Weep For the Poor Girls Working The Glee Project's Critic Event

Just how far did NBC Universal go to promote The Glee Project during this afternoon's Television Critics Association panel for Oxygen? Let's put it this way: they hired a squad of actresses (and actors) to dress up in Cheerio-esque costumes, prance into a ballroom full of tired TV critics wielding pompoms and then do a herkie each time a question was posed to producers onstage.

OK, that last part wasn't true. There were no herkies or straight jumps or toe-touches. But the cheerleaders -- some looking less enthusiastic than others -- sprinted around the room to hand off microphones to any critic with a question. As they waited for the queries -- mostly about how Ryan Murphy and the actual cast of Glee will play into this Oxygen offshoot (Answer: they won't really, at least in ways you will see on television) -- these paid cheerleaders knelt beside journalists (image below) while Movieline staffers wept silently in the back of the room for these poor, impostor Cheerios and this poor, impostor Glee rip-off.