I'm not sure the words are right, but that's how I remember the theme song to The Magic Garden. There were two women swinging on swings, inviting us to the Chuckle Patch for stories and games.
It's so interesting how you remember things from your childhood. I haven't thought about The Magic Garden in many years, yet when I heard that Carole and Paula would be at Westbury Music Fair, on July 9 and 10...that theme song immediately popped into my head.
The Magic Garden began in the early 70s, but Carole Dimas and Paula Janis met way before that, in high school, at the age of 15. Afterwards they lost touch then got close again at NYU Graduate School.
After grad school, Paula became a kindergarten teacher. When her co-teacher became pregnant and decided not to return to school, Paula called Carole and said, Have I got a job for you. They had fifty children in that class and that's when they began singing and telling stories. They found that working together was easy and the children were very responsive.
We picked up on each other's sentences and sang very well together, and Paula played the guitar, says Carole. So, that was our first step towards the show.
Our first professional experience together was singing in the New York Shakespeare Festival. We got exposure there and agents called. I got the lead in a play, says Carole and Paula got a call from a Folk group that asked her to join them.
For the next ten years, I was an actress. Paula sang and taught, says Carole. Then one day I got a call from my agent saying WPIX was looking for someone to host a cartoon show.
While on the interview, I began thinking about Paula and realized we could do something more than just a cartoon show. So I presented them with this possibility.
Afterwards, I called Paula and told her about it and we put together a fifteen-minute audition. They liked it, so we made a pilot and The Magic Garden was born.
It never really had a script, adds Paula. It had a theme and a format, but the dialogue was always spontaneous. The script would say Carole and Paula perform the story of the grasshopper and the ant. Then it was up to us to create the characters and create the dialogue.
And it was complicated, says Carole. Paula was pregnant and I was playing Sandy in Grease on Broadway. So, on my only day off we'd do the show.
It was worth the hard work
