (the first two were a world-champion clogger/Huffington Post blogger and the obese inspiration for Pac-Man—"I'll eat a bowl of cherries and some ghost meat in his honor," Tracy solemnly declares).

After begging Jack to take him someplace "where nothing can happen to me—can you get me on Charlie Rose?"—he begins inquiring about the health of vulnerable luminaries. "Any arm pains, shortness of breath?" Tracy asks "Rappin' Granny" costar Betty White. "Nice try, Jordan, but I will be at your funeral," she vows. "I will bury you." When an Andy Dick obituary fails to materialize, Tracy attempts to murder Jimmy Fallon, parodying himself ("I was in a movie with Queen Latifah once," he offers as his celeb cred) but sadly not sharing any scenes with his old "Weekend Update" coanchor Fey.

But the inspired cameos don't end there. In an amazing bit of timing, Jeff Dunham—whose eponymous Comedy Central puppet-com debuted to record ratings opposite 30 Rock last week (and smartly bought ad time during the NBC show this week)—turns up as a ventriloquist. Jack discovers him in Kenneth's Stone Mountain hometown comedy club, the Laugh Factory (not to be confused with its daytime identity as the Chuckle Hut—"the chuckle is the part of the pig between the tail and the anus," the page helpfully explains). Along with his redneck dummy, Pumpkin, he slays the crowd with gags like "What's the difference between your girlfriend and your truck? Your truck doesn't yell at you every time you get gas!" (The flatulence motif continues with Liz's gastrointestinal distress caused by the Carp Po' Boy with Extra Chuckle at Fatty Fat's Sandwich Ranch—though that doesn't prevent Jack from buying a franchise, after he compares Lemon's breath to a "diaper you found on the beach." Even Peppy Biz Milk and Schwupp's Gingy Pale can't help!) But Dunham's sub-shop owner blows his chance to be "hired by a Catholic to be on TGS with a black fella" (per the local newscast) when he insults Liz ("I wouldn't f--- you with Elmo's c---!") and Jack ("I got a man's arm up me, but you know what that feels like!").

Meanwhile, the search for a new cast member inspires Jenna (Jane Krakowski) to befriend the TGS writers in hopes they'll protect her screentime. And the writers (the biggest victims of last season's guest-star onslaught) get their own screentime—even Lutz has lines!—conspiring to get invited to Jenna's gay Halloween party, where girls go wild. "It's a magical night when girls dress slutty and drink too much, where we can hide out bodies in bulky costumes," Judah Friedlander's Frank marvels. Jenna attempts to bond with the writers by watching Battlestar Galactica but mistakes it for Lost, which she spoils with this tidbit: "I met J.J. Abrams once, and I don't know what this means, but he said the island is just Hurley's dream."

With great gags like this one (and more, like Jack McBrayer's blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearances as Laugh Factory patrons, including one with a Jeff Foxworthy-worthy 'stache), 30 Rock deserves to be a show enjoyed everywhere from "the People's Gay Republic of Drug-ifornia" (Jack, again) to "SexCriminalBoat" (Stone Mountain-ese for "Manhattan") to rural America, where "the people who are running our prisons and growing our cigarettes" (Jack, yet again) aren't just "simple"—"some of them are smart like Matlock or wholesome like Elly May Clampett, and some of them are skeevy dirtbags like the Dukes of Hazzard, driving around like maniacs—children use those roads!" (thank you, Liz). Ah, The Dukes of Hazzard—that was a show for the "real America." And they didn't need no stinkin' guest stars!

Did you think "Stone Mountain" was Rock's comic peak? Or was it as heckle-icious as the Pete Hornberger Alan Parsons Project Project? As Jenna scolded her aghast gay friends, "Don't look at me like I'm a football game!"