Wheeee! It's the New Contest for "Glee"!

Effervescently edgy^®, Glee is the best new show for fall, even if it's not exactly new because Fox aired the pilot in May to get everybody talking.

Now the network really wants to get people talking. You sign up on Twitter and Facebook and do all those Twittery and Facey things, and you win points toward bragging rights -- but that's all! You'd think Rupert Murdoch could have coughed up a few bucks, at least.

For a Luddite like me, it's kind of hard to understand, but I'm sure all you network/blog/TV fans can figure it out.

From Fox: Sign up anytime through Sept. 24 at www.fox.com/gleek. From there, you can link to you Twitter and MySpace accounts, as well as install the "Biggest GLEEk" application on your Facebook platform to link your "Biggest GLEEk" profile with your Facebook profile. Start earning points right away for fan activiGLEEs such as mentioning GLEE in status updates, posting links of the day to your profile or inviting friends to join the competition.

From me: You get points for such thins as using special URLs to link and invite friends (mine are http://glky.us/1U7 and http://glky.us/1U8. Click them a lot.

Right this second, Fox publicity chief Joe Earley, who probably made up the whole thing, is at the top of the GLEEderboard, which doesn't seem very fair, but Gabby Curtis, a junior a North Rockland High School, north of New York City, is coming up fast.

Gabby (who's a boy) probably has an I-Phone and Tweetdeck and who-knows-what-all, so it will be basically impossible for me, with my hamster-driven Radio Shack computer, to keep up in The Contest. Maybe they should give me 20,000 bonus points for this blog. Thankfully, the real prizes, including hats, mugs and T-shirts, come from the sweepstakes, which doesn't require any effort. But the big prize isn't that exciting for a TV critic: A trip to the West Coast to meet the cast. I've already met them, even more talented than they are sexy and adorable.

The whole idea is to get everybody buzzing about this wonderful show, which follows the exploits of a high school performance choir and has an alternately sweet and black take on high school life. Think High School Musical meets Freaks & Geeks, and don't be surprised if you like Glee as much as both of them. The tunes, by the way, are a blast.

You can hear the big production number ("Don't Stop Believing" -- my favorite song, so shoot me but don't dimiss my take on this show) played to footage selected from the show and put together by YouTube videographer sweetiepie1019, who's no slouch herself.

Or watch the whole pilot here. But don't forget to watch on TV, too, and keep Glee in production.

This one is the real thing.