Public television is not just for old people. (Either that's true or I'm old.)

I'm not sure if a grant from the Helena Rubenstein Foundation helped fund the three consecutive PBS shows I watched last night, but I'll still thank it for being "a long-time supporter of outstanding children's television."

I watched three one-hour documentaries about Niagara Falls, advertising, and the history of Second City improv. I was pensive about the economic disparity of the Canadian and American sides of the falls; intrigued by advertising execs' attempts to solicit our attention; and touched by Jennifer Candy's pursuit of comedy at Chicago's Second City stage in the wake of her late father, John Candy -- at the time of filming, she was even living in the same apartment building where he lived when he performed there!

The "Frontline" advertising documentary also featured the most distinctive regional PBS station ID in history, which one YouTuber correctly dubbed the "Flash of Doom":



PBS, regardless of how I felt as a child about your pledge drives or how I feel as an adult about your extended commercials, you do not suck. As Ralph Wiggum might say, "I'm learnding!"