Pity the purple dinosaur. He came to spread a message of love, and got the stuffing knocked out of him. I Love You, You Hate Me, the two-part documentary series premiering on Peacock on Wednesday, explores the way Barney became a runaway hit with tots, and how the tubby T-Rex ignited one of the most devastating backlashes in pop culture history.
Director Tommy Avallone admits that as a kid, he too partook in Barney bashing. “As a teenager, for one of my birthdays I asked my aunt to make me a Barney costume, so my friends and I could beat him up on camera,” he says. “Several years later, creating this docu-series, it feels good to be on the other side and no longer a Barney hater.” Episode 1 excavates the dinosaur’s origins in the late 1980s.
He was the brainchild of Sheryl Leach, a Texas schoolteacher and new mom who found little in the way of engaging videos to keep her preschooler Patrick entertained.
She designed Barney to be upbeat and cuddly, with a plush, huggable body, a perma-smile and a strip of white teeth like a parson’s collar instead of the jagged incisors of an actual T-Rex.
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