This is the impulse that created South Park and Beavis and Butt-Head, as well as Family Guy and BoJack Horseman. If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry, right?Įver since the beginning of children’s entertainment, there has been an opposing history that juxtaposed it – infesting colourful, child-friendly environments with disturbing, adult themes. Which is, simply, hilarious – a wry and surreal bit of poking fun that turns difficult subjects such as alcoholism and parenting into things that are lighter, more entertaining, and a lot easier to grapple with. Suddenly the desperate toddlers playing Barney on incessant repeat are transformed into tiny junkies. The anti-Barney pamphlets he created satirised the language and step programme of Alcoholics Anonymous. It turned out to be founded by a frustrated father who was himself in recovery for alcohol addiction. Take the Barney hate groups featured in the docuseries, and specifically a support group for parents with “Barney addicts” in the family. Yet, to me at least, what is most interesting about this niche pocket of time and internet culture is not really about hate per se, but about humour. Why Netflix’s Luckiest Girl Alive needs more than a trigger warning.TikTok’s ‘virginity testing’ obsession proves we’re still fixated on the myths of female sexuality.What I learnt about Arctic Monkeys by getting kicked in the head.A few of the other Barney & Friends alumni featured still seem concerned that he’s talking now, and perhaps for fair reason – at one stage of the documentary Joyner is pressed about how many of his clients get “the whole package” (ie a personal tantric sex session with their ex-Barney energy healer). For example, did you know the man who was the physical incarnation of Barney for a decade – the guy inside the suit – is a tantric energy healer and sex therapist? David Joyner, who played Barney from the show’s inception in 1992 to 2001, had to sign a contract promising he would not even talk about tantra while associated with the show. Along the way, it careers into wackiness, like a Looney Tunes star hurtling off a cliff and landing on a pile of rakes. Opening with a montage of fiery “Barney bashing” videos – put to the now familiar strains of “shock doc” intro music – the two-parter attempts to get to the bottom of why such a cuddly character inspired such ire. Why were so many people keen to watch Barney get destroyed? What had Barney done to deserve such hate?Ī new docuseries, impeccably titled I Love You, You Hate Me, gets under Barney’s foam suit to chart the TV show’s spectacular rise and equally spectacular backlash against its central character. All over America, and indeed in many of the 252 countries where Barney & Friends was shown on television, plush toys of the icon were filmed being burnt, blown up, run over, or shot. From the mid-Nineties onwards, the big, friendly dinosaur found himself at the centre of a hate campaign, increasingly subject to vicious public assaults. What I didn’t realise when I first saw the footage a couple of years ago was that, when it came to human on purple T rex violence, balloon-Barney’s untimely demise was far from an isolated incident. Swarming on Barney’s back like ants, the police did what they do best. As he flailed – his wound flapping horribly – the NYPD moved in with knives to bring the 58-foot dino down. A powerful gust shoved Barney into a lamppost, ripping him open. Then a different kind of disaster struck. In an instant the character became less “I love you, you love me” Barney, more a lurid Godzilla threatening to crush and suffocate hordes of young children. Until, that is, wild winds threw Barney towards the onlooking crowds. Rather, this was a vast inflatable version of the all-singing, all-dancing dinosaur beloved by hyperactive Nineties preschoolers, and the star of the show at that year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Alright, so that last one gives away that it wasn’t the original Barney that was slain. If you’re thinking this is the start of a dark and gritty fanfiction, I can assure you there is ample video evidence of the slaughter online – under headlines such as “Barney Died a Violent Death”, “Watch Barney Get Destroyed”, or “Watch Balloon Barney Die in the Cruel Thanksgiving Parade”. In November 1997, Barney the Dinosaur was stabbed to death by the New York City Police Department.
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