On Thanksgiving Day 2002, a special hosted by Carole and Paula aired on WPIX titled The Magic Garden: Still Growing, on which the duo reminisced about the show. The program received citations from Actions for Children's Television and from the Children's Television Workshop for its creative efforts. Three record albums were released due to high demand, one of which received a Grammy nomination. According to Carole and Paula's website, local ratings were equal to or exceeded those of other shows in its genre, such as Sesame Street. ĥ2 half-hour episodes, a one-hour holiday special (which aired on Decem), and a one-hour retrospective The Magic Garden: Still Growing (2002) were produced. Many of the folk songs featured on the show came from material that Demas and Janis had created as schoolteachers. After being hired, the two women spent the next year developing The Magic Garden, with the help of former Muppets puppeteer Cary Antebi, who created Sherlock. Asking Janis to come with her to a second audition, Demas and Janis presented a slower-paced show designed to avoid overstimulating young children's developing brains. During the audition, Demas suggested an alternative idea. In 1971, Demas (having worked in television and on the professional stage, and in rehearsal for her starring role in Grease on Broadway) was invited by WPIX to host an early-afternoon cartoon program. The hosts Carole Demas and Paula Janis, who had met as students at Brooklyn's Midwood High School, and later became New York City school teachers, helped to develop the show. In the year before, WPIX dropped The 700 Club and at the time it canceled The Magic Garden, the station ended its weekday non-commercial hour of public affairs programs as well. WPIX wanted to be strictly entertainment programming during daytime hours and modernize its programming. Finally, WPIX dropped The Magic Garden altogether on September 14, 1984. After that other children's shows would replace The Magic Garden in the Friday slot. On Fridays until 1981, in place of The Magic Garden, another children's show produced at WPIX called Joya's Fun School aired in its time slot. After 1975, it aired afternoons, leading out of religious and public affairs shows into the afternoon cartoons. At some points, it led out of morning cartoons, leading into religious programming. The show aired on WPIX at various times during the day on weekdays, but only four days a week, from Monday through Thursday. In addition to songs, games, and jokes, the characters provide life lessons for viewers, and extend personal greetings to members of their television audience-for example: "Hello, Judy. Stories are often acted out using costumes and props provided by the Story Box. Many conversations take place at a low stone wall with Sherlock (a mischievous squirrel puppet with a love for peanuts) and Flapper (a colorful bird who was a later addition to the characters in the garden). Also found throughout the garden are swings, a stone path, a shed, and the Chuckle Patch, a giggling bed of flowers that grows leaves with jokes on one side and the punch line on the other. The show takes place entirely within the Magic Garden, a colorful set that includes the Magic Tree, which lowers various objects from its branches. Demas sat on giant toadstools, spoke to flowers, sang songs and told stories." Summary Ĭarole and Paula, the main characters and hosts of the show, sing several songs throughout each episode, often accompanied by Paula's acoustic guitar. As characterized by The New York Times, The Magic Garden "was a cheerful, low-budget, inadvertently psychedelic half-hour show in which Ms. Produced and broadcast in the world's largest television market, the show became popular with millions of children. The Magic Garden is a live-action children's television program that aired Mondays through Thursdays from March 6, 1972, to September 14, 1984, on WPIX-11 in the New York City metropolitan area.
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