I Love You director suggests Barney the Dinosaur was seed for modern American ills

The director of the new Barney the Dinosaur documentary believes American division begins with a kid’s show

By Matt Schimkowitz | October 13, 2022 | 7:01pm

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I Love You director suggests Barney the Dinosaur was seed for modern American ills

Barney, The “Piece Of Shit” Dinosaur, laughing it up atop our broken empire Photo: Vince Bucci

In the early ‘90s, people really hated Barney the Dinosaur. Much as people today still mock children’s entertainment for being overly focused on empathy, emotion, and speaking with inflections that children respond to, teens and adults in the ‘90s thought Barney totally sucked. He was not just deserving of extinction but public execution. Some say that the fire Barney started burns to this day.

The new documentary I Love You, You Hate Me explores the backlash against Barney, a kids’ show that preached love and kindness to children but also broke America. Now that we think about it, it’s obvious that Barney & Friends is responsible for the overwhelming amount of hate and division in the country. Per Variety, the film’s director Tommy Avallone agrees, blaming our modern-day epidemic of hate and division on the thirst for purple dino blood.

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“These college kids were beating up Barney,” says Avallone. “Ripping him apart, hitting him with a mallet, and at the end, the newscaster says, ‘That’s the future of our country, right there.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ We are in that future right now.’ There is a higher level of hate going on right now. Then I wondered if I could tell a story about love and hate but told through the story of Barney the Dinosaur.”

It’s easy to imagine a world where Barney never existed: People walking hand-in-hand across an idyllic valley undisturbed by climate change (because we solved it); dogs and cats breaking bread over Super Size fries at a local McDonald’s; Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock cracking open an ice-cold Steveweiser in the center of the squared circle. There likely would’ve been no January 6 because there would’ve been no Donald Trump. And because there’s no Donald Trump, America could’ve been on the path to universal healthcare, free pre-k, and even a fully functional public transportation system that’s free, reliable, and accessible.

But that didn’t happen. So instead, we’ve got Barney the dinosaur, a magnet of hate that doomed us all to a life in hell, eking out a miserable living from which we’ll never retire. Thanks, Barney. And, also, fuck you.

Or, like the Barney the Dinosaur creator Cheryl Leach, who didn’t participate in the doc, we could ignore the creepy adults who spend all their time making fun of children’s entertainment.

“The thing about Cheryl is that when the Barney bashing was happening, she never addressed the negativity,” says Avallone. “For better or worse, that was her take and that never changed. I think if I made a documentary solely about how great Barney was, she would be in it. But because we addressed some of the haters like the Jihad to Destroy Barney and the I Hate Barney Secret Society, I think that was something she didn’t feel comfortable with.”

I Love You, You Hate Me is streaming on Peacock.