Barney and Friends

Barney, a huggable six-foot-four-inch talking purple dinosaur, starred in a daily half-hour children's television program that premiered April 6, 1992, on PBS. In 1988, the character's creator, Sheryl Leach, had grown dissatisfied with the selection of home videos on the market to amuse her young son. She wrote scripts for a children's video featuring a stuffed bear that came to life but changed the central character to a dinosaur, capitalizing on the renewed interest among children. Leach produced three "Barney and the Backyard Gang" videos and marketed them through day-care centers and video stores.

A PBS executive saw the videos and in 1991 secured a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to produce thirty episodes of the series. The PBS series was entitled Barney and Friends and featured Barney (played by David Joyner, voiced by Bob West), his younger dinosaur sidekick Baby Bop (Jeff Ayers, voiced by Carol Farabee), and a gaggle of children representing the country's major ethnic groups (Caucasian, African American, Asian-American, Native American, Indian, etc.). The young members of this politically correct sampling of American culture could make a small stuffed (and eminently marketable) dinosaur come to life as Barney. The group would dance, sing songs, and learn valuable lessons about getting along with each other in work and play. Barney and Friends ' signature song, "I Love You," took the tune of "This Old Man" and substituted lyrics remarkable for nothing if not their catchiness: children nationwide were soon singing "I love you /you love me /we're a happy family" and spreading Barney's feel-good message throughout the land.

Such popularity with the television-watching preschool demographic made Barney and Friends vulnerable to critical attacks that suggested the show was nothing but "an infomercial for a stuffed animal." The four million Barney home videos and $300 million in other Barney merchandise that sold within one year after its PBS premiere confirmed that "Barney" was a media force to be reckoned with. On April 24, 1994, NBC aired Barney's first foray into commercial television, with a prime-time special entitled "Bedtime with Barney: Imagination Island."

The ubiquity of Barney, Barney's songs, and Barney-related paraphernalia caused a backlash on late-night television and radio talk shows, in stand-up comedy acts, and on world wide web sites. Speculations that Barney was Evil incarnate, for instance, or lists describing 101 ways to kill the fuzzy purple dinosaur were not uncommon. Thinly-disguised likenesses of Barney became targets of crude, sometimes physically violent attacks on stage and screen. But Barney's commercial success did not flag. Indeed, the critical backlash may have contributed to the high profile Barney maintained in American cultural (and fiscal) consciousness throughout the 1990s. Forbes magazine ranked Barney as the third richest Hollywood entertainer for the years 1993 and 1994, behind director Steven Spielberg and talk show host cum media phenom Oprah Winfrey. In 1998 Barney became a bonafide Hollywood fixture when he and his pals leapt onto the big screen in the feature-length Barney's Great Adventure.

—Tilney Marsh

Further Reading:

"Barney: Fill Their World with Love." http://barneyonline.com.February 1999.

Bianculli, David. Dictionary of Teleliteracy: Television's 500 Biggest Hits, Misses, and Events. New York, Continuum, 1996.

Dudko, Mary Ann, and Margie Larsen. Watch, Play, and Learn. Allen, Texas, Lyons Group, 1993.

Haff, Kevin. Coping with the Purple Menace: A Barney Apathy Therapy Kit (A Parody). Merced, California, Schone, 1993.

McNeil, Alex. Total Television: A Comprehensive Guide to Programming from 1948 to the Present. 4th ed. New York, Penguin, 1996.

Phillips, Phil. Dinosaurs: The Bible, Barney, and Beyond. Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Starburst, 1994.