Trivia / Barney & Friends

• Actor-Shared Background: Min is Filipina, like her actress. According to Pia Hamilton, the character was going to be Chinese, until the producers found out about her heritage.
• Amateur Cast / One-Book Author:
  • Only a handful of kids featuring on the show had prior acting experience and/or their own managers/agents, with casting calls being open to all kids in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. This was due to the producers' insistence that the kids be relatable to the audience.
  • Although the dinos were mostly played by trained performers, the only job Carey Stinson (Barney's suit performer for birthday parties, promo, tours and the last 7 seasons of the TV show) had prior to being Barney's suit actor was being a busboy (later a cook) at Chili's. Jenny Dempsey, who suit-acted Baby Bop and B.J. when they were still adult-sized, was recruited straight from the props department, while Jeff Ayers, who suit-acted Baby Bop for most of the show's run and occasionally suit-acted Riff as well, was previously a sports mascot performer and a teacher for mascots at cheerleading camps.
  • Dean Wendt, the latest voice of Barney, was a DJ for Radio Disney, which was at the time based in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
• Baby Name Trend Killer: In the United States, the name "Barney" had already fallen out of use by the time Barney & Friends came out, but the show's poor reception among those outside its target audience made it so hated that it could never make a comeback, and put people already named Barney in an awkward position. It doesn't help that B&F aired around the same time as the early seasons of The Simpsons, which also has a character named Barney, albeit one known for his Alcohol-Induced Idiocy.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Contrary to a once-long-standing claim, Barney has never stated that "strangers are friends you've never met."^note This rumor started from a post to a Usenet forum called Alt.Barney.Dinosaur.Die.Die.Die. It's likely the original poster saw the mentioned-outside-of-the-note scene from "Playing It Safe" where Derek states the complete opposite, completely misremembered what they saw, and posted it anyway. Instead, the very opposite was stated by Derek in the episode "Playing It Safe" (he said that they're not only people you don't know, but that "they could be bad people."), which led to a short Too Smart for Strangers moral using a play of Little Red Riding Hood and a song (in traditional Barney fashion) to reinforce the message.
• The Cast Showoff:
  • The earlier cast displayed a range of talents (Leah really could play the guitar, Amy does a backflip in "The Backyard Show", Kurt Dykhuizen displayed the ability to sign the ABCs in time to the song at seven years old, Melanie shows off her violin skills at the end of "Let's Make Music", etc). Min in particular did not miss an opportunity to dance, and aspired to dance professionally. Her actress actually did grow up to be a dance teacher, in addition to dancing professionally.
  • Every child in the franchise can sing and dance as a matter of course, but Julie's rendition of "Someone to Love You Forever" can make grown people break down and cry.
• Channel Hop: Originally broadcast on PBS Kids, the show began airing on Universal Kids in 2018 before being shunted to Peacock four years later.
  • In Australia, Barney was first broadcast on Channel 9. Then, for a few years in the mid-late 1990s, it was broadcast on Channel 10 with Seasons 1 to 4. In the early 2000s, the show returned to Channel 9 for Seasons 5 and 6, then later to Seasons 7 and 8 and beyond.
  • In the UK, Barney began on GMTV and TCC, before later moving to Tiny Living, Milkshake!, Cartoon Network Too and Cartoonito at various points.
  • Before HIT Entertainment bought Lyrick in February 2001, they managed international distribution rights to the series in years 1993-1996. In August 1996, Lyrick switched to Southern Star, who already successfully marketed outside US another show from Lyrick Wishbone. In October 2001, HIT reacquired the international rights from Southern Star. Few years after Mattel acquired HIT, they licensed distribution rights of Barney to 9 Story Media Group as part of partnership that would result in a reboot of the series (see Development Hell for more info about the reboot's status).
• Contest Winner Cameo: 5 kids who won the National Barney Talent Search performed the song "What I Want To Be" in the Backyard Gang video "Barney Goes To School".
• Corpsing: Sometimes Adrienne Kangas can't control her smile; apparently she's gushing over being a Barney kid.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer:
  • Many people claim that "I Love You" is the theme song to this show. It's not the opening theme, but rather the song that plays close to the end of each episode.
  • Many media publications have said that Bob West was in the Barney suit. Bob West provided the voice while other performers, such as David Voss, David Joyner and Josh Martin portrayed Barney in the suit.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Barney's caused a lot of resentment amongst the creators and their families. Sheryl Leach was a workaholic when it came to Barney, causing some resentment from her family. Other people who worked on the show reported receiving hatemail and literal death threats from the Periphery Hatedom.
  • David Joyner, the longtime suit actor for Barney, and Jessica Zucha, who played Tina, were not happy with the look of Barney's World.
• The Danza:
  • Layla is played by Layla Rostami in season 12.
  • Jeffrey in the Backyard Gang video "Barney's Campfire Sing Along" was played by Jeffrey Lowe.
• Dawson Casting:
  • Some of the kids are well into their preteen years by the time they leave the show. Chip was a notable case. Luci looked a lot older than the other kids - she didn't leave the franchise until she was fifteen.
  • Of course, Luci was Tina's older sister, so it was semi-justified.
  • By the seventh season, the producers did not select or let go of kids necessarily due to age, but height. ^note This might have been to avoid repeat instances of this trope earlier in the series, including with the aformentioned Luci and Chip. According to Hayden Tweedie, as soon as the child performers grew as tall as Baby Bop or BJ, they had to be let go to make way for new, shorter and often younger performers who were more relatable to the target audience. However, kids who had "grown out" of the TV show could still go on regional, national and international tours.
• Development Hell: A reboot of the show was announced in October 2015 for a 2017 launch. That year has come and gone and nothing else regarding the project had been announced for a few years. A 2021 video presentation from Mattel stated that the reboot was still in development at that time, and on 13th February 2023, the first look of the Barney reboot was revealed and was going to be animated in CGI. It also changed production companies from 9 Story Media Group to Nelvana.
• Disabled Character, Disabled Actor: Some of the child actors have disabilities, so the producers have to work them into the characters.
  • The most famous example was Jason, played by Kurt Dykhuizen. Kurt, like his character, was deaf and happened to use a hearing aid.
  • Claire Burdette was born with part of her arm missing, much like her character Colleen.
• Dress Code: When the kids/dinosaurs do arts and crafts until the 8th season, they wear white smocks. Beginning with the 10th season or the 4th generation, they now wear blue aprons (which were actually introduced in season 7 but were not fully used a few seasons later).
• Dueling Works:
  • Wee Sing and Kidsongs predated Barney by three years ^note The former inspired Sheryl Leach to create the Barney series, but all three were programs using traditional children's songs to entertain and educate young children. Also, like Barney, Kidsongs would get a TV adaptation which added a pair of costumed characters that weren't seen in the videos (for Barney, it was BJ, and for Kidsongs, the Biggles were the characters added). Both also aired on public TV. ^note Kidsongs wasn't neccesarily a PBS program, per se, but rather syndicated by American Public Television, meaning public TV stations not affiliated with PBS could also run the show. When Universal ^note who ironically owns Universal Studios Florida, the home of A Day in the Park with Barney got distribution rights to the Wee Sing videos in the mid-90's, they created two characters named Singaling and Warbly to rival Barney with little success.
  • With Sesame Street. In the first few years of its run, Barney & Friends beat Sesame Street in ratings. Sesame responded by making several changes to their program: the street was brightened and cleaned up for Season 25 (ironically reflecting the real-life gentrification of major American cities) and a new "Around the Corner" setting was added. In addition, a ton of new human and Muppet characters (Zoe in particular) were added to counter Barney's success. Despite this, both shows' production crews were mostly friendly with each other, as evidenced by the "We Are Family" crossover music video Barney appeared in with Big Bird.
  • There was also the duel with shows like Blue's Clues and Bear in the Big Blue House in the late 90's, which resulted in more Fake Interactivity segments being added to the show. By the 2000s, they also had to compete with shows like Dora the Explorer and the Australian Hi-5.
• Edited for Syndication: Outside of the US and Canada, most Barney episodes pre-2002 were cut down to make room for commercials, with segments and songs getting the axe. This issue was resolved as of Season 7 where the "Barney Says" segments were cut, leaving the episodes themselves intact. The segment became a Deleted Scene of sorts as the years went on, being retained only in the PBS broadcasts of Season 12.
  • Universal Kids cut down the episodes even further for similar reasons. Because they mainly show episodes from Seasons 10-12^note which were more conflict-driven than previous seasons, plot points are noticeably cut. On the other hand, with the 11-minute format of Seasons 10 and 11, the commercials fit smack-dab in the middle of the two episodes.
• Executive Meddling: In the UK, HiT reedited and reshot every Season 9 episode because Channel 5 had grievances with the show's format, specifically the kid cast and the half-hour runtime. This explains why these episodes are 13 minutes shorter and only feature Barney, Baby Bop, and BJ at the park. For Season 10, HiT compromised with 11-minute episodes that could be shown separately in the UK and in a two-segment format for PBS, while also putting less emphasis on the kids without removing them entirely.
• Fatal Method Acting: Josh Martin (one of Barney's suit actors) had a near miss during the filming of "Good, Clean Fun!". During a rehearsal for "The Popcorn Song", the wire of one of the batteries in the head of the suit (the one that controls the fan) grounded out on a bolt and rubbed the insulation off, causing smoke to come out of the mouth and the rest of the suit. He survived the incident and kept the exploded battery as a trophy when he left the show.
• Follow the Leader: The success of Barney & Friends led to a flood of preschool shows hitting networks, including some imitators (most notably (and successfully) Bear in the Big Blue House, whose titular character was referred to by his performer Noel MacNeal as "the anti-Barney"). Barney itself took some inspiration from the Wee Sing videos early on.
• Friendship on the Set: Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato befriended each other while acting in Season 7. They were best friends for many years afterwards, leading to other collaborative projects when they became Disney Channel stars. However, they eventually grew apart.
• He Also Did:
  • Original Barney voice actor Bob West voiced Pasqually P. Pieplate and Jasper T. Jowls of Chuck E. Cheese's from 1987-1998, was a puppeteer on some of the VIA San Antonio "Buppets" commercials, and has also done graphic design for shows including The Muppets (2015), Speechless and TheMuppetsMayhem. In fact, he primarily focuses on graphic design for film and television career-wise as of 2023, although he's known to still do the odd VO gig.
    • The Chuck E. Cheese connections don't end there. Barney's second voice, Duncan Brannan, voiced Chuck E. Cheese himself from 1993 to 2012, as well as Mr. Munch from 1993 to 1999. And Booker T. Bookworm was voiced by Earl Fisher, who succeeded West in the role of Pasqually in 1998 and, as of 2022, still voices him.
  • Former series head-writer Stephen White has also penned the not-so-kid-friendly novel CLUMP, and penned showtapes and original songs for Chuck E. Cheese's.
  • Kacie Lynch, who played Taylor, also sung the theme song for the U.S. dub of Angelina Ballerina: The Next Steps, and then went on to appear in the incredibly short-lived ABC series Work It.
  • Carey Stinson is also a pianist and a photographer for journalist publications as well as the podcast host of Purple Roads Podcast where he interviews creators involved in children's entertainment.
  • Tim Dever, who voiced Barney from 1999 to 2002, is the father of actress Kaitlyn Dever.
  • David Joyner is now a therapist... specializing in tantra massage. He also suit-acts the titular character of Hip Hop Harry, a similar show to Barney, and has appeared out-of-costume in several TV shows and movies.
• Hitless Hit Album: The album Barney's Favorites, Volume 1 went triple platinum in 1998 despite producing no hit singles.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • Most of the Barney episodes and videos produced prior to 2001 have yet to receive a DVD release in North America, with a few exceptions such as "Imagination Island." Sprout reran some episodes from the show's first three seasons from 2007 up until 2010, but most episodes haven't been aired since 2000 or so. Time Life released a majority of the show's first season on VHS (with four more videos released by Lyons), but the tapes are becoming more rare.
    • A possible reason why the older seasons never got re-released for over a decade is because some episodes contain material that are deemed too immoral, scary or tense for today's target audience. Examples include Kathy and Min physically fighting over the Barney doll in Caring Means Sharing!, and Tina noticing a big bug in Derek's sack before a sack race in A Splash Party, Please!. One of the songs, "The Other Day I Met a Bear", even originally contained references to a weapon.
  • The very first incarnation of the series, Barney & the Backyard Gang, has not only never had a DVD release, but most of the episodes have not seen a re-release since the mid-90's, with the only two episodes to see re-releases after that period being "Barney In Concert", "Barney Goes to School" and "Waiting For Santa" in VHS form. The first three videos ^note "The Backyard Show," "Three Wishes" and "A Day at the Beach" were even discontinued in 1993, due to their Early-Installment Weirdness. However, all the BYG videos can easily be found on YouTube as of 2022. The original release of one of them, "Three Wishes", also reveals that despite being the second video, the "The End" card shows that it's actually the third and final video of the initial three-part series.
  • While the official Barney channel did upload a couple video specials on YouTube in 2022, they are all unfortunately of VHS quality, since they never got released on DVD.
  • The altered Season 9 episodes have not been seen outside the UK, and only a quarter of them have seen DVD releases in that country as well.
  • The "Respect" segment, exclusively made for the Kids for Character tape, is this as it has never been released to DVD.
  • In the US, the show is available on several streaming services, some showing more seasons than others. However, none of them include anything before Season 7.
• Late Export for You: The show didn't air in Poland until December 2007 when JimJam (a channel that was until 2010 co-owned by HIT Entertainment, the show's owners) launched there. Even then, only Seasons 7 and 8 (i.e. the first two HIT-produced seasons) have been aired with no later or earlier seasons in sight. This applies to most of JimJam's other European channels.
• Making Use of the Twin: In their first appearance, Ashley and Alissa are introduced one at a time and are mistaken for each other, before they show up together and explain themselves. They also team up for a Mirror Routine in a talent show. In real life, Monét Chandler who normally plays Alissa sometimes take over as Ashley whenever her sister Maurié is unavailable.
• Memorial Character: BJ was named in honor of Sheryl Leach's father Billy J. Stamps, who passed away in June 1992.
• Milestone Celebration:
  • Both the 10th and 20th anniversaries of the Barney franchise led to the video specials "Sing and Dance with Barney" and "The Best of Barney," respectively. The former even brought back a few Barney alumni to join the (then) child cast for a "sing along."
  • The one hundredth episode of Barney and Friends is more lighthearted than usual, and Old King Cole comes over to party.
• Network to the Rescue: PBS officially lost the rights to the series in 2016, resulting in it being pulled from the airwaves and confined to DVD releases and Hulu. However, Universal Kids (which PBS used to own back when it was called PBS Kids Sprout) began airing the show in December of 2018. Then the show was later pulled off the network in July of 2019 in spite of its success, though it came back a couple of months later.
• Never Work with Children or Animals:
  • Outtakes for "Sing and Dance with Barney" revealed that the production had a problem with animal actors. One outtake for "Down on Grandpa's Farm" had the pig running away (with David Joyner, Barney's suit actor, breaking character and trying to catch it to no avail), while an outtake for "B-I-N-G-O" had the animal actor playing the titular dog refusing to cooperate.
  • The photography for the book Barney & BJ Go to the Zoo ran into this trope. The book was set to feature rhinoceroses, however the rhinoceroses at the zoo the photo shoot was done at turned out to be terrified of the dinosaur costumes, so as a result the rhinoceroses were photoshopped in for the page featuring them.
• No Budget: The first few Barney and the Backyard Gang videos were shot on a budget and funded out of Richard Leach's own pocket.
• Non-Singing Voice: In the early 2000s, Barney’s voice was handled by two actors - Duncan Brannan and Tim Dever. Brannan would sing and Dever would do the dialogue. Dever did both the singing and the dialogue in the 2001 special, Barney’s Christmas Star.
• The Original Darrin: Bob West, who voiced Barney from 1988 to 2000, came back to do the voice of Barney during promotional activities for the 2005 launch of PBS Kids Sprout as his then-current voice actor, Dean Wendt, was unavailable.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Avoided when new kids are cast to replace other kids who left the set, but with different names.
  • Played straight with Barney, who was initially voiced by Bob West, then Duncan Brannan and Tim Dever (Dever doing the dialogue, while Brannan did the singing). Dean Wendt performed his voice up until 2013, a few years after the series ended.
  • Wendt's portrayal of Barney is quite different from previous voice actors. For people who watched the show as a kid (pre-2002), the voice change usually shocks them.
  • Barney's suit actor also went through some changes - from 1988-1990, he was played by David Voss, who left to join the military (and then rejoined the Barney production a few years later in various roles). From 1991-2001, David Joyner was Barney's primary suit actor, with Carey Stinson doing birthday parties, promo activities and tours. Josh Martin played Barney for one season of the TV show as David Joyner was filming Barney's Great Adventure ^note Josh had previously portrayed Barney in Barney's Big Surprise alongside Carey and would later do some promotional appearances as the character (his last was the "Big Purple Bus Tour" from 2007-2008). From 2001-2019, Barney was taken over completely by Carey Stinson. Baby Bop and BJ also went through similar changes, particularly as the size of the costumes grew smaller throughout the TV show's run.
  • Also played straight with one kid, Sarah, who was originally played by Hayden Tweedie on the TV show and the first leg of the stage show tour Barney's Colorful World before being replaced by Tory Green for the majority of said stage show's run.
  • The audio cassettes for the first three Backyard Gang videos revealed that the cast members for the voices of Barney, Sandy Duncan, and the kids had been replaced with different ones, including Mary Keepers who voiced both Barney and the kids' mother.
  • This almost happened to Baby Bop in Imagination Island. Julie Johnson was unable to attend taping due to commitments with a stage show at the time, so Carol Farabee filled in for her. The producers were so impressed with Farabee's performance, they considered keeping it for the final product but NBC was concerned about continuity issues between the special and the PBS series. In the end, they worked things out with Johnson and she redubbed Baby Bop's lines before the special aired (although Farabee still received credit).
  • For both "It's Time For Counting" and "Walk Around The Block With Barney", Ashley was played by Monét Chandler as her twin sister Maurié. There was hardly a noticed as the twins look alike in the show.
• The Other Marty: David Joyner, Barney's primary suit actor from 1991-2001, originally lost the audition to another actor. However, when she found the suit too claustrophobic and began having panic attacks, David Joyner was given the role.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends:
  • Longstanding rumors claim that a Barney suit actor was arrested for some drug-related offense, usually hiding cocaine in his costume's tail. There's no evidence that anything like this happened, and it most likely originated from misunderstood/misremembered news reports of drug dealers using Barney plushies as caches.
  • Similarly, it's been claimed that Barney once cussed out a child on live TV for whatever reason. Not only has no clip of this alleged event ever surfaced, there's no way this could happen for three reasons: first, Barney isn't broadcast live, so even if an actor playing him started swearing, it would never make it into the airings; second, Barney's voice is provided by a different actor than the person who wears the suit; third, the Barney suit is non-miked (according to a interview with Bob West, it almost was during early stages of development for the Backyard Gang videos, but then West turned out to be too tall for the original costume, so David Voss was brought in to suit act Barney while West provided the voice), so nothing the suit actor says during shooting is captured.
  • Other dark rumors include a Barney suit actor being a pedophile, or murdering a child, or committing suicide while wearing the costume.
  • Another popular rumor in a similar vein is that during the 1930s, there was a serial killer of children named Barney who dressed up as a purple dinosaur that would kidnap kids in a local park and force them to be happy, otherwise they'd be murdered and their bodies would be dropped in a nearby river. Even ignoring how nonsensical this story is (there are almost no documented cases of a kidnapper playing snatch-and-grab with kids in a park, and even if one kidnapper were to do so, doing so while dressed in such a conspicuous costume would be an act of monumental stupidity), there is no evidence this has ever happened.
  • There are also rumors that there was a banned episode where Barney told kids “a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet”, which was pulled after allegedly causing a rise in kidnappings. There is no evidence that this episode exists, nor that any Barney episode caused a rise in kidnappings.^note This rumor didn't even start with Barney; an issue of Swamp Thing in The '80s attributed it to a Mr. Rogers parody.
  • An urban legend originating from wiki vandalism is that Daisuke Ono, known for playing Jotaro in Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Stardust Crusaders, is the Japanese voice of Barney, resulting in many memes. However, the Japanese voice of Barney is actually Takuma Suzuki.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Many of the later child cast members watched Barney videos and/or the TV series in their youth.
  • Pia Hamilton, in particular, was a fan of the Barney & The Backyard Gang videos before she got the role of Min.
• Prop Recycling:
  • The duck umbrellas used in the "Six Little Ducks" number in "The Backyard Show" would re-appear in the video "Rock with Barney" along with the TV series episode "Down on Barney's Farm," and be used in conjunction with the song each time.
  • Outfits from previous episodes are occasionally reused. For instance, in "Are We There Yet?," one of the items at Carlos' Cleaners is Luci's cheerleading uniform from "Carnival of Numbers." Barney, Baby Bop, and BJ all wore outfits they already had to "Barney's Halloween Party."
• Real-Life Relative: Like their characters, Monet and Maurie Chandler are twin sisters in real life.
• The Red Stapler: The Barney plush toys weren't planned from the get-go, and were intended only as a true form for Barney outside of the kids' imaginations. The toys began to be produced after Lyons began receiving letters about kids cuddling video boxes.
• Role Reprise:
  • Pia reprised her role as Min not only in "Sing and Dance with Barney" along with Michael, Kathy, Tosha, and Jason, but also in the second half of "Read with Me, Dance with Me."
  • Hayden Tweedie reprised her role as Sarah in the original cast of Barney's Colorful World.
• Screwed by the Network:
  • The show was moved to a weekend morning time slot on a lot of PBS stations after it ended, airing between 5:00 and 9:30 AM.
  • From fall 2007 until it was replaced by reruns of Curious George, New York City-based PBS affiliate WNET (the show's new originating station) aired the show at 6:30AM, even as new episodes premiered. In comparison, sister station WLIW treated these seasons better, airing them alongside The Big Comfy Couch during the 12PM hour.
  • After running for 7 months on Universal Kids, the show was removed from the lineup on July 27, 2019, following suit with fellow HIT Entertainment series Bob the Builder, which was removed on July 7. Fortunately, the network reinstated the show on September 9.
• The Shelf of Movie Languishment: Several Barney videos got subjected to this:
  • You Can Be Anything, Barney's Beach Party, and Round and Round We Go were all filmed after the sixth season's production (1999/2000) but they weren't released until 2002, right before season seven launched.^note In fact, Round and Round We Go has a 2000 copyright date. Even stranger, clips from these videos were used in Barney's Dino-Dancin' Tunes, which was released in 2000!
  • Top 20 Countdown and Best Fairy Tales were shot around 2005 (after the ninth season's production), but they didn't come out until 2009 and 2010 respectively. The latter even has a 2005 copyright date, making this obvious.
  • A Super-Dee-Duper Day was shot in 2010, but it was not released until 2014. This resulted in the last Barney video to contain new footage.
• Short Run in Peru: The last ten episodes of Season 8 aired in Germany in December 2003, predating their US broadcast by six months.
• Sleeper Hit: The original three Barney & The Backyard Gang videos are considered this. The videos didn't take off until Sheryl Leach and her team marketed Barney at a grassroots level, giving videos to Dallas preschools for free along with lists of where the Barney videos were sold.
• So My Kids Can Watch:
  • Sheryl Leach created Barney and the Backyard Gang after failing to find children's videos that held her son's attention.
  • Todd Haberkorn played Mr. Knickerbocker in the home video "Let's Make Music!" for his son, who was born the year prior to filming.
• Star-Making Role:
  • Both Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato got their acting careers started when they were part of the show in 2002.
  • Both Brice Armstrong and Michaela Dietz got their voice acting career started when they played Miss Etta and Riff.
• Spiritual Successor: Several production crew members for the show would go on to create BOZ the Bear, a similar Religious Edutainment series.
• Technology Marches On: The hearing aid that Jason wears in "Sing and Dance with Barney" is much more discreet than its predecessor.
• Throw It In!: Barney's voice actors occasionally ad lib various lines. Usually it's hard to hear, but when you hear them, hilarity ensues.
  • In "Barney's Great Adventure" during the climax scene while they are on an airplane, Barney goes from screaming in fear to complementing the balloons in a matter of seconds. Bob West completely improvised that bit.
  Barney: "WHOA, WHOA, AHHH- oh, nice balloons, SCUSE ME, SORRY, LOOK OUT, SORRY, AHHHHHH-hi, how ya doin?"
• Unfinished Dub: Almost all the dubs count. As noted under Late Export for You, almost all the JimJam Barney dubs only cover Seasons 7 and 8. ^note Italy, Russia, and Israel are the exceptions, as all three instead aired episodes from Seasons 4-6. While Russia had not broadcast Barney prior to JimJam's inception, the other two countries did: There was a Barney co-production in Israel, while the Italian dub premiered in 1997 and initially covered Seasons 1-3.
  • Averted with the Latin American dub. It's the only one to have dubbed all fourteen seasons of Barney & Friends.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The character was originally conceived as a blanket, but was quickly changed to a teddy bear after Sheryl Leach realized a blanket would be way too difficult to bring to life. The design was changed once again after Leach's son became fascinated with dinosaurs at a local museum exhibit.
  • Although the series was a runaway hit in the first season, PBS initially opted not to provide funding beyond the initial 30-episode run. When CPTV executives learned this, they wrote letters to their fellow PBS member stations urging them to get PBS to reconsider. The Lyons Group, meanwhile, sent out notices through the Barney Fan Club, telling parents to write letters and make phone calls to their local PBS stations to show their support for Barney & Friends. By the time of the yearly member stations' meeting, station executives across the country were up in arms over the prospect of one of their most popular shows in years being cancelled. Faced with an atmosphere that CPTV executive Larry Rifkin later described as "like an insurrection," PBS ultimately relented.
  • Barney was originally going to have much more pronounced reptilian features, such as scales, claws, pointed teeth, and even lacrimal ridges. Through the various drafts, the creative team told costume designer Irene Corey that the costume would be too frightening for kids, until it came to what would become Barney's eventual design. Proof: [1]
  • During the Backyard Gang era, a video titled "Barney in Mother Goose Land" was announced with Sandy Walper set to play Mother Goose. The video didn't push through due to the producer's financial constraints, although Walper did get to portray the character twice on Barney & Friends. The idea of a "Mother Goose land" was eventually realized in Barney's Rhyme Time Rhythm.
  • Initially, in the first season, Barney and Baby Bop were going to be joined by three other costumed characters: a calypso-singing chicken, a country cow, and a frog resembling 50's rocker "The Big Bopper" (naturally named "The Big Hopper") All three characters were eventually turned into puppets and finally scrapped just before the series began shooting. The puppets can be seen in Professor Tinkerputt's house in Imagination Island. Three other puppet characters, Booker T. Bookworm, Scooter McNutty, and Miss Etta Kette, would be used a few seasons later.
  • When Sheryl Leach started looking to adapt the franchise for the big screen in May 1993, one of the studios rumored for consideration was Disney. According to a Billboard article published around that time, Leach returned a call to Disney head Michael Eisner, whose response was "What do you want?".
  • John David Bennett II was initially going to reprise his role as Shawn for "Sing and Dance with Barney," but he had contractual obligations elsewhere.
  • For the role of Michael and Amy's mom in the Backyard Gang videos, Phylicia Rashad and Marlo Thomas were considered for the role. It ultimately went to Sandy Duncan, due to her wholesome image, and she was the only one actually approached by the creative team.
  • The show was originally going to relocate to Barney's house starting with Season 7, with the new format getting a test drive in the video Come on Over to Barney's House. When HiT Entertainment bought Lyrick Studios in 2001, they scrapped the initial plans and the show relocated to a park instead. This was changed because according to the show's resident production designer Bob Lavallee, they wanted a set that had to be a hybrid of a private and a public location. Besides, viewers still wanted to see Barney as a doll at the start and end of such episodes.
  • A CGI spin-off starring BJ entitled "BJ and the Radical Rumblebutts" was planned to air in 2000, but was cancelled when Lyrick's financial troubles caught up to them.
  • Lyrick Studios and Hasbro partnered up to produce a second tenth anniversary special ^note counting Sing and Dance with Barney entitled Barney's Hollywood Surprise, which was supposed to air in 1999. Again, Lyrick's financial situation forced them to abandon the special.
  • What made the Barney reboot went into development hell mentioned above is that it was going to be about an aged down version of the purple guy himself. It got scrapped quickly after being disapproved by the test audience.
  • This video shows the original script for "A Day At The Beach", which had a few changes from the final video:
    • Amy and Michael were called Annie and Billy, and the other kids who come to visit weren't named.
    • Instead of Barney taking the kids to the beach, a sea serpent character was supposed to play Barney's role.
• Word of Saint Paul: According to Bob West, Barney sometimes struggles with anxiety and depression - just like Bob himself does.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: The first season fell into this category, according to writer Steve White in an episode of the Purple Tales Podcast. Steve and the first season's only other writer Mark Bernthal had only six days to write each episode.

---