The Magic Garden (TV series)

:"For the The Fifth Dimension album, see The Magic Garden."

The Magic Garden was a 30-minute children's show which aired Mondays through Thursdays. The show was locally produced in studios for independent television channel WPIX in New York City. Despite being a locally produced program, the show aired on channel 11 in the largest television market in the world. The show became popular with millions of children who came of age in the 1970s that aired from September 1972 to March 1984. The hosts of the show, Carole Demas and Paula Janis currently have a touring show entitled CAROLE and PAULA - THE SHOW FOR GROW-UP FANS.

Plot

The show featured two women, Carol Demas and Paula Janis, who punctuated each episode with several acoustic songs. The pair first met while they were teenage students at Brooklyn's Midwood High School, and later became New York City school teachers.

There was one main recurring character: a mischievous pink squirrel puppet named Sherlock. A colorful and happy puppet bird which resembled a duck and was named Flapper was a later addition to the inhabitants of the magic garden.

The characters spent all of their time within the Magic Garden, a colorful if static setting whose primary locations were "The Magic Tree," a tree swing, and a barn. Carole and Paula also interacted with a giggling bed of flowers known as "The Chuckle Patch" that grew beneath the Magic Tree. The Chuckle Patch flowers grew leaves that had mild jokes on one side of the leaf and the punch line on the other side.

A typical show included songs, games, jokes, stories (regularly acted out using costumes and props from "The Story Box"), and life lessons for their viewers. The hostesses would regularly express personal greetings to members of their young television audience, saying "hello ___, hello ___" and inserting various first names. The viewers would listen anxiously, hoping that Carole and Paula would mention them!

ongs

The theme song to the show itself still inspires considerable nostalgia among the show's fans.

The Storybox had a short theme song as well, which included the refrain,"You don't need a key, so follow me, There are no locks on the story box, on story box, on story box!"

Every Magic Garden episode ended with Demas' and Janis' closing song. The song would play as the camera slowly panned back from Carole and Paula (on the swings, Paula on guitar) and moved out of the magic garden. The goodbye theme would fade out as the gates slowly closed on the magic garden and ended the episode.

Show Run

A total of 52 half-hour episodes and a one hour holiday special were produced, meeting the FCC requirements set forth in the Children's Television Act of that time. Three record albums were also released, one of which received a Grammy nomination. Additionally, the program received a citation from the Children's Television Workshop for its creative efforts.

On Thanksgiving Day in 2002, a special hosted by Paula and Carole aired, reminiscing about the show. Afterwards, two episodes were rerun for the first time in 18 years.

In Popular Culture

*On VH1's I Love the 70's, Paula and Carole were listed as Foxy Ladies of 1973
*The Magic Garden was spoofed in the "Robot Chicken" episode "Slaughterhouse on the Prairie" with Paula Janas voiced by Eden Espinosa, Carole Demas voiced by Robin Tunney, and Sherlock the Squirrel and Storybox voiced by Seth Green. When Paula and Carole prepare to tell a story from the Storybox, the spirit of the Storybox incinerates them because they're homosexuals (the Robot Chicken rendition of Paula and Carole, that is) which parodies the ending of "Raiders of the Lost Ark". After Paula and Carole's remains were sucked into the Storybox, Sherlock states that he hates biblical stories.

External links

* [http://www.caroleandpaula.com/ Official website of Carole Demas and Paula Janis]