Month: October 2022

I Love You, You Hate Me director unpacks dark side of bashing Barney the Dinosaur News Briefing

I Love You, You Hate Me director unpacks dark side of bashing Barney the Dinosaur

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Even if you weren’t a regular viewer of Barney the Dinosaur, there is very little chance that you don’t know that very, very catchy song that goes with it.

Barney and Friends was created by Sheryl Leach and first aired in 1992 on PBS, before it ended in 2010.

Children around the world were enraptured by the friendly dinosaur, and couldn’t help but sing ‘I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family’ at the top of their lungs, but older kids and adults didn’t match their affection, instead turning to anger.

A gripping new documentary from Peacock has unpacked the phenomenon that was the huge purple character, as well as the wild hate he attracted on the internet.

Speaking to Metro.co.uk, director Tommy Avallone shed light on what led him to explore the ‘Barney bashing’ that stemmed from the series.

‘I saw this old newscast, a 1993 newscast of a Barney bashing event from the University of Nebraska, where all these college kids were just beating up Barney, ripping him up, hitting him with a hammer, throwing darts at pictures,’ he told us.

Barney first aired in 1992 and was an instant hit with young fans (Picture: PBS / Getty)

‘At the end of this news broadcast, the news anchor was like, “That’s the future of our country right there”.

‘We’re living in that future now and there is a lot of hate going on. I wondered if you could tell a story about love and hate but told through the eyes of Barney the Dinosaur.’

Tommy has a slight personal connection to the world of Barney bashing – though definitely not nearly as strong as some in the documentary – as he previously dressed up as the dinosaur for a skit as a child.

‘I was 10 years old when Barney came out, so I was definitely not the age for Barney,’ he recalled. ‘As I got a little bit older, me and my friends would make skits, we tried to act like we were funny.

The TV show led to widespread Barney bashing around the country (Picture: Peacock)

Some people really despised the character (Picture: Peacock)

‘One of which is my friend dressed like Mr Rogers. I had my aunt make me a Barney costume and Mr Rogers would beat up Barney. I knew in some ways what it felt like to beat up Barney. There’s a couple of clips of it in the show. That is as far as my bashing went.

‘It was quite interesting to know that about myself, getting into this project and going, “Why would I have done that? Why do people do that?”’

When asked why he thought Barney was met with such hostility, the filmmaker suggested: ‘Hating anything says more about yourself than anything.

‘It wasn’t one particular reason people disliked Barney, it was several different things. There’s the general irritation, the voice, the songs repeated over and over, I understand that. His song was actually used for torture at some point.

I Love You, You Hate Me is available to stream on Peacock now (Picture: Getty)

‘It’s very 90s culture, so it was like when something’s so big, it has to get knocked down. But also, when we interviewed the I Hate Barney Secret Society [creator, Rob Curran], and he’s talking about the Barney dysfunctional family and these Barney addicts, you understand where his hate comes from.’

Reflecting on the personal issues that Rob was going through with his family at the time, Tommy explained that it was actually due to jealousy, because his daughter ‘paid more attention’ to the character than to him.

With I Love You, You Hate Me, he wanted to delve into why exactly Barney sparked such fury in some members of the public, and the division that this ‘hysteria’ led to.

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‘We’re talking about something really big, about hate and where hate comes from, but we’re doing it in a way where we’re talking about Barney the Dinosaur,’ he added.

‘When you look at it in the simplest form as Barney hate, you can see how the behavior itself is quite unnecessary. Maybe some people will go, “Oh, yeah, why do I do that?”

‘Even small ways can change some of their behavior, where it’s not cool to hate something, it’s cool to just talk about what you like.’

I Love You, You Hate Me is available to stream on Peacock now.

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