Whenever Rick Sebak's national specials turn up on PBS, once every couple of years, it's like a breeze of cool air has blown into a stuffy environment. Not that there's anything wrong with PBS's more serious fare, but every now and then, you need some relief.

	'A Program About Unusual Buildings & Other Roadside Stuff' When: 8 tonight on WQED. Writer, producer, narrator: Rick Sebak.

Sebak's specials are almost always joyous celebrations of whimsical Americana, the sort of specials a producer in New York or Los Angeles might never take the time to explore. But Sebak, employed by Pittsburgh's PBS station, WQED, is more than happy to leave the stern history lessons to others, instead concentrating on uniquely American aspects of our shared culture.

In "A Program About Unusual Buildings & Other Roadside Stuff" (8 tonight, WQED), Sebak and his production team travel the country to find buildings in the shape of a shoe, a goose, a clam box, a big fish, a hot dog and a duck, among others. One woman even suggests a name for these oddities, calling them examples of "mimetic architecture," buildings that mimic objects.

Near York, Pa., Sebak visits Haines' Shoe House, in the shape of, you guessed it, a shoe.

"She didn't say she bought a pair of shoes, I figured she's up to something," recalled the husband of the woman who bought the shoe and operates it as a tourist attraction and ice cream shop.

"When you say to people this is the only shoe house in the world, that registers," says owner Ruth Miller. "They think, well, I can't go anywhere else and see it, I better look at it now while I'm here."

Sebak details the building's history -- it was built as an advertising gimmick for a shoe salesman -- and gives viewers a tour of the interior.

Sebak follows Brian and Sarah Butko and family of West Mifflin on a road trip to Wigwam Village in Kentucky, a motel where each room is an individual teepee. The husband and wife are collaborating on a children's book called "Roadside Giants" about the same sorts of attractions Sebak explores in this special.

To give these funky structures historical context, Sebak interviews several experts, including writer/illustrator Jim Heimann, who explains the most popular period for these buildings was between 1925 and 1935.

"That kind of whimsical nature to them was abhorred by serious architects," Heimann says. "They felt like they were really a blight on the landscape. But who couldn't really laugh at a giant woman and you're walking into her skirt to go get ice cream or a giant pig that you could drive up to and get a pork sandwich out of its mouth?"

And the same goes for Sebak's specials. Filmmakers who take a serious look at serious subjects are a dime a dozen. Filmmakers, like Sebak, who take a serious but entertaining look at lighter subjects that probably relate to a greater portion of the American populace are a much rarer breed.